Town center triumphs over national mall owner

New Urban News Article with images, 12/1/2007

West Hartford’s Blue Back Square opens despite two referendums and litigation instigated by the Taubman company.

The November opening of Blue Back Square — the 550,000 sq. ft., $200 million-plus expansion of a long-established town center in West Hartford, Connecticut — marked the end of a series of legal and political obstructions orchestrated by the Taubman Centers Inc., one of America’s largest owners of regional malls.

Taubman, based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, owns nearly two dozen large malls, including Westfarms, an enclosed 1.3-million sq. ft. shopping center less than four miles from West Hartford Center. After architect Richard Heapes and his partners in Street-Works LLC announced plans to build a 20-acre addition to the mixed-use center of West Hartford, an affluent suburb with 64,000 residents, Taubman tried for more than three years to kill the project.  

Taubman forced two town referendums, in 2004 and 2005, aimed at scuttling the municipal government’s involvement in Blue Back Square — a tight-knit mix of condominium and rental apartments, stores, cinemas, offices, medical facilities, and civic buildings. Both referendums endorsed Blue Back Square — the first by a margin of three to two, the second by a margin of more than two to one. The company also failed when it filed a lawsuit containing eight counts; the last of Taubman’s claims was tossed out of court in April.