WATERBURY INNOVATION PLACES strategy plan Waterbury Development Corporation submission to CT Next April 1st, 2017 “…it is almost impossible to make anything from an um- brella to a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes from a small electric motor to a locomo- tive or battleship, from a trunk or a handbag to a great office building or hotel, with- out creating a demand for something made of brass or copper and sending it to Waterbury.” from a newspaper account of 1869 Historic Map of Waterbury 1917, City of Waterbury table of contents VISION 1 PROCESS & TEAM 7 WATERBURY’S ASSETS 11 WIP STRATEGY PLAN 33 FRAMEWORK FOR IMPLEMENTATION 43 APPENDIX 51 Temporary Back Alley Concerts West Main Street Mobility Hub Pathway on the Green FREIGHT STREET DOWNTOWN DISTRICT Freight Street Innovation Center & Makerspace Welder’s Train Station Leavenworth Sidewalk Vendors Festival Farmers Market Summer Dining & Outdoor Cafe Downtown Pop Up Food Truck Accelerator & Innovation Mash Up Cowork Space River Edge Wine Garden View of Waterbury Innovation Places Impact Area Waterbury Innovation Place Program (WIP) is designed to reinvent the Downtown and the Freight Street District as a vibrant mixed use district that serves as a center vision of collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation, economic activity, and civic, commerce and cultural engagement in the Naugatuck Valley and Southwest Hills of Connecticut. The WIP Strategic Plan creates a platform across government, community, business, and institutions; it will infuse innovation principles 1 into ongoing and future planning and redevelopment Eastactivities, Main Street resulting ultimately in the transformation of Waterbury’s CBD (including Freight Street) as a state of Waterbury is defined by its exceptional manufacturing heritage, particularly the art Innovation District. in metals fabrication, along with a rich mix of physical, economic, educational, and cultural assets. Yet, like several Connecticut’s urban centers, Waterbury has struggled to attract young, talented workers. The local economy has not evolved to incorporate the innovation and entrepreneurship that can leverage the City’s inherent strengths. A correlating issue is the Downtown and nearby neighborhood’s failure to generate enough demand from workers, residents, and businesses to support the amenities, active commercial corridors, programmed public spaces, and diverse housing options prevalent in vibrant downtowns around the country. In short, Waterbury is caught in a vicious cycle. But the CTNext Innovation Places program has provided the City with a platform to address these challenges. Downtown Accelerator & The Waterbury Innovation Place Program (WIP) will disrupt the Cowork Space status quo and create a platform to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship in the traditional Downtown Central Business District and the newly emerging Downtown Freight Street District. 3 WATERBURY INNOVATION PLACES PROGRAM WIP will be a program housed within the Waterbury Development Corporation (WDC), with its own dedicated staff, Executive Committee and Advisory Board, intentionally structured to tap into the City’s diverse public, private, and institutional leadership. Similarly, WIP’s activities are planned to leverage existing or future investments, and demand drivers. This includes the planned infrastructure and redevelopment plans around the transit center, in Downtown, and in Freight Street. It also incorporates the City’s acumen in Brownfields remediation, the numerous nearby anchor institutions that are civically engaged and have demand to be leveraged, existing businesses with both workforce and R&D needs, and a diverse and well-skilled citizenry. WIP will establish two “nodes” of activity in two distinct strategic locations while managing a suite of initiatives that will unite them. DOWNTOWN ACCELERATOR AND COWORK SPACE In the Downtown, it will launch the Downtown Accelerator and Cowork space, occupying a vacant storefront space and activating it with an accelerator program that targets entrepreneurs and small businesses intent on creating new technologies or services that can tap into Waterbury’s economic strengths or civic goals. The Accelerator will provide resources such as space, mentorship, access to capital, and marketing resources. Coupled with the Accelerator is a Cowork space, providing independent workers or small businesses both office space and a community setting that allows for greater interaction and discovery. FREIGHT STREET INNOVATION CENTER AND MAKERSPACE Organization Chart for the Waterbury Innovation Places Program In the Freight Street District, already targeted for redevelopment, WIP will create the Freight Street Innovation Center and Makerspace. This space is