Tangled up in blue

G R E AT E R H A R T F O R D ’ S B U S I N E S S W E E K LY

NOVEMBER

5, 20 07

WWW.HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM

VOLUME

Tangled

Up In

Blue

Five Design Secrets of Blue Back Square

By Kenneth J. St. Onge Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer

he diners at The Cheesecake Factory will never notice.

Neither will the movie buffs, nor bookworms one floor below them. The office workers will spend much of their lives there, without realizing it. The gym buffs will simply have

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People like 10-minute strolls – as long as the strolls are pretty. That’s why the architecture of Blue Back emphasizes the leisure of walking around it. Sidewalks and trees are big, a stark contrast to the facades of the buildings, which have lots of vertical lines to make them feel smaller. “The idea is we have very large buildings, but that doesn’t mean they have to behave like large buildings,” said Chief Architect Richard Heapes of New York-based StreetWorks. Even the ground has been altered to increase the stroll-ability factor: The tract of land where Isham Road sits used to be a small valley, which designers filled in to flatten the entire landscape and ease the walk from South Main Street into Blue Back Square.

Blue Back Breakdown

KNOW THE FLOW Designers wanted Blue Back to work with the flow of West Hartford Center, meaning it would be designed around an axis that moves from East to West – the direction of Farmington Avenue. By doing so, Chief Architect Heapes said that Blue Back creates a sort of “walkable” loop between Farmington Avenue and LaSalle and Raymond roads. That foot traffic is the key to the whole project, Heapes said, and most of it will come in along Memorial Road by Crate & Barrel, and Webster Walkway, the footpath that leads to Blue Back Square proper, the 100by 150-foot park behind the library from which the entire development Tiles in the collage along Webster Walkway reflect different landmarks of West Hartford Center, including Blue Back, a subtle, unconscious nod to takes its name.

ILLUSTRATION/STREET-WORKS

H B J P H O T O / K E N N E T H J . S T. O N G E

WALK-ABILITY

the community that the project will be good for West Hartford Center.

Apartments

A PERFECT COMPLEMENT

Criterion Cinema Barnes & Noble

RECYCLING HISTORY

Crate & Barrel

Condos

REI Cheesecake Factory

New York Sports Club Hartford Hospital

H B J P H O T O / K E N N E T H J . S T. O N G E

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Where possible, designers have tried to maintain familiar aspects of West Hartford Center, in an effort to make the project blend in with the rest of the area. Nowhere is this more obvious than the former Board of Education building, where the cupola and South Main Street façade were kept, although the rest of the building was rebuilt. Heapes said the tenants in and design of Blue Back Square were chosen specifically to supplement and add to the uses of the existing West Hartford center. “It’s not coincidence these businesses are the same types that were in the Center when it was its most healthy,” he said.

It’s no mistake that The Cheesecake Factory, where peak waits can eclipse 90 minutes, is situated directly across from a Barnes & Noble. Or that Barnes & Noble’s entrance is barely 100 feet from that of the town library. Or that on the upper level of the bookstore a cinema is showing the type of art house features that play well among the literary set. Blue Back tenants complement each other. The goal is to create a business interaction where non-competing retailers each benefit.

THE NOVELTY FACTOR There are six key anchor stores to Blue Back Square, each of which is either a lone Nutmeg State location, or one of a precious few. They are: Crate & Barrel, Barnes & Noble, Criterion Cinema, REI, The Cheescake Factory, and the previously built Whole Foods. Add to that a number of smaller retailers also using Blue Back for their first foray into Connecticut, and you have a key draw for a substantial portion of the visitors, Wienner said.

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Blue Back Design Aimed At Attracting, Retaining Visitors to be strong to resist. And the Whole Foods-loving shoppers?

Sorry, but there’s little hope for them, too.

Blue Back Square is gonna get you. You’re hooked. You won’t be able to leave nor look away. And that’s what its designers have planned all along. There’s a reason and method behind every piece of the project — from the look, to the layout to the tenant list. Call it the architecture of capitalism: a carefully crafted maze designed to play on the psychology of visitors, inviting them to shop, making it easy for them to stay. It’s part of the burgeoning culture of “design” that has infiltrated so many aspects of American business savvy. But what does that mean to a $200 million, 20-plus acre project?

Well, a lot. That’s why design played such a crucial plan in putting it all together. When the project officially opens next Thursday, the test begins for the success of that vision. Here are five of the key criteria, according to the designers and builders of the project.

M A P / S T R E E T- W O R K S

Road, which bisects Blue Back Square and is the only entrance to the South Garage. The second is Blue Back Square itself, the 350-foot long park that divides the library from Barnes & Noble. Both should help draw foot traffic from the West side of the center.

“It’s inviting,” said Robert Rowlson, economic development director for the town, and a key mover and shaker behind the project.

But it’s not the only way designers have encouraged foot traffic.

Width Matters The Axis Foot traffic spells success for Blue Back, so the layout of the project is designed to maximize it.

Consider what that means specifically for this part of town.

