Melissa Bailey Photo
Recession be damned, Mayor John DeStefano announced he’s moving forward with an ambitious plan to undo urban renewal and re-stitch downtown with the Hill over a highway.
Buoyed by signs of local economic growth amid a global recession, DeStefano announced that he intends to get going this year on the so-called Downtown Crossing project — a plan to redevelop 10 acres of downtown land that was razed 50 years ago during New Haven’s urban renewal heyday to make way for a highway that was never completed.
He emphasized his commitment to the project on and off the dais at his State of the City address Monday in City Hall.
“This project is going to happen. The city will make it happen,” the mayor said after his speech. (He’s pictured above speaking with Fair Haven Heights Alderman Alex Rhodeen Monday night in aldermanic chambers.)
Click here for an in-depth discussion and commentary on his speech in a virtual house party with the Independent writers and readers.
In all, the Downtown Crossing project aims to create over 1 million square feet of offices, stores and homes, generating “millions” in taxes and “thousands” of jobs, DeStefano said. The project aims to double the size of downtown and “build a bigger platform for job and taxbase growth in the city well into the decades ahead.”
Courtesy of City of New Haven
DeStefano used the occasion to unveil a proposed building elevation (pictured) for the first phase of the project, dubbed “100 College Street.” The building, undertaken by developer Carter Winstanley, would sit next to the Air Rights Garage, in a space that’s currently used as highway. The new plan shows 400,000 square feet of office, laboratory and retail space. (Click here to read about a previous plan.)
“Instead of a highway to nowhere, we can deliver a project that will create some 900 permanent jobs” and a 1,200 construction jobs, DeStefano said.
The highway, the Route 34 Connector, helped destroy a neighborhood that used to bridge downtown with the Hill.
DeStefano’s announcement at his speech Monday night came as a recession has stalled other ambitious downtown plans, including a condo tower on College Street and Long Wharf Theater’s relocation downtown.
Downtown Crossing/ 100 College Street was one of two major pricey initiatives DeStefano focused on in his address. The other was school reform.
The mayor said he plans to bring a proposal to the Board of Aldermen this year for 100 College Street. He needs the board’s approval to close Exits 2 and 3 of Rt. 34 and start working on major infrastructure changes to make way for the project.
DeStefano aims to close those exits at the end of this year, or at the beginning of 2011. The project has received $5 million in federal funds and initial approval from the state; more approvals and money are needed.
Winstanley’s building will finance itself, DeStefano told reporters outside his office after the speech.
“The hard job we’ve got to deal with is the highway,” which was built in the 1950s and ‘60s, he said. The city is applying for $40 million in federal stimulus money to redo the infrastructure, which would require reconfiguring city streets and shifting the main entrance to the city. Federal funding is a gamble — either it will come through, or it won’t. Either way, DeStefano said he’s determined to get the project moving.
“One way or the other, we will find the resources to deal with rearranging the highway,” he said. “That highway did tremendous damage” to the city when it tore through the Oak Street neighborhood in the ‘50s and ‘60s, he said. It separated downtown from the train station and from the emerging medical district.
At that time, city planners “didn’t know that the fastest-growing part of [Yale] university, the city’s largest employer, would be the medical school and the hospitals,” he said. Yale and the medical industry were vital in allowing the city to grow its grand list by 2.8 percent this year, bucking recession-era trends, he pointed out.
“100 College Street is important not just for the 900 jobs” but “in terms of connecting downtown back together,” he said.
DeStefano declined to address legislative priorities or the budget in his speech.
After his speech, DeStefano was asked how he intends to fund his other major initiative — an ambitious school reform campaign. The mayor has said he aims to raise $100 million in private and public funds to finance the five-year initiative. Monday, he sounded confident in New Haven’s ability to secure federal funds.
But if he can’t raise enough money, the mayor said as a last resort, he would raise taxes to support the initiative.
“School change is so important to the future of the city,” DeStefano said, that he will “make cuts elsewhere” or raise revenues to carry out the school change plan.
DeStefano asked about another hurdle he did not mention at the podium: The exodus of top brass at the police department. He spoke just hours after Assistant Chief Peter Reichard put in retirement papers, after being suspended Friday in due to what the police chief called “numerous” incidents of improper behavior. Police Chief James Lewis and two assistant chiefs are on their way out after short stints in New Haven, helping to re-right what was then a scandal-plagued department.
DeStefano said Reichard’s departure is “disappointing,” but “his behavior was frankly unacceptable.”
The mayor said his focus moving forward will be to find a new police chief.
In the meantime, he said Assistant Chief Stephanie Redding — the only one of four assistant chiefs who’s sticking around — will likely serve as acting chief once Lewis leaves on Feb. 28. Redding appeared with Lewis at the speech Monday night in formal police attire.
“You’re the last one standing,” an alderman said as he shook her hand.