Allan Appel Photo
A plan to bring back to life a gateway corner of the Dixwell neighborhood advanced with some reservations on the part of city aldermen, and a new local-hiring promise.
The plan is to turn the long abandoned Winchester rifle factory at the corner of Munson Street and Winchester Avenue, the entrance to Science Park, into apartments, offices, and retail. The plan includes space to keep a fast-growing company, Higher One, in town. It would pour tens of millions of dollars into New Haven and create new jobs.
After a four-hour public hearing of mostly favorable remarks, the Legislation Committee of the Board of Aldermen voted unanimously Thursday night to pass the matter on to the full Board of Aldermen for final approval.
Meanwhile, developer Carter Winstanley announced a commitment that could lead to 25 percent of the work on the project going to smaller, minority-owned construction companies.
Technically the aldermen were advancing proposed zoning changes to a Planned Development District (PDD) created decades ago. The changes would enable developers to start work on the planned renovation.
By voting to advance the measure — but by withholding a “favorable” recommendation — the aldermen in effect allowed the porposal to head for final approval but also added their own reservations about traffic, local job hiring, and the level of input from the immediate neighborhood.
Those same issues arose last week when the matter came before the City Plan Commission, which approved it after a stormy hearing. Read about that here. Developers Carter Winstanley, David Silverstone of the Science Park Development Corporation, and Forest City Residential Group’s Abe Naparstek promised to respond to neighborhood concerns.
The passionate debate continued at Thursday night’s aldermanic hearing.
One of the impetuses for public approval of the plan is to keep Higher One in town. Having recently gone public, the college-banking service enterprise is currently bursting to expand from its current digs at 25 Science Park. (Read about that here and here.)
Phase one of the project would feature a $40 million build-out of 150,000 square feet of the old rifle factory (out of a total of 700,000 square feet) and for Higher One to move in as the first tenant, in 2012.
Further phases of the plan include 200 to 225 apartments, 80 percent to be developed at market rate and 20 percent affordable housing units, said Naparstek. A one-bedroom affordable apartment would rent for $750, he estimated.
“I’m favorable to the project,” said committee member Charles Blango. “It [the vote to advance without recommendation] gives us time to tweak it, to have meetings, to get things on paper.”
Yale Alderman Mike Jones said the vote would still allow the first reading of the plan to proceed at the Board of Aldermen next week and go before the full board for a vote on Sept. 7. Most importantly, he suggested the vote would keep on track efforts to keep Higher One in town.
“We’ll give Newhalville and Dixwell time to work out bumps in the road,” said Hill Alderman Jorge Perez. In particular, he said, the traffic plan, newly revised, with medians, new signals, and in the spirit of the city’s new Complete Streets plan, had not yet had a public hearing
City traffic chief Mike Piscitelli agreed that such a meeting should happen.
The most pervasive lingering concern Thursday night was not traffic, but jobs.
Pastor Scott Marks, who had accused developers of ignoring needs of local people at the last hearing, returned. On Thursday night his tone was less confrontational and more praiseworthy of the project. Yet he continued to express concerns about local people being left out of the new wealth creation.
While Marks did not ask specifically for a community benefits package, he brought five local contractors with him. “Over 50 years of experience here,” he said. He sketched the difficulty small contractors encounter getting work on proejcts like these.
“Can Higher One move forward, and we find a way for small contractors to get an opportunity… a role for the subcontractors from the neighborhood to be at the table … a clear-cut way [put in] in writing?” Marks asked.
That may already have happened.
In the week since the stormy City Plan meeting, developer Winstanley said Thursday night, he has had several meetings with community groups and conducted tours of the Winchester site. An office of the New Haven Regional Contractors Alliance opened up an office at Science Park, with the city’s help.
Winstanley said his team realized a firmer commitment to the local community was required. So, he announced, “We’re willing to commit to the city’s guidelines in hiring – in writing.”
That’s very significant, said Kelly Murphy, the city’s economic development chief. That will mean 25 percent of the construction budget will go to minority and small business enterprises.
The goal is also that over four to seven years of construction for all phases of the project, the workforce will include 25 percent local residents, 25 percent blacks and Latinos, 7 percent women.
Murphy pointed out that while the 360 State Street project included more significant government help and was therefore required to hew to city guidelines, the Winchester project is private. So the commitment by Winstanley and his partners was voluntary.
That was music to the ears of Andre Skinner (on right in photo, with Marks), who exchanged numbers with Pastor Marks.
Skinner, a father of five, said he is making a transition from working “in security” to becoming a union carpenter. He’s got five more weeks of training through the city’s Workforce Construction Initiative.
“Times are hard. Now that 360 State is coming to an end and Gateway [the state-overseen rebuilding of a new downtown community college campus] doesn’t care, we need this project [Winchester],” he told the committee.
Historic preservationists Anstress Farwell of the New Haven Urban Design League and Pedro Soto of the New Haven Preservation Trust also gave the project a thumbs up.
“A project such as this is a triple win for the city: For the environment [a $7 million clean-up and re-use of existing buildings]; for history; and for the Dixwell Avenue area [the jobs],” Soto said.