CANTLON’S CORNER: FUTURE OF THE XL CENTER STILL UNDECIDED

Nobody Knows What The Future Holds For The XL Center 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – Despite a change in Governor and a friendlier legislature, the future of the XL Center remains as nebulous as it was five years ago.

The new Governor, Ned Lamont, presented his first state budget and it contained zero dollars for the now 44-year-old building. Nobody would take that as a healthy sign.

“It wasn’t very good to see, but we weren’t alone in being in the budget. Our operational budget (for the CRDA) remains the same, but for the building, there is a lot more negotiating to be done,” CRDA Executive Director, Mike Freimuth, said.

By his own admission, Freimuth has been “dodging bullets” outside of the XL’s continuing crisis which is approaching its sixth year with the issues surrounding the Dillon Stadium project, issues at Rentschler Field, and the housing portfolio they handle for the city of Hartford.

The legislative session looms large and in the next two weeks, the CRDA has three reports coming due to seek both the Governor’s and legislature’s approval for the new redesigned lower bowl strategy.

“The most critical of the three is the cost analysis on the lower bowl strategy,” Freimuth said of the Plan B after the CRDA realized their initial plan for a $250 million re-boot was never going anywhere. “We think we have come in with a $125 million proposal that cuts down the construction costs, but allows us to modernize and use the full scope of the XL Center to make it a viable sports and entertainment venue in Hartford and the region in the 21st century as best as we can under the present budget constraints that affect every part of state government.”

There is a new feature being considered to help with costs. They are clearly hoping to avoid the only other financing option which would be going with Oak Street Realty’s proposal that answered the RFP to purchase the building but contains more caveats and exceptions that would make more of a financial burden that already exists.

The new idea being floated is the use of available discretionary funding that has yet to be allocated, that can be used in other parts of the 48 % of the state budget left with 52% spoken for in mandated spending.