Paul Bass Photo
Mark Volchek recalled the college pad where he and Miles Lasater hatched a company called Higher One. Then he helped the governor and mayor cut the ribbon Tuesday afternoon on a 150,000-square foot shiny new home for their 240 New Haven employees.
The ribbon-cutting took place at Science Park, where Higher One has moved into new offices rather than leaving town to grow. Volchek (at far left in photo) and Lasater (second from right, sandwiched between you-know-who and you-know-who-else) started the company in 2000 while Yale undergraduates; they now provide financial services to students at 770 colleges across the country. They renovated two abandoned former Winchester rifle factory buildings to serve as their new headquarters. (They have another 350 workers at plants in Oakland and Atlanta and on the road.) Higher One is spending $46 million on the project. The state kicked in $2 million and the feds $3.5 million for environmental clean-up; the state also provided another potential $18.5 million in tax credits.
The new Higher One HQ’s gleaming exterior presents quite a contrast …
… to two buildings right next to it in the same complex …
… including this one, which the city still hopes that Carter Winstanley and Forest City Enterprises will renovate into apartments, stores, and offices.
In official remarks, Mayor John DeStefano noted the symbolism of the event. Winchester used to employ some 18,000 people in the mid-20th century. Then the jobs left, and the surrounding neighborhoods declined. Higher One represents the new-economy businesses New Haven hopes will create new jobs for people in those neighborhoods and throughout the city. “We still make things. We tend to make things with ideas” now, DeStefano said, adding a plug for his and the governor’s school-reform efforts in order to prepare citydwellers for new-economy employment. Higher One expects to have 368 employees in the New Haven headquarters by 2018.
Architects Barry Svigals (at right in photo) and Jay Brotman connected the six-story two former factory buildings with a modern atrium. It’s meant as a central meeting-place for Higher Oners (who lined the upstairs rafters to watch the ribbon-cutting). A cafe serving free coffee and snacks is on the ground floor. (Can anyone say “Mountain View”?) So is a gym.
Among the hobnobbers at the event were newly elected Alderwomen Tyisha Walker, Delphine Clyburn and Brenda Foskey-Cyrus. The latter represent the adjacent Newhallvile neighborhood; when they ran for office last fall they protested outside Higher One’s building seeking local-hiring guarantees. Welcomed inside Tuesday afternoon, they said hello to Volchek during the picture-snapping post-ribbon crush. “I’m excited about it opening,” Walker said. “I’m more excited about” local people getting jobs at Higher One. The alderwomen are part of a new board majority that has launched a “Jobs Pipeline” working group. And they have a new member serving on it: Higher One’s Miles Lasater.
The event offered plenty of opportunity for high-powered tete-a-tete networking. Budget watchdog Ken Joyner (at right) buttonholed bike-commuting Downtown Alderman Doug Hausladen …
… while the Chamber’s Susan Godshall checked in with Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez …
… and city development chief Kelly Murphy schmoozed with Science Park Development chief David Silverstone.