HARTFORD, CT, January 11, 2011 – Luis C. Caban, executive director of the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance (SINA) and a longtime community activist who has spearheaded efforts to revitalize Hartford’s South End, has announced his retirement, effective May 1.
A native of Puerto Rico who grew up in the Bronx, NY, Caban served as a senior executive with several national organizations as well as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before arriving in Hartford in 1995 as a consultant to SINA. At the time, the neighborhood development corporation was 17 years old, having been formed in 1978 by the community’s three institutional anchors: Trinity College, Hartford Hospital and the Institute of Living. The three were later joined by the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) and Connecticut Public Television, which has since moved its offices to another locale.
Caban, who will celebrate his 65th birthday in May, became acting executive director of SINA in July 2001 and was named executive director six months later. The job has turned out to be a perfect fit for Caban, who had spent the bulk of his career involved in political and civic engagement, working principally in Latino communities in 35 cities across the country.
But he found a home in Hartford. “Unlike my previous experiences in communities across urban America, in Hartford I found the major institutions wearing on their sleeves a real and serious commitment to neighborhood development,” said Caban. “So I stayed.”
A search has begun for Caban’s replacement. SINA’s board, consisting of three representatives from each of the three remaining partners – Trinity, Hartford Hospital and CCMC – expect to have a new executive director in place by May 1.
SINA covers a large and racially and ethnically diverse portion of the city, including the northern section of Barry Square, the southern section of Frog Hollow and the western section of the South Green neighborhood. As such, SINA, under Caban’s leadership, has played a major role in improving the area’s physical environment, its educational landscape and its quality of life.
“Luis has committed his professional and personal life to the neighborhood and has been a great representative of the College and SINA, not only here in the city but around the state and nationally,” said Jason Rojas, Trinity’s director of community relations. “Luis lives here in the neighborhood and has had his finger on the pulse of all the efforts that have gone into improving the quality of life for those who work, live and play in Frog Hollow. His leadership and knowledge will be missed at SINA and we all hope that he will continue to work on behalf of the neighborhood that Trinity calls home.”
As a consultant with SINA, Caban helped complete the organization’s strategic plan, whose centerpiece was the $112 million Learning Corridor, a 116-acre campus of four public magnet schools (including the Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy) and a theater, which was completed in 2000 and serves nearly 1,500 students from Hartford and more than 40 suburban school districts.
But SINA’s work did not end with the Learning Corridor, despite the national acclaim it attained. Housing, streetscape and infrastructure improvements, community safety, and economic and workforce development were all key aspects of SINA’s mission.
“I am extremely pleased with the progress this neighborhood has made over the period that I’ve been here,” said Caban. “What this place looked like in the early 1990s and what it looks like now is almost like night and day. We’ve accomplished a lot of things, large and small, that have contributed to the fabric of the community.”
Aided by its institutional partners and Broad Park Development Corp., SINA and Caban tackled neighborhood blight, helping to construct 50 single-family houses and rehabilitate 74 rental units in a dozen different buildings. SINA also partnered with the Spanish American Merchants Association to improve and revitalize the primarily Latino Park Street area.
In addition to nuts-and-bolts projects, Caban and his four-person staff addressed quality-of-life issues, such as helping to develop a local TV program that promoted healthy eating and an initiative that focused on AIDS and other public health problems. Caban also has run training programs that have better prepared people to seek public office and city residents to serve on the Board of Education. And SINA parlayed its tax-exempt status to help win financing for Trinity’s Koeppel Community Sports Center and other neighborhood assets.
Even today, with retirement in sight, Caban says SINA has several projects on its drawing board. They include the continued assault on neighborhood blight, the development of additional affordable housing and a medical outpatient facility, and improvements in the quality of life of South End residents.
But after 16 years on the front line of Hartford’s redevelopment and firm in the belief that he’s made “a huge contribution” to the city’s well-being, Caban says it’s time to spend time with his wife of 44 years, Maria, his two sons and two grandchildren.