Markeshia Ricks Photo
Tour hits George Street.
A commercial building instead of a police station in at 1 Union Ave. Another one in the historic former New Haven Railroad building. A now half-empty Church Street South razed and reborn as a 900-unit, mixed-use and ‑income development.
City officials asked U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal to envision all those changes — and to help them make them happen — on a one-mile walking tour from Alexion Pharmaceuticals’ 100 College St. headquarters to Amistad Park.
At Blumenthal’s request, Mayor Toni Harp and about 40 city department heads, politicians, bike and Hill neighborhood advocates pointed out during a tour early Monday evening, the strides New Haven has made in making the city more bike and pedestrian-friendly. And they raised suggestions for how state and federal dollars could help make things even better. Blumenthal also got to see changes that have already started taking place near the train station, Ninth Square, and Yale medical area.
The tour started at Alexion’s 13-story headquarters, which is part of the first phase of the city’s “Downtown Crossing” project. That project has been replacing the old Route 34 Connector mini-highway-to-nowhere with revived streets between downtown and the Hill. The goal is to recreate a neighborhood feel that allows people to walk and bike safely, while allowing developers to put up new offices, apartments and stores.
Phase II of the project reconnects Orange Street with South Orange Street near where a Montreal developer is theoretically going to build a $400 million new-urbanist community on the site of the former New Haven Coliseum.
The city received $16 million from a federal TIGER grant to help make the first phase happen. It has since received a second $20 million grant that will get the city started on Phase III, which involves connecting Temple Street to Church Street South. (The city had asked the feds for $40 million and now must reexamine plans for Phase III. Phase II is taking place by the old Coliseum.)
Reclaiming Garage Alley
Hausladen explains the improvements and needs of “garage alley.”
City economic development chief Matthew Nemerson pointed out to Blumenthal that since the rise of Alexion and the tech/biotech center at 300 George St., several new housing developments including the 160-unit College & Crown luxury apartment complex have risen.
As the group walked down George Street, city transit chief Doug Hausladen pointed out what he called “garage alley” as the landscape gave way to a streetscape dominated by one-way streets and big concrete structures with few windows and even less foot traffic.
Hausladen described a plan to move the parking authority’s administrative office out of Union Station and into office space at the Temple Street garage, which would save $170,000 a year; and an effort to connect those who use the Temple Street garage to more public transportation such as the free downtown shuttle.
The shuttle has a stop at the garage, which helps people connect to the Green. Hausladen said the city also has made investments in CT Transit to put GPS on the shuttle, created a phone application that helps people find out the shuttle’s schedule in real time that it will roll out in a couple of weeks, and has installed screens at the garage and at Union Station that provide real time information to transit users. He said the city could use federal money to improve the streetscape around George and Temple streets, and make the area friendlier to bikes and pedestrians.
Way-finding signs at the corner of George and State .
Blumenthal said the transformation in the area made him think of his Yale Law School days.
“I am so excited and inspired to be back in New Haven,” he said. “The city has literally been transformed. It is like a different city. It is new wine in an old vessel, and the wine is wonderful.”
As the group made its way to George and Orange, Nemerson told the senator about talks the Harp administration has been having with the Knights of Columbus, which owns a park and parking lots in the two blocks between its museum and Gateway Community College. The talks concern opportunities for developing those lots into something more. He said the Knights are interested. Their interest complements the city’s plans to rebuild the old coliseum site.
“This is now the land of opportunity,” Nemerson said.
Transforming Union Ave.
Nemerson envisions a Union Avenue with no police or Board of Education HQ.
Blumenthal also heard about improvements that have been made to help people get safely from downtown to Union Station, and learned about the city’s struggle to get the state to catch on to its vision of something more than a 1,000-car, second parking garage at the train station. The city wants the state to recognize how that part of the city could be transformed in the next decade with a new Church Street South and different developments where the police department and the Board of Education now have their headquarters. A week ago, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced that a garage was all the city was getting out of plans for a second garage at Union Station — not retail space, nor a bus depot. A stance to which lawmakers, Hill neighbors and bike advocates strongly objected.
“The street becomes very important in terms of having a functioning, transportation oriented development in this district,” Nemerson said. “Those are the kinds of conversations we’ve been having [with the state] and want to continue having.”
Church Street South Reborn
Ramos updates on the status of Church Street South
Blumenthal also got an update on the status of Church Street South from Rafael Ramos of the Livable City Initiative, the city government’s neighborhood anti-blight agency. LCI was instrumental in ringing the alarm that eventually started the process of condemning mold-infested apartments at the federally subsidized, dilapidated, 50-year-old building, and moving residents out. Just over 120 out of an original 301 families remain there, and they’ll soon be gone.
Ramos said the city, working with the owners and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is on track to have the place emptied out by the end of the year. He also pointed out several reasons that the 301-unit complex has such a problem with mold: It has flat roofs that collect water, and the building is built below the level of the Long Island Sound and the concrete walls, and the space between the walls collects moisture.
Dillon and Harp.
Mayor Toni Harp thanked Blumenthal for his help advocating for portable Section 8 vouchers for residents that allowed them the opportunity to move where ever they chose. She told him that the city could use more federal resiliency money to not only shore up Union Station’s railroad tracks, which are at sea level, from flooding, but also to address flood-prone areas around Union Avenue.
“When this gets re-done with 800 to 900 units, it will be a little bit more high rise,” Nemerson said of Church Street South. “Once upon a time this site was out of sight, out of mind. But now you [will be able to] walk to jobs at the hospital, walk to jobs downtown. We can’t lose affordable housing that is walkable to downtown, now that there are so many more service jobs in downtown. This is a great place for people to get employment.”
Farewell tour at emptying Church Street South.
Nemerson told Blumenthal that is especially true for a low-wage worker who has to take a one-hour bus ride to get to work versus being able to walk to a job downtown.
The tour concluded with the recently approved plan for Stamford developer Randy Salvatore to proceed with a three-phase project that would build up to 140 apartments, 7,000 square feet of stores, 120,000 square feet of research space, and 50,000 square feet of offices on the blocks between Congress Avenue and Church Street South closest to downtown. The city has been trying since 1980 to get a developer to build on that land, a former neighborhood destroyed by mid-20th century urban renewal.
After the tour, Blumenthal said that the city’s future holds “immeasurable promise.”
“The promise for more jobs and economic development is just exciting and inspiring,” he said. “New Haven is on the cusp of really explosive job creation and I’m going to go to work in Washington to make sure we invest in that vision.”