What Goes Up
Updating downtown New Haven development projects
Business New Haven - 08/21/2006
by Karen Singer
The long-delayed Veterans Memorial Coliseum implosion inches toward a target date.
The new Gateway Community College campus will take longer to build because of a parking garage design change.
Luxury condos projects remain in vogue. The most ambitious is a 19-story building with 276 units on College Street, across from the soon-to-be built arts magnet high school.
From New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr.'s perspective, downtown is "doing fine" and growing to the "solid, steady beat of diversity. We're seeing new retail and restaurants continuing to fill in," he says.
Nevertheless, the mayor says he is "curious to see the condo projects, which will be testing the ownership market rather than the rental market."
City Economic Development Director Kelly Murphy is encouraged by "positive" momentum of downtown development.
"This is a good time for New Haven," Murphy says. She adds that plans will move forward even faster once the Coliseum site at last is cleared.
Here's what's happening with the most notable projects changing the face of downtown:
Veterans Memorial Coliseum
If an imploding building falls on a city street, will it damage underground equipment providing light, water and phone service to businesses and residents?
That's what city officials, utilities representatives and demolition experts have spent months trying to determine.
Originally scheduled for October 2005, the implosion should occur this fall - perhaps as early as next month, according to Tony Bialecki, the city's deputy economic development director.
Unlike most imploded buildings, which collapse onto their own footprint, the Coliseum will fall over a street, South Orange Street. To minimize the impact, worker are currently removing overhanging steel beams and concrete and setting up piles of tires as shock absorbers.
"Our major concern is our equipment and how quickly we can get access to it," explains Al Carbone, a spokesman for the United Illuminating Co. (UI), which has transformers in the tunnel beneath the Coliseum and cables, circuit lines and duct lines beneath South Orange Street providing power to 1,800 customers.
"We're very confident that the plan is going to work," adds UI senior strategic account manager Roger Parisi. "But you've got to make sure you get it right."
Union Station
Plans to build a much-needed second garage are in limbo.
"The state wants to RFP [request for proposal] the site," says city economic development director Murphy. "We have an existing lease that lasts for another ten and a half years, and in our lease it says they have to seek our consultation."
The new garage would add 1,200 spaces to the 800 now available, more than doubling parking capacity at the station.
As of July 31, Murphy was still waiting for a reply to a letter DeStefano sent to state officials a few days earlier.
The letter, she says, informed them, 'We just want the garage built. Tell us what you want us to do or buy out our lease.'"
Gateway Downtown Development
A parking garage change related to the relocation of Gateway College will affect the timetable of the entire project. "We're now looking at 2011 rather than 2010 for the opening," explains Gateway President Dorsey L. Kendrick.
The "pre-design" of the 360,000-square-foot building needs to undergo some redesign to accommodate parking originally slated for a city-built garage with 600 to 700 spaces.
"After looking at the costs, the college and the DOT [state Department of Transportation] reconsidered," says William Kilpatrick, director of the New Haven Parking Authority. "We're still going accommodate about 700 [parking spaces] in the Temple Street Garage, and Gateway will accommodate the rest in their design plan."
Kendrick says architects need to add the garage to the school building before they can finish their pre-design plan - and the state must approve money to pay for it.
Hotel/Conference Center
An integral part of the original Gateway downtown development project, a hotel/conference center was removed from the plan several months ago after a study showed that "It didn't seem to work at that site without an enormous amount of [public] subsidy," according to economic development director Murphy.
"But that doesn't preclude it from happening," she adds. "If a developer walks in a with a good proposal for a hotel/conference center, I'd sure entertain it."
Knights of Columbus
Officials of the world's largest Catholic fraternal organization have expressed interest in buying land adjacent to the K of C's national headquarters to construct an office building, perhaps with retail space.
But they're still assessing their needs.
"They have not committed to us," Murphy explains. The main concern K of C officials have expressed lately, she says, is "making sure the Coliseum comes down.
"Once that happens, we have a couple of months to clear [the site], and then we'll press them to see where they're at."
Long Wharf Theatre
Several studies are underway to help the theater assess its needs and develop plans for a new downtown building.
Along with commissioning an audience and marketplace study, transportation study and public value audit, Long Wharf has hired Sachs Morgan Studio, a New York theater design consultant with extensive experience.
Sachs Morgan "will interview a number of people - theater staff, other theater professionals, donors and key people in the community," explains LWT Board of Trustees President Mary Pepe. "They'll come up with our requirements for square footage, stages and lighting systems, which will be the backbone for design, and will give us cost estimates to build and operate the facility."
