Ever since growing up outside Hartford and watching as suburban sprawl replaced farms and woods while at the same time emptying out the urban core, Eric Busch has known what he wanted to do.
“By the time I was ready to go to college,” he wrote in his 40 Under Forty application, “my initial childhood dreams of becoming an architect had been replaced by the desire to develop real estate the right way.”
“To me it seemed irresponsible to replace forests and farmlands with acres of parking, new roads, new lights and utilities to create a mock city for people to visit; when the real city existed … only a few miles away.”
After studying real estate in college, however, he got off track, working as a consultant all over the U.S. and overseas. It wasn’t until Sept. 11, 2001, while working for a client in lower Manhattan and witnessing the terrorist attacks, that he was jolted back to what he really wanted to do. “I realized that I was not being true to myself,” he said.
After obtaining his MBA and working for the city of Oakland, Calif., in its affordable housing program, Busch started working for Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, taking on the completion of the due diligence for the American Locomotive Works project in Olneyville. And that is where he remains, working on the $230 million, mixed-use project, despite the slowing of the economy and contraction of his employer. He continues to move forward.
As ALCO and other Struever Bros.’ projects continue, he said, “affordable, quality housing will be created, jobs will continue to be created, green space will be reclaimed, contaminant will be removed and green building techniques will be made more commonplace. … This is exactly what I intended when I described a desire to develop real estate the right way, so many years ago.” •