explicitly designed to serve as a convening space for Waterbury’s businesses with advanced manufacturing needs, along with the institutions with curriculums and programs that serve them, along with the workforce, students, and leadership that fuels them. Along with the space and programming, a makerspace providing prototyping and training opportunities will further draw members and visitors. TACTICAL URBANISM INTERVENTIONS WIP will lead a series of Tactical Urbanism Interventions to unite the two nodes, and two key districts for the City. These interventions include temporary place-making activities in public spaces, leading events and cultural and arts- based gatherings, managing pop-up spaces and events to test new retail or food concepts, and providing branding and marketing for the district to further generate buzz and identity. http://barcelonanavigator.com/barcelona-co-working-spaces/ Waterbury Innovation Places Planning Principles With WIP in place, launching its three critical efforts, it will shift the prevailing dynamics to reposition Waterbury as a “collaborative crossroads”. Local manufacturing businesses will have the ability to source a strong, educated workforce, provide training, and collaborate with other entreprises and institutions. Entrepreneurs will have resources, space, and a community to access that can help them bring their products to market and find the services they need. Workers and residents will have new reasons to spend time in the Downtown and Freight Street, enhancing their affinity and pride for the City, while discovering new venues and activities to further enjoy its offerings. Developers and new or expanding businesses will take a closer look at Waterbury, attracted by burgeoning demand and potential for growth. And leaders across Waterbury – whether civic, corporate, or institutional - will have a new forum to share ideas, access talent, and form stronger partnerships. WIP will not resolve all of Waterbury’s existing challenges, but it will provide a new starting point for the City to transition into today and tomorrow’s innovation economy. http://www.starthub.org/workspaces/artisans-asylum 5 Waterbury Innovation Places Planning Team Work Session November 28th, 2016 process & team 2for smaller urban centers and communities that offer an innovation district lifestyle A. CONNECTICUT’S INNOVATION PLACES PROGRAM and economic opportunities within a more affordable, distinct setting. As the United States and the State of Connecticut emerge from a deep economic recession, economists and public policy analysts and “think tanks” such To that end, the CTNext, a wholly–owned subsidiary of Connecticut Innovations, as the Brookings Institution have noted the shifts that have been occurring in the launched the Innovation Places program in July 2016 as Part of Public Act 16-3. This “spatial geography” of innovation. funded program will foster the creation and growth of a network of key Connecticut Places that will support entrepreneurs, leaders and innovators that are developing While innovation over the last few decades has been clustered in places like Silicon places that will attract the talent that innovative companies need while creating the Valley or “research parks” and suburban campuses, a new pattern is emerging – high-skill, mid-skill and low-skills that drive the Connecticut economy. The CTNext an urban model that many have termed “innovation districts.” These districts, as program seeks to blend entrepreneurship and innovation support with physical defined by the Brookings Institution are “geographic areas where leading edge planning and shaping of the built environment while drawing on the unique assets anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business and talents of each Innovation Place. incubators, and accelerators. They are also physically compact, transit-accessible and technically-wired and offer mixed–use housing, office and retail.” B. WATERBURY’S INNOVATION PLACES PLANNING PROCESS National population trends have, for some time, indicated that people are more In September 2016, a group of diverse Waterbury and regional partners and more interested in working and living in downtown, urban settings that are under the leadership of Robert Burns, Director of the Mattatuck Museum submitted walkable, vibrant and connected to transit. Large firms, enterprises, innovators a Planning Grant application to CTNext to fund the development of a Waterbury and entrepreneurs have joined this mega-trend and, either organically, or through Innovation Place Strategic Plan that would, in turn, be submitted for CTNext the intentional creation of an “innovation district,” are re-conceiving the way Innovation Places Implementation Grant Funding. businesses are created, grow, inter-relate and connect