Looking out from the 11th story of a new 13-story downtown office tower, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro saw a filled-in highway — and proof of a positive role for the federal government in urban development.
DeLauro got a bird’s eye view Wednesday of how federal money is transforming the landscape of downtown from the new 100 College Street building, which will be home to Alexion Pharmaceuticals.
DeLauro and U.S. Sen. Blumenthal joined Mayor Toni Harp, Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson and developer Carter Winstanley for a hard-hat tour of the tower, which was built as part of the first phase of the Downtown Crossing project.
Markeshia Ricks Photo
A $16 million federal Tiger II grant helped make the project happen by enabling the city to start filling in the old Route 34 Connector mini-highway and reclaiming the land for development. City officials estimate that it will take another $33 million to finish phase two of the project by filling in the remaining stretch of mini-highway and rebuilding Orange Street across Route 34.
The progress that has been made on the first phase of the project disproves naysayers who don’t believe that the federal government has a role to play in local economic development, DeLauro said.
“I’m pretty tired, frankly, of hearing people say that there really isn’t a role for the federal government to play,” she said.
DeLauro said because of that prevailing sentiment TIGER grants have been reduced even in the face of the success of projects like the Downtown
Crossing project.
Blumenthal said it was a testament to the leadership of New Haven in leveraging the funding by partnering with a private developer to create a tangible result like the building of 100 College Street.
Developer Winstanley told the lawmakers that the project is just ahead of schedule even though Alexion asked that two more stories be added to the building in the early stages of planning, increasing the size of the tower to just more than 500,000 square feet. The building is slated to be open and occupied by Alexion’s more than 700 employees and other tenants by next fall.
Dan Caron, Alexion vice-president for site operations and engineering, said that the company wants to continue to be a good partner with the city and is investigating ways to alleviate traffic pressure by providing onsite alternatives to employees driving their personal vehicle to work including bike share, Zipcar and various ride-share programs.