Kenneth Boroson Architects
Rendering of what comes next.
Allan Appel Photo
Salinas with Sullivan and Malloy at groundbreaking.
A driver manipulated a huge piece of old tech — a backhoe —Tuesday to formally start the process of bringing a new-tech and innovation campus to the dusty industrial gateway to Fair Haven.
He reached up and beneath a dust-tamping stream of water to chipped away at the upper corner of an abandoned 1950s bus barn sitting on top of contaminated land.
Thus began the demolition of an old CT Transit bus site, to be followed by the construction of a much-anticipated $22 million projected called DISTRICT: a future tech hub, beer garden, kayak launch, and a new destination that might become the Elm City’s version of Silicon Valley linking Fair Haven and East Rock along a cleaned-up Mill River.
The demolition took its first steps toward physical reality Tuesday at the groundbreaking for DISTRICT at 470 James St. by the corner of State.
Two dozen city and state officials including Mayor Toni Harp and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy shared 15 groundbreaking shovels — the demolition began afterwards — to congratulate DISTRICT lead developers David Salinas and Eric O’Brien.
Salinas, the owner of Digital Surgeons, and O’Brien, the owner of CrossFit Gym, for a decade rented space in an old swimwear factory complex directly across James Street, won a competition to buy the abandoned CT Transit site and build the new project.
After the land was transferred from the state, the city sold it to the developers for a dollar and the hopes of putting nine acres and many future businesses onto the grand list. The city and state also worked together to secure, in tough economic times, bonding for a $5.5 million brownfields revitalization grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD).
With lots of neighborhood and management team involvement and promises that the deal includes the retention of 100 jobs, the creation of some 200 to 300 more, a grassy “campus” that features local culinary pioneers like Caseus’s Jason Sobocinski, and the developers’ commitment to add a centerpiece section to the evolving Mill River Trail linking East Rock and Fair Haven, the project came before the Board of Alders earlier this year.
There it was fast-tracked to dovetail with the termination of Digital Surgeons and Eric O’Brien’s leases in their current digs at the old Robby Len factory building.
Salinas and O“Brien arranged another $16 million in financing. If all goes well, the ribbon-cutting and opening of the first businesses on the site should take place in about a year, Salinas said in post-groundbreaking remarks.
“DISTRICT is meant to be a destination,” Salinas said, calling everyone’s attention to the “CT” at the end of the word, meaning a destination that aims to draw people from all over the state and beyond.
He called DISTRICT a “campus” that would be aNew Haven first, comparable to the first and best pizza, hamburger, and other Elm City achievements that have put our town on many maps
Who else but the Caseus Cheese truck provided post-groundbreaking nutrients.
Others hailed DISTRICT as the state’s flagship brownfields revitalization project and the engine of developments in tech that could make the Elm City rival Cambridge or Silicon Valley.
Salinas put meat on the bones of the hyperbole.
After the demolition of the rear building, 60 percent of the remaining 105,000 square feet on the 9.3 acre campus are already signed, sealed, and leased, he reported.
That promising startincludes the businesses of the two developers: Digital Surgeons and a new entity to be called the District Athletic Club, Salinas said. The club will include O’Brien’s Crossfit Gym, as well as a yoga studio, and spinning facility.
The restaurant/beer garden tenant will be a yet-to-be named eatery whose principals are Jason Sobocisnki and his Black Hog Brewery, award-winning chef Tyler Anderson, of Millwrights eatery in Simsbury, and Chef Jamie McDonald.
Salinas said a co-working space will also occupy 15,000 square feet of DISTRICT along with an e‑commerce business from Stamford.
Of these, all are signed up except the Stamford company, which is on the verge of becoming official, he said.
All told, there are 19 spaces available to rent, although, counting the co-working spaces, Salinas estimated about 1 — businesses could be housed when the full facility is completed in about 18 months. At full operation, he said, about 300 people will come to work on DISTRICT’s cool campus.
“About 30 percent park, 30 percent parking, and 30 percent buildings. That allows us to have a campus feel, with a gorgeous interior courtyard,” he added.
DECD Brown Fields Remediation Project Director Don Friday by an area of the Mill River to be dredged.
Salinas was introduced to the governor and explained that the rear building would come down entirely except for the smokestack, around which perhaps the bar of the restaurant-to-be might be constructed. “A monument to our industrial past,” Malloy said of the smokestack.
New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar reminded listeners that the building about to come down was erected in 1950 as the latest, modern facility yet, one that would replace all those clattering trolleys with newfangled rubber-wheeled buses.
“Those [1950s structures] were put up by risk-takers,” Lemar said, “and we are doing that again with David and Eric.”
DECD Deputy Director Tim Sullivan reported that in addition to the $5.5 million for remediation of the property, the state recently approved an additional $2 million in bonding to clean up the Mill River in the area that DISTRICT fronts. He said it will mainly involve dredging to remove PCBs and other contaminants from the riverbed.
The architect on the project is Ken Boroson. The general contractor is Urbane NewHaven, LLC, a company co-owned by Eric O’Brien. The other developer partners of DISTRICT include Pete Sena, of Digital Surgeons, and Mark Dillon, co-owner of Urbane New Haven.