Yale’s New Drama, Theater Building OK’d

Yale won a key city approval for its plans to construct a new seven-story drama school and Yale Repertory Theater building — at a downtown corner where the university intends to demolish five existing buildings, and then incorporate the brick wreckage into a new mural.

The City Plan Commission unanimously signed off on that arts development proposal Wednesday night during its latest monthly online meeting.

The commissioners voted in support of a site plan review and a Class C soil erosion and sediment control review for Yale’s construction of a multi-story Dramatic Arts Building at the northwest corner of Crown and York streets.

The affected addresses for this building project will be 321, 333, 337, 341, and 353 Crown St.; 142, 146, 148, and 150 York St.; and 1156 Chapel St.

The proposed development will be up to seven stories tall, plus a mechanical penthouse above. It will contain around 188,294 square feet of gross floor area, as well as around 28,706 square feet of mechanical and below-grade space. And it will include new classrooms, offices, production and technical shops, rehearsal and meeting spaces, a 100-seat studio theater, and a new 400-seat Yale Repertory Theater.

The new building will house the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale graduate school program; the Yale Repertory Theater; the university’s undergraduate program in theater, dance, and performance studies; and the Yale Dramatic Association undergraduate student theater group.

“We really do believe that this is a major contribution culturally to New Haven’s downtown,” said Yale Associate Vice President for New Haven Affairs and University Properties Alexandra Daum. ​“It is going to be an amazing educational facility, and also a theater for the public.”

Click here to read a previous article about this proposal.

During the public hearing section of Wednesday’s meeting, City Plan Department staffer Alexander Castro read aloud a letter written by the New Haven Preservation Trust’s Sarah Tisdale raising concerns about the project.

In particular, Tisdale criticized Yale’s planned demolition of ​“five historic buildings that are designated as contributing structures to the Chapel Street National Historic District.” Those buildings are located at 341 – 353 Crown St., 337 Crown St., 142 York St., 146 York St., and 148 York St.

“The loss of so many contributing buildings will negatively impact the historic district as a whole,” Tisdale wrote. 

She said that, during conversations among the preservation trust, Preservation CT, the State Historic Preservation Office, and Yale, preservationists recommended incorporating one or more facades of these buildings into the new dramatic arts development, ​“or relocating one of the brick townhouses to a vacant site on the same block. Neither of these suggestions was adopted.”

Click here and here for articles about other recent demolitions by Yale in this part of downtown.

Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand asked the university to speak more about the preservationists’ demolition concerns Wednesday night.

Yale-hired attorney Joseph Hammer kicked off the university’s response by noting that the preservation trust’s letter and its historic concerns ​“are beyond the scope of the site plan review process and regulations and decision-making criteria.”

That said, Kristina Chmelar, Yale’s associate director of planning, told the commissioners that the university does intend to ​“salvage the brick from the existing structures, which we don’t typically do.”

Yale will then take those bricks from the demolished buildings and create a mural on the inside of the new theater building. 

Passerby will be able to see that mural through the new building’s glass facade. The mural will represent a sort of ​“recollection of the structures that previously occupied the site.”

Nearby, Chmelar said, Yale will also be adding a new pocket park at 166 York, replacing the sun room at 172 York, and doing roof and masonry repairs at 168 and 170 York and window restorations at 305 Crown, among other improvements to existing buildings.

“There’s no way we could collaborate more with the historic district?” asked Commission Vice Chair Ernest Pagan.

Chmelar countered that the university is already collaborating with the preservationists, by agreeing to take the brick from the demolished buildings and create a new mural. 

“It’s going to be quite a beautiful piece that will have some arched lintels” and other brick features, she said. She repeated that it’s going to serve as a ​“recollection to the past,” and will be visible through the new building’s glass wall.

Just to clarify, will that brick mural be ​“new construction” or a preservation of the existing buildings, around which Yale’s new development will be constructed? asked Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe.

New construction, Chmelar replied. ​“It is dismantling the buildings and taking the good pieces of salvaged material and putting it back in an area very close to where they are, and calling back the history of that site.”

Before the commissioners voted unanimously in support of Yale’s proposal, Marchand expressed ​“a little disappointment in the demolition of those existing buildings,” as well as ​“excitement” about the university’s efforts to make this building so energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

The new building will be powered entirely by electricity, and it will be heated and cooled in large part by a system of geothermal bores. It will seek a LEED Gold certification. ​“It’s tremendous for this large institution to show leadership in this area,” Marchand said. ​“What we can do to reduce the cost of heating and cooling, reduce the carbon footprint involved in our maintenance of our buildings, is actually really important. I appreciate the university showing leadership in this area.”

Radcliffe, meanwhile, praised the university for preserving part of this block’s history through the planned new brick mural. And she reflected on the reality that cities like New Haven are always changing — and that’s fundamentally a good thing.

“I do have interest in preserving some of our historic structures, but not at the expense of being able to do more, to do better,” she said.

In the past, Radcliffe noted, these now-historic structures ​“were future structures, and something else had to be removed in order for them to come to pass. Where there may have been a green pasture, a building is put up.

“If we kept everything historical, there would be pretty much nothing going on. I’m not overly concerned with preserving historical structures when it does not allow for room to produce or plan for brighter future uses.”

And with that, the five commissioners present voted unanimously in support of the Yale theater building development, clearing the way for the demolition and construction to come.