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The new six-story building Yale plans to erect on a parking lot will contain 51,777 square feet of floor space, rise 73 feet at its highest point, and present a brick-and-glass facade to Elm Street, according to a filing with the zoning board.
Yale submitted the filing — requests for a variance and a special exception — in time to be heard at the Feb. 10 meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA).
As previously reported here, Yale seeks to replace the surface parking lot at 272 Elm St. with the six-story building. The first two stories of the building would house stores and be taxable by the city. The top four tax-exempt floors would house graduate students in 41 two-bedroom apartments equipped with kitchens. The project continues a trend toward a “denser,” built-up downtown with more housing and retail.
Yale needs the building to house graduate students because the university is converting the dorm around the corner at the Hall of Graduate Studies on York Street for academic use. It aims to open the dorm in 2017.
Yale can erect a building by right to include housing and stores on the Elm Street lot. The specifics of the design require zoning help.
In the filings, by Yale Associate Vice-President for Facilities John Bollier, the university asks for a special exception to allow zero parking spaces on a lot that would require 145 spaces under the zoning code, 101 for the two retail floors, 44 spaces for the Trailblazer store and Maison-Mathis restaurant on the first floor of a building it owns next door on the same lot as well as for a restaurant on the first floor of another building it owns at 316 Elm St.
The lot also abuts Tyco Printing in the Broadway shopping district, and, in the rear, Yale’s Davenport College.
In the filing Bollier argues that the exception will not have a “material impact” on traffic or parking or future development. The building will fill a “gap in the streetscape,” “complement” nearby businesses, and fit into the city’s comprehensive plan to promote “the concentration of facilities and efficient use of current lands” downtown, he argues.
“[A]mple parking is available in the area to support the existing and proposed retail and restaurant uses on the Consolidated Lot as well as the restaurant at 316 Elm Street, including both on-street spaces and parking lots available to the public,” Bollier writes. “In addition, a substantial portion of the patrons of the retail uses on the Consolidated Lot are and will continue to be persons who are already in the area and parked, whether shopping, dining or attending theater performances or athletic events, and these persons will not be generating new car trips or parking demand. The site is also well served by public transportation with a Yale Shuttle and a Connecticut Transit bus stop directly in front. Significant levels of pedestrian access to the site are expected form students, area residents, and visitors already in the area.”
Yale already provides parking for the graduate students living and soon-to-be-living on the block in its overall parking plan, according to the filing.
The filing also seeks a variance allowing a total floor area ratio of 2.984 rather than 2.0; and allowing the rear yard to run 16.4 at its narrowest point, rather than the 24.34 feet required under zoning law. Some of the yard will actually run 32 feet. Yale’s working with an irregularly shaped lot, which creates a hardship, Bollier writes. “[T]he rear lot does not align with the front lot line. The existing buildings on the lot, one of which predates zoning, are aligned parallel to to Elm Street and its streetscape, resulting in an angled alignment of the back of the existing buildings in relation to the rear (south) property line. Placement of a new building with a layout and function supporting university use on the vacant portion of the lot with the same orientation of the adjacent buildings creates an irregular rear yard.”
As for design, the “building facades will consist primarily of brick and glass with areas of metal accent panels,” according to the filing. The first and second floors, while devoted largely to retail, will also have a lobby and common area for the graduate-student tenants.
The surface parking lot currently pays $12,349.50 a year in taxes, according to mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer. The two retail floors are expected to raise the tax bill.
City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg said her department has no official position yet on the request; it currently is working on an advisory report. She proclaimed herself “generally positive” on the concept when Yale first broached it late last year. So did some of Yale’s neighbors and a sometimes critic of Yale and city development, Urban Design League’s Anstress Farwell, who said the proposal “sets a good example” for the city by “eliminating surface parking and zeroing out parking.” Some landlords argue that Yale should have students rent in the neighborhoods instead of in tax-exempt university housing.
As Yale prepared its filing last week, Provost Benjamin Polak updated the university community on building projects, in an email message.
He called the Elm Street building project “an essential part of our strategic plan to improve graduate housing and a crucial step toward enabling us to begin the long-awaited renovation of the Hall of Graduate Studies” [HGS] on York.
“[W]e have done extensive research to determine the criteria that matter most to our students. This new complex will provide the kind of living spaces students have been asking for, including kitchens and common rooms, in a fully modern facility. It will be ready for occupancy in 2017, allowing us to start work on HGS …” Polak wrote.
“[W]hen the refurbishment of HGS is completed, we will have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use the space in a new and innovative way. We have been thinking about this for a while. One exciting idea is to transform HGS into a central home for the humanities at Yale. We have heard a desire among humanities faculty and students for more collaboration across disciplines. HGS is large enough to house many of the departments currently scattered across the campus. To be clear, we have no intention of merging departments. Rather, we think that collocation might facilitate interaction. In addition, we think that an investment of this type will make a strong statement about Yale’s enduring commitment to the vibrancy and centrality of the humanities.”