WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - While West Hartford Center booms and Blue Back Square bustles with activity, one local business has opted into a different setting.
Mother-daughter duo Annette Farese and Annisa Teich bought West Hartford CoWorking in April. One of their first changes was to move the coworking space from West Hartford Center to the Hartford boundary.
Teich said that some people were skeptical about her moving the business to the Hartford line.
“We can only go so far in West Hartford Center - there’s only so much real estate and it just keeps ratcheting up,” Teich said. “There’s no wall … built right at this Hartford-West Hartford line.”
In September, West Hartford CoWorking took up residence on the first floor of a squat brick building on New Park Avenue, in an area known as the Home Design District. The space receives mail whether it’s addressed to “Hartford” or “West Hartford,” as the town line cuts right through the parking lot.
When small business owners sit in the coworking space, they’re in Hartford - when they walk out to their cars, they’re in West Hartford.
Over the past dozen years, New Park Avenue has shifted from an industrial area to a home improvement hot spot. Now, Teich says, it’s beginning to undergo another shift.
“There is this eye on this part of the town as the next big hub of West Hartford and Hartford,” Teich said.
West Hartford CoWorking offers a number of membership options - from sporadic use of the common space to dedicated private offices - for small businesses, freelancers and remote workers.
Jenny Drescher and Ellen Feldman Ornato are the founding partners of The Bolder Company, an innovative workforce development firm. They used to rent a small office space in the same Farmington Avenue suite that West Hartford CoWorking originally inhabited.
The women found that the location gave their business a reputation boost, which Drescher called “the cachet factor.”
But the location didn’t work for them logistically. Parking in the Center costs $1.50 per hour for street or lot parking, and a maximum of $7/day at the Blue Back Square garages.
“Parking in West Hartford Center is prohibitive for small businesses - period,” Feldman Ornato said.
The town of West Hartford does offer reduced-price parking for businesses, but Feldman Ornato said they didn’t feel comfortable with the $110-per-month option because their schedules are unpredictable.
So they often parked far from the office.
“The schlep factor was high,” Feldman Ornato said.
One day, the two women stopped by West Hartford CoWorking’s new digs. Drescher said they were struck by the friendly environment inside the building and the area’s “gritty” atmosphere.
Plus, the New Park Avenue location includes a parking lot with plenty of free spaces - taking the schlep factor out of the equation.
Mike Kozlowski, project executive at Newtown-based Claris Construction, said convenient parking was also important to him.
Kozlowski works out of West Hartford CoWorking as part of Claris’ efforts to expand into the Hartford area. The company doesn’t yet have a dedicated office in the area, and much of Kozlowski’s work is networking with local architects, real estate agents and civil engineers, he said.
Because of that, he uses the coworking space as a landing pad to fit in some extra work between meetings. And 15-minute windows didn’t leave enough time to search for a parking space.
“Every minute in the day adds up,” Kozlowski said. “Just being able to pop in a lot faster is great.”
Kristen Gorski, West Hartford’s economic development specialist, said that the business association Home Design District and the West Hartford Chamber of Commerce have been crucial in supporting businesses that straddle the town line or sit just over one side.
As a municipal employee, Gorski’s purview ends at the town boundary, which makes it hard “to reach over the line.”
“We are trying to do our best to work together and support all kinds of businesses,” Gorski said.
With the association’s and the chamber’s help, New Park Avenue has spent the last dozen years transforming from an industrial corridor.
Although some key manufacturing companies still call New Park Avenue home, Gorski said, the area has attracted retail, residential and home design tenants.
Gorski said the New Park Avenue area speaks to a different type of business than the ones that are drawn to West Hartford Center or Blue Back Square.
West Hartford Center remains desirable for many, Gorski said, and currently has only one or two ground-floor retail vacancies out of 160 spaces.
“It’s a very walkable area that’s well-established,” Gorski said. “It serves a different purpose than a New Park Avenue.”
While the Center caters to “boutique retail,” New Park Avenue revolves around home improvement and big box retail, Gorski said.
For Kozlowski, the construction project executive, New Park Avenue’s grittiness felt more appropriate for his career.
“We feel like that area is starting to come up,” Kozlowski said. “We’re looking for opportunities and that’s my job.”
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Information from: Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com
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