Thomas Breen photo
The now-removed asbestos hazard sign, which was up at 16 Miller on Nov. 29.
The asbestos hazard signs have come down — and 56 new affordable homes are going up, now that a nonprofit development duo has officially acquired and begun construction at a cleaned-up, long-vacant strip of Route 34 land.
According to the city land records database, on Nov. 20, West River Housing Company LLC paid the City of New Haven $840,000 to purchase 104 Tyler St., also known as 16 Miller St.
The transaction marked the culmination of a years-in-the-making agreement between the city and a nonprofit development team consisting of the New York City-based NHP Foundation and the locally-based West River Self Help Investment Plan (WRSHIP).
The developers plan to build atop that 4.3‑acre site 56 new townhome-style rental apartments, as well as a clubhouse, a community center, a coffee shop/bakery, parking, a playground, and a gazebo. Forty four of those apartments will be rented out to residents making up to 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), or around $55,000 for a family of two, and the remaining 12 apartments at 100 percent AMI, or around $90,000 for a family of two. Of the 44 apartments set aside for low-income households, 14 are reserved for supportive housing in partnership with Columbus House.
The Board of Alders most recently approved a Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) between the city and the builders for this property in April, after signing off on an updated 17-year tax break agreement in February.
A design rendering of the future Cofield Estates ...
Thomas Breen photo
... now under construction at 16 Miller, as pictured on Friday.
According to the project’s lead developer, Micah Hunter, the finished apartment complex will be called the Curtis Cofield II Estates.
“We are pleased to recognize the namesake of the project, the late Rev. Dr. Curtis Cofield II, who was considered the ‘dean’ of Connecticut’s black Baptists and a champion of New Haven’s homeless and people with AIDS,” Hunter told the Independent. “He was the former leader of West River SHIP and visionary of this development.”
Hunter added that all 11 of the development’s townhouse-style buildings will be constructed to Zero Energy Ready Home and Passive House Design standards for energy efficiency; they will all be 100 percent electric, and have no gas connections.
Financing for the project from Citizens Bank construction bridge debt, 9% LIHTC Equity from Royal Bank of Canada, “soft debt” from the state Department of Housing, Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, and City of New Haven, funding from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, State Housing Tax Credit Contribution program funding, and state energy rebate commitments.
The development’s addresses are 714 – 802 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 669 – 767 Legion Avenue, and 90 – 108 Tyler Street. Construction officially began on Monday.
“The development is in one of New Haven’s priority Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Areas known as the Route 34 Revitalization Plan to connect neighborhoods to Downtown,” a NHP Foundation spokesperson, Marijane Funess, told the Independent in an email comment. “It is being completed as part of New Haven’s Downtown Crossing project, Redevelopment of the Route 34 Corridor and Hill to Downtown Community Plan.”
What the development site looked like on Nov. 29.
On a visit to the recently-sold development site during the last week of November, this reporter crossed paths with a man named Jose who lives nearby on Porter Street. Jose pointed out the two “asbestos hazard” signs hanging on the chainlink fence on the Tyler Street side of the property. He said those signs had been up for months. Was this site, and the mounds of unattended dirt nearby, endangering him and his family? Have they been breathing in asbestos hazards every time they walked by the property?
Funess, the developer spokesperson, told the Independent on Dec. 1 that remediation is complete and that the developer bought a “clean site” from the city.
City spokesperson Lenny Speiller agreed in a followup set of email comments and environmental remediation documents provided to the Independent on Wednesday.
He said that West River neighbors do not need to be concerned about asbestos hazards at the site, because it has indeed been remediated. “Air quality tests were performed every day during remediation and were always below the CT DEEP’s Remediation Standard Regulation safety standards,” he wrote. “All contaminated soil was removed from the site and all final confirmation soil samples were compliant with CT DEEP’s Remediation Standard Regulation criteria.”
Speiller said that the city’s Livable City Initiative (LCI) contracted with licensed environmental professionals to remediate the site, per a requirement of the DLDA with the developers.
He said that the signs mentioned by the Independent were posted as “a precautionary measure.” Those signs should have been removed after the remediation was complete in early September, he said, and have now been removed.
Click here to read the asbestos abatement report in full, which states in part that Eagle Environmental Inc. began excavation and asbestos removal work on July 5 and completed that work around Aug. 11.