She is also adding outdoor yard games, a non-functioning bathtub outside the bathroom and other photo-designated areas for guests looking to snap a photo to share on Instagram. The Place 2 Be’s long-term goal of expanding to a fast-casual model downtown was always part of the plan, though the COVID-19 outbreak emphasized the need for outdoor seating and to limit employee-customer interactions, Luari said. Luari said she hopes that will stir immediate interest from nearby Millennial residents who may also be interested in ordering from its full bar and brunch menus. The business will also offer online order delivery to all 193 units in the Spectra Boutique Apartments at Constitution Plaza. “In the last week of May, I just said ‘we need to go for it.’ ” “This was all set to go back in March, and we tabled everything because there was huge uncertainty as to what was going to happen during the pandemic,” said Luari, the former executive director of the Rocky Hill Chamber of Commerce. The expansion will also fill two empty and well-known restaurant spaces in downtown Hartford and Blue Back Square as the retail and restaurant industries face many COVID-19-related challenges. The simultaneous expansion marks a major growth effort by the 25-employee Franklin Avenue business that was closed before Luari’s family, owners of Town Line Diner in Rocky Hill, acquired and rebranded it in 2016. With help from a loan, the restaurant is also investing $500,000 to renovate and open a third location this September in West Hartford’s posh Blue Black Square, in space formerly occupied by The Cook & The Bear restaurant. An urban renewal pioneer in the 1960s, the building is once again part of Hartford’s revitalization.The breakfast/lunch eatery is investing $250,000 to renovate and upgrade the interior, exterior and kitchen at the 170-seat space before it debuts with a fast-casual concept in early July, she said. Furthermore, it is an important achievement in Hartford’s architectural and planning history, representing a shift in preservation thinking about the significance of the Brutalist style. Perhaps the greatest parody is the building, based on architectural significance, was listed to the NR at 48 years-old, two years short of meeting the fifty-year threshold, and utilized both state and federal historic tax credits. The building should be recognized as an example of how two very different planning philosophies prevailed to create a great icon. Hotel America is a testament that modern architecture is an important marker in our architectural history and worthy of preservation. Ironically, the loss of historic fabric and a vacant lot yielded one of Hartford’s most important modern buildings. Hotel America was part of Hartford’s first urban renewal initiative to revitalize the downtown, which resulted in part the loss of Hartford’s architectural heritage. As the NR states, “the Hotel America is significant as a well-preserved and representative example of urban renewal-era Modernist architecture as one of the few buildings of this style to be erected in downtown Hartford during this period.” Crosskey Architects collaborated with the developers to convert the hotel, now referred to as “Spectra Boutique Apartments”, into a multi-housing project consisting of 190 units with a mix of 54 studios, 123 one-bedroom, and 13 two-bedroom units with numerous luxury amenities and commercial space on the first floor. In 2012, Hotel America was one of the first, if not the first, modern building to be listed in the State and National Register of Historic Places.

Spectra boutique apartments