Paul Bass Photo
No, this isn’t Brooklyn.
It’s an exposed-brick, exposed-pipe upscale one-bedroom in Winchester Lofts, a former-factory complex converted into rental apartments at the crossroads of Winchester Avenue and Munson and Henry Streets.
Abe Naparstek (at far right in photo), senior vice-president of Forest City — the firm that also built the Brooklyn’s sprawling Atlantic Yards/New Jersey Nets mini-city—cut the ceremonial ribbon Thursday afternoon for Winchester Lofts’ completed $60 million first phase with city, state and Yale officials under a tent in the complex’s floral interior courtyard. Renters are paying up to $3,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment there, in the heart of what was New Haven’s late 20th century industrial decline. (The four $3,000-a-month apartments are all rented, he said.) Naparstek said 70 percent of the 158 apartments (studios and one- and two-bedroom) are already leased in the project’s completed first phase. “Young professionals,” grad students and associate professors are among the renters, he said. Studios start at $1,300 a month.
With the help of a $4 million state CHAMP (Competitive Housing Assistance for Multifamily Properties) grant (which helps subsidize apartments set aside at “affordable” rents), Naparstek’s company renovated the battered guts of factory buildings where up to 18,000 people once churned out Winchester rifles for a succession of corporate owners until the final 186 workers lost their jobs and the plant closed for good in 2006. Naparstek called the project one of his firm’s “most challenging” because of its “huge environmental issues and structural issues.” For instance, it had to replace 40,000 square feet of wood decking.
Some of the discarded beams were reborn as sculptures by local artist Susan Clinard, displayed in the lobby.
Historic photos and posters throughout the building pay tribute to the factory’s past …
… while modern apartment amenities — like a yoga room — hint at a lifestyle far removed from the machinist days of yore.
The old factory probably didn’t have a doggie bath, either. Winchester Lofts has this one.
Dogs receive their due as well in the model apartment displayed after Thursday’s ribbon-cutting, from the leash-hook at the entrance …
… to the art on the walls.
City Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson noted the dramatic changes in the property since 1983, when the not-for-profit Science Park Development Coproration began retrofitting the abandoned gun factory buildings to serve as high-tech incubator space. Now several of the buildings are humming with economic activity; one success story, Higher One, renovated an entire building into a 140,000-square-foot Google-like corporate headquarters. Nemerson was the number-two official in Science Park’s early days. He noted how Yale has since moved operations to the complex, as well; and a developer is bringing a downtown-style patch of apartments and an outpost of the G Cafe coffee shop a block away on Munson. The blue-collar Winchester past has given way to a gentrified future.
In remarks before the cutting of the ceremonial ribbon, Yale Vice-President Bruce Alexander made a policy pitch: “Based on what happened here … we have hope that the legislators who live on the East Shore of New Haven will support increased air service at Tweed-New Haven Airport.”
Now that Naparstek’s firm is done with the 158 in the first phase, it is embarking on phase two: this stretch of the old Winchester, where he plans to put in another 200 apartments, with the help of $4 million in environmental remediation help from the state. Look for another courtyard, with an outdoor pool and bocce court, Naparstek said.