Three years ago, I spent a summer walking Myrtle Street with a clipboard as an intern in the City of New Britain’s Planning Department. That work became the Myrtle Street Corridor Master Plan, a proposal and recommendations to transform an aging industrial area into a cleaner, greener “engine” for New Britain’s next phase of growth.
At the time, the street symbolized the broader challenges the city faced: disinvestment, low incomes, and a lingering gap between opportunity and the neighborhoods that needed it most.
Today, New Britain is beginning to move in a new direction. The question is whether these early steps can add up to a coherent strategy that delivers real benefits for residents.
New Britain’s story is familiar across post-industrial Connecticut. Once a powerhouse of precision manufacturing —home to Stanley Works, Fafnir Bearing, and other iconic firms— the city has steadily transitioned into a service-oriented economy. According to the U.S. Census, New Britain’s median household income remains around $57,000, significantly below the state average of over $80,000. Population has stabilized at about 74,000, and the city is now one of the youngest and most diverse in Connecticut. Poverty rates remain among the region’s highest, particularly in census tracts around Myrtle Street, many of which are designated federal Opportunity Zones.
Yet in recent years, New Britain has begun to attract exactly the kind of investment that suggests a more sustainable future is possible. Downtown, the CTfastrak bus rapid transit line and the Beehive Bridge have reconnected key districts and spurred new housing and small business activity. The city has embraced Complete Streets design, transit-oriented development, and public realm improvements. These are some of the steps that many Connecticut cities struggled to take.
Myrtle Street, where I worked, sits right at the intersection of these trends. And the scale of change underway there would have been hard to imagine when I drafted that plan.
The most transformative project is the Energy & Innovation Park, a nearly $1 billion redevelopment on former Stanley Black & Decker property. Anchored by a 19.98-megawatt fuel-cell micro-grid and a large-scale data center, it is one of the nation’s most significant clean-energy-powered digital infrastructure projects.
The first part of this plan, The 67-fuel cell array, was installed last year. State and local officials estimate hundreds of construction jobs, long-term technical positions, and tens of millions in local tax revenue over the coming decades. For a corridor once defined by shuttered factories, this represents a profound shift toward a clean-energy and innovation-driven economy.
Just down the street, Rich Products Corporation undertook a major expansion to increase Carvel ice cream cake production from 12 million to 19 million per year, adding about 100 permanent jobs. Smaller parcels along Bond and Burritt streets—long vacant or underused—are now converted into new housing, including market-rate apartments at 480 Myrtle Street.
One of the corridor’s most important developments is finally moving forward: the redevelopment of Mount Pleasant, an 81-year-old public housing complex identified in the original plan as a major barrier to revitalization. Luckily, the Common Council has approved the master plan for the community. Kenneth Boroson Architects is currently working on this project to replace obsolete units with new, mixed-income housing and a redesigned street network intended to reconnect residents with Myrtle Street, transit, and jobs.
Altogether, these changes suggest that New Britain —long labeled a “struggling mill city” —is emerging as a regional hub for clean energy, light manufacturing, digital infrastructure, and urban reinvestment.
But while the projects themselves are encouraging, the bigger question is how New Britain can turn them into lasting, inclusive growth. Based on both my planning work and the city’s recent trajectory, three priorities stand out.
First, Myrtle Street, now attracting major private investment, has the potential to become a true innovation and opportunity corridor. The city needs zoning that supports a mix of uses, design standards that make the street safer and more walkable, and clear expectations for employers to participate in local hiring and training.
The corridor sits between downtown and several low-income neighborhoods, its redevelopment must function as a bridge to connect, not a barrier that divides.
Additionally, rebuilding Mount Pleasant as a vibrant, mixed-income neighborhood with new design, active community spaces, and firm protections against displacement would demonstrate that public housing can be transformed without pushing residents aside.
Finally, the city must link new investment directly to stronger workforce pipelines. Manufacturing, health care, education, and services remain New Britain’s backbone, and targeted training in these fields can quickly improve household stability. By partnering more proactively with anchoring institutions, small businesses, and local nonprofits, the city can better connect high school students and adult learners to the jobs emerging from current growth. Economic development reaches its full potential only when residents can access the opportunities it creates.
New Britain is not meant to start from scratch. The city has a long tradition of hard work, immigrant entrepreneurship, and resilience. But at this moment, when historic industrial land is being redeveloped, New Britain has a chance to redefine itself again.
When I first walked the Myrtle Street corridor, it was easy to see only what the city had lost. Now, the same corridor tells a different story: a community trying to build a more innovative, more equitable future.
If New Britain can connect these emerging projects with its long-term vision, the city will be well-positioned not only to grow, but to grow in a way that lifts the people who have been here all along.
Shuyue Zhang, Trinity College Class of 2021. Suchang Wu, Trinity College Class of 2023, contributed to this commentary.