Main Street, West Hartford Center’s geographic center, runs North to South. But in fact most traffic – especially pedestrian traffic – actually runs along an East-West axis along Farmington Avenue, spilling onto Main Street.

Blue Back’s designers plan to draw foot traffic from the opposite side of Main Street through multiple entry points and raised brick walkways. The Main entry point is Memorial 20 HARTFORD BUSINESS JOURNAL • November 5, 2007

Blue Back tenants with no other Connecticut location: Crate & Barrel REI The Cheesecake Factory National Jean Company The Counter Fleming’s Steakhouse

Studies show a 100-yard walk through a parking lot frustrates people because the scenery is unpleasant, said Robert Wienner, managing partner for Blue Back. But put those same folks on a sidewalk with tall trees and wide sidewalks, and they’ll walk a mile.

Understandably, Blue Back is chock full of wide sidewalks and trees, one of the ways Blue Back Designers have gone out of their way to put visitors at ease, Wienner said.

A greater willingness to stroll means a greater willingness to shop. And to business owners in the project, that’s great.

There’s also the herd element of human psychology: the

unconscious feeling that there’s safety in numbers.

The best way to accomplish that is to have feet on the streets at all hours of the day. You achieve that through careful timing. From a big picture view, that means choosing tenants with clients and workers whose comings and goings move like waves on a beach.

“We want people on the streets 20 hours a day,” Wienner said. Here’s how he thinks he’ll accomplish that.

Timing Is Everything Consider a day in the life of Blue Back Square.

At 6 a.m., the Hartford Hospital surgical center at the corner of Memorial and Raymond will be buzzing. Patients and doctors come in early. The morning hum begins. Just below the surgical center in that same building, early morning workouts will have started at the New York Sports Club. Some will come from the condos farther up Memorial Road. Some will walk along Isham Road from the apartment building at the north end of Blue Back.

The herd gathers. The sun rises.

Over the next three hours, office workers arrive to work.

Those coming mix on the streets with those leaving. A bustle grows in the air. www.HartfordBusiness.com

The retail shops begin to open around 10 a.m. The morning gives way to afternoon, as shoppers arrive, hobnobbing in the streets.

At lunch time, shoppers, workers and residents convene in one of the dozen or so restaurants. Town Hall workers take a lunch break, walking over to join them. Come 2 p.m., workers are back in their offices, shopping time is in full swing.

As afternoon gives way to evening, workers begin trickling back to their cars in one of the two garages, stopping in along the way to pick up an item or two. Some will stay for happy hour. Some for supper.

Later, they will be joined by those coming to see a movie, or browse the bookstore. Those that do might wait until later and catch a late meal. As nighttime grows, the restaurants slow down.

In six hours, the cycle begins again. The tide will return.

The waves of bodies will again come crashing.

And that’s the secret, Wienner said.

Complement Me Stand along Isham Road between Barnes and Noble and The Cheesecake Factory to find a microcosm of how it all works. The businesses stand like different breeds of trees, www.HartfordBusiness.com

each of which cross-pollinates the other. And that’s how the project’s designers like it.

Stand at the entrance to the restaurant. Cheesecake waits eclipse 90 minutes on busier nights. Those waiting get beepers that notify them when their tables are ready.

What to do? Ah. Behind them lays the largest Barnes & Noble in all the area. The beepers work inside it. Oodles of hungry booklovers stroll to their hearts’ delight. Instead of angry would-be diners, you get pleased shoppers who don’t notice they are being made to wait. It’s a win-win.

“We’re not the only place that these two have done this set-up, but we think it works especially well here,” Wienner said.

Perhaps the diners don’t like books. Instead, they head up to the Criterion Cinema above Barnes & Noble. Maybe they browse Crate & Barrel or another store. Maybe they just walk around, strengthening the herd.

By choosing and arranging complementary businesses in complementary ways, the developers have tried to create a critical mass of businesses that will attract customers through their combined gravity.

The key to building gravity? Novelty and rarity.

Anchor Points There has to be a reason for shoppers to want to come to a certain place to shop, Wienner said. In Blue Back, there are six key anchor points, all of which exist nowhere else in the nearby area, or at least not in similar scope.

They are: The only Connecticut locations of Crate & Barrel, The Cheescake Factory, and REI, one of only a handful or art house-styled cinemas at Criterion, the already established Whole Foods, and Barnes & Noble.

Those main anchor points are the project’s biggest initial attraction, Wienner said. But combined with upand-coming retailers looking to make their Nutmeg State mark — for instance, clothing retailer National Jean Co. and San Diego-based burger-peddler The Counter — the range of novelty shops will be a big draw for shoppers Wienner said.

And ultimately, Blue Back’s success hinges on the size of the draw it creates.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If we have a Banana Republic here in two years, we’ve failed,” Wienner said. “You can fi nd that anywhere. Blue Back will be built on things you cannot. And that’s what will make it a success.”

■ November 5, 2007 • HARTFORD BUSINESS JOURNAL 21