Gregg Wies & Gardner
Design for the new boathouse.
Henry and Shawn Carey Monday morning slowly lowered a two-ton purple double-epoxy coated rebar form over one of 50 20-foot-tall columns that will support the second floor of Long Wharf’s newest/old attraction, the Canal Dock Boathouse.
The festive Rebar “planting” took place by the harbor as 75 folks — officials, architects, and engineers — celebrated the inauguration of the second and final phase of the boathouse’s construction.
The boathouse is replacing Yale’s historic Adee Boathouser, which was demolished as part of the $2 billion Harbor Crossing expanding I‑95. The state and federal governments are paying the tab to build the new boathouse. Due to delays and attendant cost and design increases since then, it’s ending up costing $40 million. The project is expected to be completed in about a year.
The city itself still needs about $1 million to add floating docks and ramps, reported NewHaven City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg, who, along with City Plan staffer Donna Hall, was celebrated for shepherding the complex multi-agency effort.
High school kids, students from the University of New Haven environmental sciences classes, and veterans groups will bring their boats from storage on the boathouse’s first floor down to the water via those floating docks and ramps.
That activity along with historical interpretive displays (including preserved facades and other elements of the 1911 boathouse) will all be manged by Canal Dock Boathouse Inc, a not-for-profit organization operating under the leadership of former Yale rower and later Olympian John Pescatore.
Pescatore, who this spring introduced dragon boat racing to New Haven harbor, said as the new group gets its sea legs, more dragon racing, canoeing, kayaking, and sailing will likely take place out of the boathouse. He said the activity will fall under the rubric of “affordable access to non-motorized boating and education” that celebrates the river and the Sound.
Allan Appel Photo
Gilvarg, Hall, and John Plante of Langan Engineering.
Gilvarg reported that when the complex project required another $10 million for for materials, design, and permitting fees, the state capped its contribution. The Federal Highway Administration came through to fill the gap.
The point person who secured that “mitigation funding” was New Haven U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Monday she hailed not only the jobs the project has and would create, but its contribution to “historical elements within a new modern design.”
Along with the city’s growing food truck festivals at Long Wharf, the project, she said, “will change the under-utilization of the waterfront.”
Future boathouse viewed from Lenny & Joe’s Fish Tail eatery.
Gilvarg said that visitors will be able to follow the historic Farmington Canal Greenway Trail to the boathouse. Bicyclists will be able to use that, too, including a section of projected dedicated cycle track along Water Street. If all goes well, drivers will find 50 dedicated parking spaces beneath the highway and across from the boathouse, along with a lot on the other side of the highway, a lot that should hold 250 cars, said city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson.
All those spaces would be leased from the state. New sidewalks, already in the process of being graded, will lead parkers to the boathouse, Gilvarg added.
Andrew Sharp, project manager, from Nosal Builders.
That Rebar is double-epoxyed for preservation purposes in the tough marine environment, said Andrew Carey, whose company, Universal Foundations, has put in tons of the stuff in other parts of the Harbor Crossing enterprise.