Demolition began on Monday on the Silver Lane Plaza in East Hartford. Over the years it was home to J.M. Fields, Burlington Coat Factory and Super Pets.
“This represented a really vital, important shopping corridor for the town of East Hartford,” said Eileen Buckheit, the development director in East Hartford. “When I was younger, my parents did their banking here, the post office is across the street, there was a dry cleaner that most of the town used. We had our orthodontist here, so all the high schoolers came here. We had a pizza restaurant here where we would go to after we went to Showcase Cinemas.”
Buckheit, who has worked on the project for six years, watched along with the mayor and town council members as it started to come down.
The goal is to have it completely demolished by mid-May, then to build a mixed-use property, according to Mayor Connor Martin.
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Martin said people in East Hartford have said they want places to eat, places to shop and places for entertainment.
“They want a reason to spend their money here in East Hartford, like what else could you want from your residents, you know? They don't want to spend it anywhere else. They don't want to go to Manchester, Glastonbury or South Windsor. They want to stay right here in East Hartford,” said Martin.
Martin said the demolition is the first step toward that goal.
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“It's monumental because for two decades the community has been promised that something will happen with this plot of land, that development will be coming, and it's always fallen flat. What we're very excited about is to show true progress today with the demolition of this building,” said Martin.
Other development projects in the works for East Hartford include demolition of the old Bank of America building in the Founders Plaza. The plan is for that demolition to happen during the summer and new housing will be built, according to the mayor.
They also are working to repurpose and shut down Bissell Street to more of a pedestrian-friendly dining and shopping experience.
As for the remaining businesses in the side plazas, the town leaders are helping them relocate.
“We gave them some listings of not just East Hartford, but a radius around East Hartford. And we are giving them relocation payments. It's required by regulations that we give them payments. So those payments help them with their moving costs, they help them with their reestablishment costs,” said Buckheit.
