Ballpark Legal Fees Mounting For Hartford

The bloated expenses of Hartford’s Dunkin Donuts Park are only getting bigger.

Since 2016, the city has paid attorneys more than $370,000, according to city auditors.

The updated numbers were released Wednesday afternoon at the internal audit commission meeting. The planned development around the new stadium halted in 2016 when multi-million dollar lawsuits were filed between the City of Hartford and original stadium developer Centerplan Construction.

Until the issue is resolved, the Downtown North, or “DoNo”, development is on hold. In the city’s application for bonds to help pay for the stadium, they asked for an extra $6 million solely to pay down the bond interest incurred until the restaurants, bars and hotels could get built as part of DoNo.

Originally, that waiting period was expected to last for two years. The stadium authority currently has a budget deficit of more than $5 million, according to auditors.

Jury selection in Centerplan’s lawsuit against the city is scheduled for March 13, 2018, according to the Connecticut Judicial branch website.

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