Torrington:
Revitalization Gets A Main Focus

Essay by Suzanne Reeder

A Thursday noon, walking conditions are close to ideal in downtown Torrington, the largest city in Litchfield County. Slightly overcast, with a cool May breeze blowing in Coe Memorial Park Gardens, the temperature hovers in the low seventies.

At Hannah’s, a restaurant and bakery filled with the aroma of coconut and lemon, Diane Mahoney is helping a steady flow of customers buying pastries and cakes.

A middle-aged man in a black beret risks a parking ticket for his purchase. With his crisp bag of sweets in hand, he races out the door, past the traffic cop glaring at the empty meter by his Volvo. The man speeds off, leaving behind a busy bakery and restaurant, but an otherwise sparse pedestrian scene on both sides of Main Street.
In business for 19 years, Hannah’s enduring success isn’t the typical story making headlines in this Naugatuck River Valley community. Instead, Torrington has often been characterized this last decade by stymied revitalization efforts intended to reestablish the city as the economic and cultural heart of the county. But in spite of past delays that impeded funding, local organizers say money is finally becoming available, and a revised plan will now focus on the downtown core, particularly Main Street.

Mahoney, for one, is eager to see more activity outside the Hannah’s establishment she owns with Margaret Jacobs. “We’ve been fortunate,” Mahoney says. “But there’s not enough traffic downtown for us to be open for dinner.”

A former mill town that flourished as an industrial and commercial center for more than a century, Torrington’s need for revitalization can be attributed to several factors – the flood of 1955, which devastated Main Street, and, more recently, a decline in retail and manufacturing. But, progress is evident in this growing city of 35,000. A handful of new businesses have opened including Kil’n Time (where customers paint their own pottery), Bogey’s Restaurant and Pub at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, BraeVal, a luxury sporting apparel shop, and Brio Academy of Cosmetology. The Cambridge House, a Granby-based brew pub and restaurant, is projected to open on Main Street early this summer.

JoAnn Ryan, a Torrington resident who was born and raised in the city, knows the potential of downtown because she remembers what it used to be like. The president and CEO of Northwest Connecticut’s Chamber of Commerce jokingly insists she’s 39 but, now a grandmother, she acknowledges that her recollections go back to when the Warner Theatre showed movies.

She remembers a bustling city with a mix of local businesses and larger stores like J.C. Penney and Sears. That prosperity, however, wouldn’t last. “You could see changes occurring during the early 80s when things really started to be tough for people,” Ryan says. “You could see businesses closing. Small stores were competing against the bigger stores. It was just hard to do business.”
Moving forward, she sees Torrington as an area “ripe for arts and culture,” due to the existing presence of the Warner Theatre and Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts, both on Main Street. Ryan and other planners call these organizations “catalysts for change.”

The art deco-style Warner, originally built in 1931 as a movie palace by Warner Brothers Studios, includes a center for arts education and a beautifully restored 1,772-seat auditorium. It is a venue for community theater along with a variety of professional entertainment ranging from comedy acts to symphony orchestras. “For the past three years we’ve seen a 12 percent increase in growth in patrons,” says marketing director Steve Criss, who notes that more than 92,000 patrons now annually attend events at the theater. The Warner also has expanded. After renovating the historic Mertz building, the theater opened its 200-seat Carole & Ray Neag Performing Arts Center in early May.

“We can bring them in,” says Criss, of the theater’s position as a major draw for tourists and residents. “But the rest of the town has to come together to show what we have.” He explains that his role isn’t just to promote the Warner but the rest of the region, as well. Particularly downtown, people want to walk to restaurants and see other cultural attractions in the area, he says.

Next door to the Warner, the Nutmeg Conservatory has occupied its current space of about 50,000 square feet since 2001, though the organization’s roots in Torrington are almost four decades old. The conservatory houses a renowned ballet school for daytime and residential classical dancers who come from all over the world. The Nutmeg Ballet offers about 25 performances a year, including Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, which is staged at the Warner for three shows during the holiday season.

Nutcracker performances are either nearly or completely sold out with about 4,000 people coming annually, says Nutmeg founder and executive director Sharon Dante, a Torrington native who boasts that she was born at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in 1945. Leading a tour of the building, the former professional dancer moves around with almost as much speed and agility as the group of teenagers rehearsing in the sunbathed glass studio space. The students’ practice pays off; Dante says graduates are dancing in more than 50 classical and contemporary companies around the world.

Sustaining the conservatory’s success is Dante’s goal, but she wants the rest of the community to rise to the challenge of continued revitalization. “That’s harder in hard economic times,” she says. “That’s harder because bureaucracy gets involved. The way that both Nutmeg and Warner have succeeded is they’ve both had very interested, independent boards of directors who have gone out and raised the money and done it.”