Also on the agenda is a capital campaign study, which a marketing firm will be doing to find out "what we think we can raise, and also including assistance with structuring the capital campaign, " Pepe says.
The state has promised $30 million for the project, and to date released $750,000 to fund the studies.
"We feel very good about the fact that all this is happening because it's going to allow us to speak more knowledgeably and enable us to develop our plans," Pepe says.
Results should be in by the end of the year.
Then, Pepe says, "We'll be in a better position" to push for more money for the state for the selection of an architect.
Meanwhile, new Managing Director Joan Channick (see ON THE RECORD, BNH, July 10) begins work on September 1.
Cooperative Arts High School
"Everything is going pretty well with the project," allows Thomas Roger, the city's program director for school construction.
The College Street site, between George and Crown streets, has nearly been cleared for the new regional magnet high school, a 140,000-square-foot structure designed by Cesar Pelli.
In late July, bidding was underway for the concrete and steel underpinnings of the structure.
Roger expects concrete work to start in early autumn, and steel work to begin by early next year.
"The structure will be closed and tight by winter of '07, with interior fit-up work during '08," Roger says. The school is scheduled to open in fall 2008.
Shartenberg Site
City officials were expecting plenty of housing proposals, including perhaps one for a condo tower ten to 12 stories high, by the August 15 deadline for the request for proposal (RFP) for the former department store parking lot at the intersection of Chapel and State streets.
"We've had good interest, and hopefully there will be a lot to choose from," says Murphy.
Condo Cornucopia
A 19-story condominium tower may be coming to town.
Former state representative Robert A. Landino envisions a privately funded building with nearly 300 luxury units, one or two retail floors and underground parking (see accompanying story).
"He came to us with some conceptual plans that are really exciting and represent a turn in the development trend for New Haven," explains Murphy.
116 Crown Street Hotel
Project coordinator Olga Ilatovsky says she is getting "at least one or two inquiries during the day on weekdays and five to eight on weekends just from a banner on the building announcing 'Luxury Lofts for Sale'" at the former National Hotel.
Queries come from "professionals, younger people and empty-nesters," she adds.
Takers for two of the eight condos are a mid-20s couple (an attorney and bank mortgage officer) and a Yale professor in his late 60s, who placed a deposit on a penthouse unit.
Johnson Simons Building
Four of 13 condos are on deposit at this upscale project underway at the corner of Church and Center streets. "Things got quiet in June but they're now starting to pick back up, and we're doing two, three, five showings a week," says developer John Wareck.
Ninth Square Phase II
Developer David Nyberg will soon be constructing around 100 condos on Crown and State streets. Two years ago, Nyberg took over the second phase of the Ninth Square development project from McCormack Baron Salazar and changed the plan from rental units - including 40 affordable apartments - to all condominiums. He's rehabbing the blighted S.Z. Fields and Howard Arnold buildings on Crown Street, with condos on the upper floors and ground-level retail, and putting up a five-story building on an adjacent State Street lot.
Condos also may be part of the McCormack Baron Salazar housing project on George Street.
"They've committed to doing that site with 128 rental units, including affordable, and possibly an additional 48 townhouses," explains Murphy.
Temple Street
The city is gearing up to launch an on-street valet parking service on Temple Street.
"We did an RFP and three responses came in," city economic development director Murphy says.
The winner proposal will be announced shortly.
"We're doing it as a pilot service and hoping to get it started in September, " Murphy adds.
Meanwhile restaurant row continues to grow.
One new entry is Katz's 2 on Temple, which is taking the space formerly occupied by Bella's Cafˇ.
After Bella's closed on May 14, Mark McKinley, who owns Katz Deli 2 Go, a take-out eatery on Orange Street, took over Bella Foote's lease.
"He was looking to expand," says Chris Nicotra, managing member of Olympia Properties.
Katz's 2 on Temple is slated to open September 5.
Also coming to nearby Crown Street is the Wine Thief, which has leased a 2,600-square-foot space will be next to Barcelona. It's the high-end wine vendor's second store; the first is on Whitney Avenue.
"They're going to take advantage of the presence of the relatively affluent people who live in the luxury apartments downtown," explains Colliers Dow & Condon agent John Keogh.
Route 34 Connector
Neighborhood groups have been helping city officials develop a strategy to revitalize a 22-acre area dominated by parking lots. A recent zone change allows expanded uses for the area.
"We're trying to strategize whether to go through the municipal plan development route," explains Murphy. "We did it for River Street and may well do here."
Murphy also is looking for a staffer to replace Wendy Clarke, who was in charge of the project. Clarke recently left her post to attend law school at the University of Connecticut.