New Haven Independent

posted by: anon on February 3, 2010  12:55pm

Excellent news, but as part of this project can the Munson / Hillside / Mansfield be improved so that it’s actually possible for a human to cross it? 

Pedestrian medians are needed there, as well as at the main intersection in front of Tract A on Winchester (which the city just redesigned, but in a way that does not fully accommodate pedestrians of all ages and abilities). 

When will our city and local developers realize that not everyone who lives in our city is a middle-aged, able-bodied adult? 

Shame on them, and our engineers, for wasting these opportunities to make our city a far more equitable and livable place.

posted by: GoNH on February 3, 2010  1:50pm

This is great news, thank you Mr Winstanley! it’s fantastic that new haven and that part of town is seeing this investment. Cant wait to see it.

posted by: Lisa on February 3, 2010  2:41pm

Great news - I wish them luck, and hope it works out. I am all for responsible re-use, and not razing. Hey, they should make some doors and stairs-to-nowhere, as a knowing nod to Sarah Winchester’s Mystery House in California.

posted by: anon on February 3, 2010  3:43pm

Lower Winchester is the next Upper State. 

But what is Yale doing with the huge, blighted, empty warehouse across from the corner of Woodland & Winchester?

posted by: The Count on February 4, 2010  1:05pm

And how much will the expected tax breaks cost us?

posted by: Ben Berkowitz on February 4, 2010  2:36pm

Wow ‘The Next Upper State’

We must have arrived…thanks Anon.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on February 4, 2010  3:38pm

I think lower Winchester becoming the next Upper State Street is too modest. Newhallville and perhaps parts of Dixwell will be the next East Rock.
There should be great incentives for the existing companies and ones planning on locating here to provide subsidies (perhaps with contributions from the city, state and/or federal level) for employees to use to buy vacant, underused lots, and vacant houses to build on or fix up. This would save employees a lot of money due to the relative cheapness of fixer upper houses in Newhallville, along with saving is gas money and the ability to get rid of one or more cars. This would also save companies money because they wouldn’t have to build massive parking garages. Loft apartments are great, but families usually prefer a house with a lot and off street parking, which there is an abundance of in the surrounding neighborhoods. Fortunately most houses have rental units on the ground floor, which are great for owner occupied units because the rent goes toward the principle mortgage.
If enough Science Park employees do this, there would be demand for stores, restaurants, groceries, etc in the neighborhood. Upper Winchester and Shelton Ave are perfect for neighborhood based small offices, shops and eating places, while Dixwell could provide commercial space aimed more at the Hamden-Downtown corridor. Affordable housing could be provided with apartments above stores and on the ground floor units of owner occupied housing, so traditional gentrification is unnecessary.
With enough of a diverse income demographic in the neighborhood, schools would immediately improve along with everything else. However, part of the Science Park overall plan needs to incorporate jobs available to the existing neighborhood.
East Rock and Newhallville are physically extremely similar. The quality of design and construction of buildings is better in East Rock, but the types of buildings, their relationship to a network of streets, the experience of being on the street and many other things are very similar between the two neighborhoods. The existing building stock in Newhallville is perfect for adaptive reuse for ground floor retail shops, small offices, and housing. There are also enough vacant lots on the major roads that mixed use buildings of 3-5 stories would do quite well. If Science Park were to help people buy homes and invest in Newhallville like Yale has done with East Rock, there could be a rejuvenation of the neighborhood that was originally built as workforce housing for Winchester Factory and that fell into despair after the decline of our manufacturing economy.

posted by: anon on February 4, 2010  6:11pm

Jonathan,

Jobs will follow physical space improvements. You can’t just import them in. Most jobs are small businesses— not large employers who decide to plunk down in an office park, and I’m not sure we really want that many more of the latter anyways. 

There are jobs downtown, but it doesn’t help if the neighborhood feels cut off from them.

When people feel safe walking in their neighborhoods, especially at night, then the jobs will follow.

Currently, residents in Dixwell and Newhallville do not feel safe and they do not have very good access (via walking, bus, biking, etc.) to the rest of the city.

Construction jobs can be brought in, if the state changes its economic policies so that developers can work in cities (doing infill etc.) rather than being forced to go to greenfield locations in the far-out towns to make a profit. This can be done by increasing the historic preservation tax credit, raising the gasoline tax, taxing development that occurs on our state’s pristine farmland, outlawing building permitting fees (which are much higher in cities), building transit instead of more highways to nowhere, etc.

posted by: The3rdHorseman on February 5, 2010  8:12am

Looks like another building in Science Park where Winstanley will cut down the flag poles and not replace them. What does that Company have against flying the American flag?

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on February 5, 2010  11:38am

Anon,
I agree that it should be made more expensive to build on undeveloped land, and it should be made cheaper to do infill for developers, but for individuals as well. It seems like it would save a lot of money for companies to use the money they would have spent on parking infrastructure on subsidizing employees interested in buying homes or buildable lots that in within walking distance of Science Park. if this is successful, the demand for retail, commercial space, small offices, restaurants, etc would shift for the new demographic. From there, a series of improvements would follow, in the activeness and percieved safety of streets, as well as quality of life for existing residents. The first step seems to be to encourage those citizens already employed and future employees to live locally, which puts a group of wealthy, young-ish, and family oriented people in a neighborhood that needs private citizens, rather than public funds, who can invest in the neighborhood. Do you think that incentives to encourage this is good, just that the incentive shouldn’t be subsidies, but rather street improvements-curb bump outs, green medians, planters, street trees, etc?
Also, the section of East Rock between State and Orange was largely developed as worker housing for Erector Square and Sareant Co., so not unlike Newhallville or Dixwell. Do you know how that area was able to become so upscale/active? Perhaps whatever was done there can be repeated in Eastern Dixwell, and lower Newhallville, since those sections are nearly identical.

posted by: Melissa on February 22, 2010  11:02pm

A few thoughts on this. One of the reasons East Rock is more desirable and less run down is because most of the graduate students and postdoctoral researchers at Yale make their homes here. These are young families or mature singles coming from around the world to work at or study at Yale for several years, who want to live in affordable and safe housing within walking distance to Yale (many do not own cars). Housing for these students and workers is not provided by Yale (Yale colleges provide housing only for undergraduates). At the same time, housing in East Rock is inordinately expensive because there is high demand and many of these international folks can barely afford to live in the area.

If the Winchester factory site is turned into affordable (and safe) housing for these graduate students and researchers, it would help even out the disparity of housing costs in New Haven, allowing the high demand for East Rock housing to diffuse into other neighborhoods.

In fact, I’m surprised that they are changing these plans to offer more office space and thereby reducing the amount of rental units, considering the amount of potential demand that there will be for housing. This location is ideal for young families and international students who wish to be within walking distance of their jobs at Yale and not have to pay East Rock prices or buy a car. (Many of them also live in apartments along Prospect Street and work in Yale buildings on Science Hill, near this site)

Finally, this site’s proximity to the Farmington Canal Trail is extremely important. My family is considering moving to Hamden just to be near this trail so my husband can commute to his job at Yale safely by bicycle (and to avoid the high rents of East Rock). We would certainly have considered moving to Newhallville if it was safe, pedestrian friendly and established with professionally run housing—as the housing in East Rock is just too expensive and many of the landlords and agents are unreliable and unprofessional and take advantage of the international students’ naiveté and urgent need for immediate housing.