With the Warner and Nutmeg serving as solid anchors, Torrington Mayor Ryan Bingham acknowledges more revitalization will take time but also views the current state of downtown as already successful. At the age of 25, Bingham — who was born in California but raised in Torrington — is serving his second term. While he doesn’t have memories of Torrington as the “grand downtown” his mother and grandfather remember, he sees it as vastly improved from five years ago.

He notes significant changes like the Warner expansion along with smaller-scale projects including the 100 hanging flower baskets for the beautification of Main and Water streets. (The flower project was funded primarily by a $5,000 grant from the State of Connecticut, but Bingham last year donated his previous raises to what he calls the “flower fund,” an effort planned for this summer, as well.) The city’s dining scene is another sign of positive change with the impending opening of The Cambridge House joining long-established restaurants like the Venetian and Dick’s, both located on East Main Street, the Yankee Pedlar on Main, and newer additions like the steakhouse Prime on East Main.

Smaller arts organizations such as Artwell Gallery on Water Street, contribute to the city’s list of attractions. The community arts organization, founded in 1995 by director Stewart Wilson, offers exhibitions and performances throughout the year.

As far as retail is concerned, the current vision for Main Street is to make it a destination for boutique shopping, says Victor Muschell, president of the Torrington Development Corp., a not-for-profit organization responsible for coordinating the revitalization of downtown. The TDC’s interim executive director Christina Emery, previously the city’s economic development director for five years, acknowledges the nearby retail development in Canton and recent arrival of Target on the city’s East End. What’s known in the industry as “big-box” stores were beneficial for Torrington, she says, but would not have been appropriate for the city’s downtown.

Emery and Muschell also say there were valid reasons for the shift in direction from a more ambitious plan conceived in 2001 that included improvements not only for Main Street but also the Water Street and the Center and Franklin Street districts. Since that time, there have been a number of changes and challenges including unanticipated delays stemming from disagreements over the location of the new Litchfield County Courthouse (which will be in Torrington), and about a year of frozen state funds following the fallout from the Gov. Rowland scandal. Add to that the declining state of the economy and the current retail scene in the greater Torrington regional market, and plans had to be altered, Emery says, resulting in a refocus on the downtown center.

“The other factor was the public,” Muschell says. “The people who are in the downtown area expressed a desire that we concentrate a lot of our efforts on Main Street.” The new direction, he emphasizes, does not mean that Water Street, in particular, is going to be eliminated or forgotten. “Things could happen as a result of what we’re going to do on Main Street,” he says. “If you make Main Street very attractive, that’s also going to make Water Street a desirable place to be, too.”

One improvement already on Water Street is the renovation of the Coe Brass building by the Susan B. Anthony Project, an organization that provides services for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. After considering other building options in different locations, executive director Barbara Spiegel said the 1880 granite building (which previously housed law offices) was a perfect fit for its current function as a counseling and advocacy center. The thick walls offer privacy during meetings with clients, she explains, and the proximity to Stop & Shop provides convenience and anonymity for those seeking services.

Estimates and specific initial projects on Main Street or the surrounding area have not been determined. When plans are more concrete, Emery says the intent is to work with multiple developers. General improvements already discussed by the TDC, however, include improving the pedestrian access to Main Street, enhancing the area by the Naugatuck River, and restoring or preserving existing architecture: an eclectic mix of Art Deco, Neoclassical and Italianate designs, among others.

So far, the main funding for the city is a grant of $504,875 received earlier this year from the State of Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development to be allocated toward planning and engineering work (such as traffic and streetscape improvements). In addition, the state has contributed about $330,000 for a second round of façade grants, says Bingham. With this program, businesses in Torrington can apply for rebates applied to the cost of approved exterior building façade and site improvements. While the grants can be used throughout the community, Bingham says most have gone to downtown businesses.

As plans go forward, Bingham says the biggest hurdle may be a negative attitude he has perceived among some residents during his time in office. He welcomes criticism, he says, but it needs to be constructive. “If people say, ‘All right. Nothing’s being done,’ my response would be, ‘Well, what should we do to make it better? And what’s feasible to do that?’”

Ryan agrees. Noting the challenges posed by financing an ongoing revitalization effort, she says, “I think [the biggest hurdle is] one of public perception, too, because you want the buy-in of a city. And let’s face it. Change is hard to envision for many. You want to preserve the historic nature of these beautiful buildings, but you need to make it economically feasible for business to stay in business. And you want the support of the community.”

Suzanne Reeder is a freelance writer based in Litchfield County