New London — Downtown New London, a once-forlorn zone largely abandoned after 5 p.m., continues to attract millions of dollars of investment in new apartments and businesses, according to figures compiled by New London Main Street.

Since 2000, the nonprofit organization has recorded $80 million in public and private investment in the greater downtown area, said CEO Penny Parsekian.

As part of its twice-a-year investment report, the organization tracks the number of new apartments and businesses in downtown, an area roughly bounded by fire headquarters, the police department and the courthouse.

In the past five years, 185 new apartments — the majority of them renovations of existing buildings — have opened for the city's growing community of downtown dwellers, according to Main Street's figures.

Since 2000, the area has seen 65 net new businesses, which have created about 230 full-time and nearly 80 part-time jobs.

Main Street, however, does count some investment outside of the 26-block downtown boundary, such as the 35 Shaw's Landing condos on Bank Street.

In 2007, downtown didn't see blockbuster growth but rather the steady growth of new apartments and employees — a trend that Parsekian said started around 2000.

“Before 2000, this was not happening,” she said.

Parsekian said she prefers the slow-and-steady growth of downtown because it shows interest is spread among many developers and business owners.

“The silver-bullet theory of downtown revitalization is very popular, but what is happening in the district is broad-based, incremental,” Parsekian said. “What you don't want to see is one or two people investing. What you want to see is it across the board.”

In 2007, New London Main Street recorded 17 new apartments in the downtown. Nine of those units were created in the last phase of Peter Levine's 19-unit loft-style apartment building at 13 Washington St. Levine previously converted the former SNET building into 28 apartments.

Levine, through his White Plains, N.Y., company, has been responsible for a quarter of the apartments built since 2000. The Crocker House, which is owned by New London's AME Development, provided the largest single-development boost to downtown's apartment stock when its 80 units began renting in 2003.

Levine said he is confident that people will continue to look to live in downtown, but he said the downtown market hasn't met the need for high-quality businesses.

Levine's building at 13 Washington St. houses the popular Bean & Leaf coffeehouse and the recently opened Treehugger Organic Salon. Levine said he continues to push hard to attract a small food market to the building. He credited the 3-year-old Hanafin's Public House for bringing people downtown after dark.

“People want to live downtown,” he said. “The real challenge, in a nutshell, is to get good (business) operators, because if you get good operators, you should get good business.”

In addition to residents, the downtown's growing corps of employees is increasing business for existing merchants.

The majority of last year's 45 new, full-time jobs can be credited to JobTarget, a recruitment-advertising business that continues its rapid expansion in New London.

Founded in Niantic by Andrew Banever in 2000, the company last year consolidated its 15 employees, from a handful of downtown offices into the third floor of Manwaring Building in the 200 block of State Street.

JobTarget then expanded to 40 employees, and it now leases 6,800 square feet in the building, the entire third floor. Banever hopes to expand by another 20 employees by the end of 2008.

Banever said part of the reason he headquartered in New London is because the city has a lot of vacant office space, which allowed him to negotiate a favorable lease. He said the office's proximity to Union Station makes it convenient for the company's New York City and Washington, D.C., clients.

And downtown offers his employees lunch places that are a quick walk away. That scenario is preferable to having his employees marooned in a suburban office park, where, Banever notes, “you lose them to go to lunch every day.”

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