City Makes Waterfront Pitch To Feds

River Street is finding its groove, but it still needs some outside help. A top official from D.C. heard the pitch and got a firsthand look.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of New Haven made the pitch in Fair Haven Friday to Willie Taylor, the federal Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) regional director.

DeLauro took Taylor out to the River Street area to show him some recent improvements—part of the city’s Municipal Development Plan—and to ask for federal money to keep the improvements coming.

In particular, the city hopes to get about $650,000 from the EDA to help fund a ​“shoreline stabilization” project. That project would involve replacing the crumbling wooden bulkheads that now line the Quinnipiac River shore (in above photo) with steel bulkheads, to prevent erosion and allow safe construction on some of the currently vacated waterfront property.

The project would augment the progress the city has made over the past decade in reviving River Street, gradually transforming abandoned factory properties into new businesses.

“If you’re going to build a building, you want to make sure that it won’t be undermined by big storms in the future,” noted Jeanine Armstrong Gouin, a Connecticut engineer who helped design the shoreline project. 

The city has yet to formally submit a grant proposal to the EDA, which has a 120-day review period for funding requests. Taylor, the EDA director, stayed mostly silent as DeLauro and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. showed off the River Street improvements. (The three are pictured above.)

Taylor did briefly remind his hosts that the city must go through the EDA’s competitive funding process. Then he added, with a smile, ​“We’re on board [with your project].”

The bulkhead project is only step one for the shoreline, according to Gouin, who was on hand for Taylor’s visit. She’s also been involved with the city’s plans for a 50 foot-wide landscaped boardwalk along the same part of the shoreline where the new bulkheads will go — between Criscuolo Park and Front Street Park., about a half mile stretch. Right now, much of that area is an industrial no-man’s‑land. However, as Gouin pointed out, there are many potential boardwalk walkers at Criscuolo Park every weekend, and plenty of fishermen who brave the eroding shores.

“It’s not like, ​‘If you build it, they will come,’” said Gouin. ​“They’re already here. But we want people to be able to sit, fish and enjoy the river. They can’t do that right now.”

Alfonso Clarke is one of those who currently can’t enjoy the river as much as he’d like to. Clarke has been working at the Von Roll insulation material factory on Blatchley Avenue and River Street for 30 years. He was quick to mention that the area is much-improved since he started working, when River Street looked like ​“a battleground — some part of Iraq.” In fact, one of the city’s recent projects, in 2009, was to repave the part of Blatchley Avenue around Von Roll and to add some sidewalks.

Clarke was grateful for those improvements, but he has a grander vision for the area. 

“I’d like to see a cruise ship port. In most states with a waterfront like this, there would be a mall and tourist attractions,” Clarke said. ​“But for now, nobody wants to go to Fair Haven. I hope people will get over the fear factor and come take a look.”

Diminishing the River Street area’s ​“fear factor” is a welcome proposition for Kerry Triffin and Elizabeth Orsini, the husband and wife co-owners of Fairhaven Furniture. They’ve had their store in its current location, on Blatchley right across from Von Roll, for 27 years. In that time they’ve evolved from a wood-furniture shop into a gorgeously overflowing retail outfit, like an entire issue of Architectural Digest stuffed into half of a two-story warehouse.

One problem with doing retail near River Street, though, is getting customers. Other than the 200 or so workers at neighboring warehouses, the blocks around Fairhaven Furniture are mostly silent.

“Certainly, if we were in a more commercial area, we wouldn’t have to do as much advertising,” Orsini admits. But like Clarke, she thinks the area has potential.

“Why not have restaurants, artists’ lofts, more retail?” Orsini said. ​“I would love to be able to walk out of our door and go to a coffee shop. For now, when customers ask where to go eat, I have to direct them downtown.”

That may change in the next few years, if New Haven can get the money to build new bulkheads and a boardwalk. Orsini was skeptical about the shoreline improvements, even after being told about the city’s latest overture to the EDA.

“They’ve been talking about it for a long time. We’ll believe it when we see it.”