In January 1996, Trinity College announced a comprehensive $175-million neighborhood revitalization initiative for the community surrounding its campus in the heart of Hartford. The initiative, which links neighborhood institutions in an unprecedented collaboration, is designed to create a safe, viable, and vibrant neighborhood that is also a central hub of educational, health, family-support, and economic-development activities. Drawing on community resources and institutions already in place, the revitalization initiative creates an infrastructure for local families that encourages stable home ownership, supports neighborhood economic development, and provides educational resources for children, youth, and adults.

BUILDING COMMUNITY
Trinity College is renewing the neighborhood from within by building a community of learning spanning pre-kindergarten, high school, and adult education and by establishing a range of programs and services aimed at increasing home ownership and economic opportunity.

We have fostered an extraordinary partnership among major health and educational institutions; the public and private sectors; city, state, and federal government; and community and neighborhood groups that share a stake in the future of this area and are committed to its revitalization. Together, we created the Learning Corridor, a 16-acre site that represents the central hub of the initiative and the source of its vitality. Together, we continually work to revitalize the 15-square-block area bounded by New Britain Avenue, Washington Street, Ward Street, and Zion Street. And together, we are helping to restore hope and opportunity.

In July 1997, we took a large step toward the realization of our vision when Trinity and its partners in the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance (SINA)--Hartford Hospital, the Institute of Living, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, and Connecticut Public Television and Radio--broke ground for the Learning Corridor. Thanks to strategic support from the Aetna Foundation, CTG Resources, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the Loctite Foundation, and from the City of Hartford and the State of Connecticut, our initiative moved from a shared vision toward the concrete reality of new schools, new homes, and new jobs.  In September 2000, our vision became a reality with the opening of the campus.

The initiative has generated over $130 million in new construction. Designed to increase owner occupancy throughout the neighborhoods, the initiative weaves housing rehabilitation, retail businesses, streetscape improvements, job training, recreation, and family services into the fabric of the reinvigorated residential community, thus building widespread and deeply vested interest in maintaining the quality and vibrancy of our community.

In 1998, we successfully secured support for the neighborhood initiative when the W.K. Kellogg Foundation awarded Trinity a $5.1-million grant to support the College’s plans to build College-community connections emphasizing civic responsibility and educational innovation. In 2003, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation awarded us an additional $1.6 million bridge grant to support continued urban engagement initiatives.  

The essential elements of the comprehensive neighborhood revitalization initiative that challenges all the old assumptions about urban renewal include education, housing and home ownership, jobs and economic development, community life and recreation, and family resources.