After years of litigating a half-dozen state and federal suits, Hartford has agreed tentatively to pay developer Eliot B. Gersten $1.8 million for the empty, one-third acre lot at Farmington and Girard Avenues where Gersten and partner Phil Philip Schonberger wanted to build a McDonald’s restaurant with a drive through window.
There’s strength in numbers or at least that’s what proponents of dedicated spaces for food trucks, also known as food truck parks, have come to believe.
GastroPark, which features a rotating lineup of food trucks as well as an in-house kitchen, bakery and coffee shop, does a thriving business on New Park Avenue in West Hartford, and two Hartford residents are working to bring a similar concept to their own neighborhood on the city’s west side, with plans to rehabilitate a vacant lot and make it a gathering place for high-quality food and live entertainment.
Plans are in the works to establish a “food truck park” at what is currently a vacant lot on the west side of Hartford.
According to application and planning documents submitted to the city, the park would be set up on a roughly half-acre parcel at 510 Farmington Ave., on the northwest corner of Farmington and Girard avenues.