Paul Bass Photo
Yale has begun shopping a plan to fill in a parking lot on Elm Street with a six-story building with stores on the first two floors and tax-exempt graduate-student apartments above.
Yale officials previewed the plans for the 272 Elm St. lot (pictured above) Tuesday night for the Dwight Community Management Team.
They’ve also discussed the plans with city officials in advance of a request for zoning relief.
The 41 envisioned two-bedroom apartments would include kitchens and house graduate students currently living at the Hall of Graduate Students (HGS) on York Street. Yale is renovating the HGS apartments into offices.
The introduction of stores would fit in with Yale’s efforts to build up retail in the Broadway-Elm district.
Yale owns the lot already, and can build apartments and stores there as of right, said City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg. Yale has told the city it plans to seek permission to build tight on the block — bigger, with less open side space and fewer parking spaces, than allowed under the zoning code. Such a request would need the approval of the Zoning Board of Appeals with site-plan approval from the City Plan Commission.
Martson: Too tall, and too tax-exempt.
At this point the university hasn’t submitted official plans to the city. Gilvarg said the request is expected to be submitted in time for consideration in February or in the spring.
“We’re generally positive on the concept,” Gilvarg said Thursday. “We need to see the details.”
New Haven has been promoting the idea of denser development with less parking, she noted. And mixed-use development, with apartments above ground-floor retail, has also proved popular with decision-makers.
She said that the “definition of ‘dormitory’” has evolved over the years, and that these kitchen-equipped apartments would probably fall under that definition because they’d be limited to housing students.
One key question, she and city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson said, is where Yale will find make up for some of the lost parking. The once-too-tight parking supply in the Broadway area has eased a bit in recent years, Gilvarg said. Yale graduate students who own cars would have access to Yale parking facilities elsewhere. The city sold Yale the main Broadway parking lot — or rather granted Yale a 99-year lease—to fill a one-time election-season budget gap in 2011.
Yale will work with the city to make sure there’s enough parking, said Michael Morand, Yale’s deputy chief communications officer.
“As one of downtown’s retail landlords, we care a lot about attracting people to shop. It is in our interest along with downtown stakeholders, to have” enough parking, Morand said. “Downtown has a very good parking inventory. As it relates to students, most of them don’t have cars. We have institutionally been very focused on Zipcars, becoming more bike-friendly, use of mass transit.”
Michael Iannuzzi (pictured), owner of Tyco Printing next door to the 272 Elm lot, said Yale’s building plan makes sense.
“From a selfish standpoint we would love to have our parking next door,” Iannuzzi said. But putting housing there and more retail is “the right move.”
Iannuzzi opened Tyco in the Broadway district in 1971 during his junior year at Southern Connecticut State University. “The area’s changed drastically” for the better, he said. “We were a decaying area. They’ve transformed it.”
Yale’s presentation Tuesday night did not go over as well with Dwight community activist Olivia Martson.
Martson called the plan too tall in comparison with neighboring buildings; she recommended keeping it to four stories. She also suggested putting offices above the retail. Yale could house the graduate students at its former undergraduate “swing” dorm at 100 Tower Parkway near the Payne-Whitney Gymansium, Martson said — or better yet, have the students rent in the community rather than from Yale. (Yale Law School got a $25 million gift to renovate that dorm into permanent housing for its students.)
“I think the graduate students should live in the neighborhoods surrounding Yale. There are a lot of mom and pop landlords that would like to rent to students,” Martson said. “It feels like they are becoming more insular.”
“The retail would be fine,” she said. “But I don’t want to see them not paying taxes on the housing.”
Yale’s Morand responded that it makes sense to give people “options” of where to live.
He noted that New Haven already has the country’s lowest vacancy rate — and with Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Continuum of Care building new headquarters, more employees will enter the housing market. Yale has also grown considerably. Meanwhile, its supply of dorms at the law school, in particular, dwindled to make way for offices.
“Twenty years we did face this fighting over a shrinking pie. Not so much now,” Morand said. “The reality is, happily for everyone New Haven’s residential pie has been, and we’re confident, will continue to grow. This is a modest number of beds.”
Anstress Farwell of the Urban Design League said that, while she hasn’t seen the details, she believes “overall it’s a good idea.”
“There is a public interest in making sure our central business district is built densely and that Yale uses its own campus densely, it doesn’t sprawl,” Farwell said. “Rebuilding HGS and concentrating the administrative functions there is clearly going to be necessary with the addition of the new [undergraduate] colleges.”
She also said Yale “sets a good example” for the city with this project by “eliminating surface parking and zeroing out parking.”