(Hartford, CT - April 15, 2013) - Connecticut Main Street Center (CMSC) is pleased to announce Hartford resident Toni A. Gold has been chosen to receive the 2013 Connecticut Light and Power Company Award for Outstanding Contributions to Main Street Revitalization. The CL&P Award was established by CMSC in 2001 to recognize individuals and organizations who dedicate themselves to promoting an awareness of the necessity of a comprehensive management approach to the revitalization Connecticut's historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts.

 

The recipient of the 2006 National Main Street Business Leadership Award, CL&P is the only private corporation in the country to have founded a statewide Main Street program. Concerned about protecting its significant investment in the infrastructure of older commercial districts across the state, CL&P chose to provide the funding and administrative support needed to start the Connecticut Main Street program in 1995.

Toni Gold is an urban planning and development specialist with expertise in transportation for livable communities, historic preservation, waterfront projects, and commercial revitalization. She is a national expert in Context Sensitive Solutions, which she has taught to state departments of transportation. Toni managed a $24 million capital program for Riverfront Recapture in Hartford, which re-connected downtown Hartford to its riverfront.

 

As an activist and advocate Toni organized her neighbors in the West End and Asylum Hill neighborhoods of Hartford ten years ago on behalf of a strategic plan for the traffic-calming and commercial revitalization of Hartford's Farmington Avenue. Most recently she has organized the Hub of Hartford (I-84) Steering Committee, rallying the City, the Region and ConnDOT behind an effort to re-plan and redesign Interstate 84 in downtown Hartford to reduce its intrusive nature and re-knit the urban fabric. Through Toni's ability to coordinate the many interests represented (residents, business owners, employees, NRZ/community organizations, City staff, ConnDOT & DEEP), the Steering Committee agreed on an option that would provide an opportunity to develop over 1 million square feet of mixed-use, transit-oriented development in the heart of downtown adjacent to a newly-accessible Bushnell Park, thus reconnecting Hartford's now-bisected neighborhoods.

 

The CL&P Award will be presented at the 2013 Connecticut Main Street Awards Gala on June 10th at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in downtown Hartford.

 

Past recipients of the CL&P Award include:

2012 - Northwestern Connecticut Regional Planning Collaborative

2011 - WNPR, for Where We Live

2010 - The Partnership for Strong Communities' HOMEConnecticut Campaign

2009 - Keith J. Kumnick, SIOR

2008 - Linda Osten (posthumous)

2007 - Martha A. Hunt, CERC (retired)

2006 - The Hartford Courant's PLACE Editorial

2005 - Webster Bank

2003 - John W. (Jack) Shannahan

2002 - The State of Connecticut Dept. of Economic & Community Development

2001 - The Connecticut Light and Power Company

 

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