Hartford Community Loan Fund Hartford  Connecticut  USA

The vision for this site renovation was inspired by the Hartford Community Loan Fund's mission to convert formerly blighted homes and make them beautiful and affordable to families within Hartford. A model of urban revitalization itself, the Hartford Community Loan Fund holds its offices in this formerly vacant Jacobson building within the very neighborhood it seeks to revitalize. The creation of a new outdoor space was a long-planned vision of the founder to engages the commercial, residential and the greater community with this key, visible, corner property.

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The addition of street trees and low maintenance vegetation was an instant and effective way to “occupy” the streetscape and create vital spaces for people to gather and feel comfortable along this busy intersection between corporate and the more small-grained neighborhood homes that begin at this corner. New paving, planters, and stairways provide better access and outdoor gathering spaces while trees now provide dappled summer shade fulfilling the sustainability goals of the neighborhood Strategic Plan. The beautiful new mural is by Vazie.