596-8 George; inset: Martson at Dwight meeting.
Historic preservationists in Dwight accused Yale-New Haven Hospital of trying to demolish a treasured George Street building by neglect — while the hospital responded that the neighbors thwarted their efforts to turn the property over to Habitat for Humanity over a year ago.
Real estate agent and Friends of the Dwight Street Historic District organizer Olivia Martson aired her concerns at a Dwight community management team meeting Tuesday night. She alleged that the hospital is letting a property which spans 596 – 598 George St. — just across the corner from the hospital’s St. Raphael campus — sit until it’s too far gone to rehabilitate.
“The roof needs to be fixed, but I really want to save that building,” Martson said, after being awarded a certificate by the management team for her dedication to the neighborhood. Martson said that if the building’s roof is not patched up, water damage will occur. Neighbors signed on to a petition Martson drew up calling for preservation of the building.
Built around 1885, the Queen Anne-Romanesque Revival style multi-family house has been documented by the state’s Historical Commission and sits within the boundaries of the Dwight Street Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. The building once served as the office of two longstanding New Haven obstetrician-gynecologists, Drs. Bernard Conte and Marianne Beatrice, attending physicians at Yale-New Haven and St. Raphael’s for over forty years.
Preservationists call the building a “lynchpin” property that helps anchor the Dwight and West River neighborhoods.
A notice of intent to demolish, filed by Y‑NHH in April 2015, led Friends of Dwight to rally against the hospital’s initial plan, which would have entailed handing the lot over after demolition to Habitat for Humanity for affordable housing. The group eventually drew the support of City Plan Executive Director Karyn Gilvarg. The hospital — after suggesting that it might put out a request for proposal for redevelopment — backed down from the demolition.
A number of groups, from the not-for-profit Neighborhood Housing Services to the local for-profit Pike International company, have expressed interest in the property since the issue was first brought to light. Martson argued that any number of those options could work out. Martson also suggested that Y‑NHH use the property as short-term housing for medical students.
Michelle Liu Photo
In response, the hospital’s community relations liaison, Andy Orefice (pictured), called the issue of the building “beat to death.”
“We’re not entertaining doing some kind of weird rental thing‑y,” he said of Martson’s idea, pointing out that Y‑NHH is first and foremost a hospital.
The cost of renovating the building to the standards set by the city’s historical commission would be an exorbitant $1.1 million, he said. The whole project, including the issuance for of request for proposals, had been put on the back burner. Whatever the building’s fate, the hospital aims to have the lot be residential and owner-occupied, Orefice maintained at the meeting.
Martson had sent her fifth letter to the hospital on behalf of the Friends of Dwight on Monday. “Very sad,” she said after the meeting. She said she found the idea of a single owner residing in the property at odds with the mixed-use, commercial-skewing nature of the location.
When asked if the hospital is indeed planning demolition by neglect, Orefice demurred, pointing to the cost of redeveloping the building.
Yale-New Haven spokesman Mark D’Antonio said Wednesday that plans for 596 – 8 George are currently “on hold with no specific time line to move forward.”
One bright spot: Orefice confirmed that another historic building at 1389 Chapel St., which had been given a facelift by St. Raphael’s and NHS in the early 2000s before its acquisition by Y‑NHH, has been leased to the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America of Southern Connecticut. The building — once without functioning water or lights save one light bulb in the basement — is now in the works.
“We always know, in our community, Olivia will look for good housing and green space,” community management team Chair Florita Gillespie observed of Martson after the meeting.