The old Hartford National Bank Shawmut Fleet Bank of America Tower in downtown Hartford is coming out of hibernation. The 26 story skyscraper has been mothballed for the past couple of years, but is coming back to life as a high rise apartment building.
777 Main Street will be home to about 350 or so people looking to move on up to a place in the sky. I had the opportunity to tour the building this past week at Big Mo, the annual fundraiser for Riverfront Recapture, and it is nothing short of amazing.
The views are incredible.
The Connecticut Regional Development Authority’s Suzanne Hopgood was on the 26th floor explaining to the guests that included Governor Malloy, Senator Blumenthal and Mayor Segarra, that the renovation to the building will be state of the art, and keep the modernist architectural details from when the tower went up in 1967.
I was chatting with developer Bruce Becker of Fairfield, who could barely contain his excitement about the project. He told me he didn’t know much about Hartford before he got involved in this, and discovered how beautiful downtown is. In addition to apartments, he is also thinking of a grocery story for the ground level, and even tossed around the possibility of a bowling alley.
The 777 tower was home to many banks over the past 47 years, most recently Bank of America. I remember going in there in 1992 when it was Shawmut Bank to open up an account when I was first hired at WFSB. When BOA moved to CityPlace in 2011, the owner of the building couldn’t find a new tenant, so an iconic piece of the Hartford skyline went dark.
The first tenants should be moving in May.
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Dennis House blog 
Nice pictures, great view! This is an incredibly important project and shows the benefit of government financial support. Given the level of asbestos contamination that had to be removed, this building would have stayed empty for a very long time, if ever redeveloped. (The prior owner jokingly said they would wrap the building in plastic with signs saying Boston this way and NYC that way) . A building this big this centrally located staying dark would have hit the City hard, so instead with State funding and a local tax deal this building and all its incredible views and finishes will now be an asset once again for the downtown .
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