Schematic design for The Haven.
Mayor Toni Harp had her Biagio DiLieto moment. And she ended up choosing a different path from her predecessor’s — embracing a suburban shopping center rather than fighting it.
Paul Bass Photo
Harp meets up Sunday with regular “Mayor Monday” caller Bob McCormack at a Beaver Hills political event.
DiLieto was New Haven’s mayor in the 1980s. Early in his tenure, a developer had plans to build a shopping mall in North Haven. DiLieto and his economic development team concluded that the mall would kill downtown New Haven retail, including New Haven’s own mall. So they hired an attorney and sued to stop the mall, on environmental grounds. They prevailed. (New Haven’s mall eventually went out of business anyway.)
New Haven was paid back in the following decade, when the owner of a Milford mall helped fund groups to fight plans to build a subsidized suburban-style shopping mall in New Haven, on Long Wharf. They prevailed. (But New Haven ended up benefitting, anyway, as Ikea came to Long Wharf with no subsidies, and distinctive urban-style commerce thrived downtown.)
Now Harp faces a similar challenge to DiLieto’s. The town of West Haven has plans underway to create a mammoth shopping complex right over the border near I‑95, called The Haven. Harp’s economic development team reprised the call that DiLieto heard in the ‘80s: We’ve got to stop this.
Harp decided on another tack: Leave West Haven alone. Hope the Haven happens as planned. And share in the benefits.
In the process, she ushered in a new approach to regionalism at City Hall.
Harp revealed the episode on the latest edition of WNHH radio’s “Mayor Monday” program.
She said she told her team that she’d like to see The Haven built so that New Haveners can find work there. She also argued that suburban-style outlet-store retail won’t necessarily hurt downtown New Haven stores anyway, since that’s not the city’s niche.
In sum, Harp has chosen a strategy of working regionally with suburbs to create development without trying to imitate and compete with the suburbs, the way New Haven did from the 1950s through the end of the last century, with disastrous results.
“I really think that our market for the kind of shops that we have here is a very different market than for premium outlets that will be in The Haven,” Harp argued on the program.
“The other thing that is clear to me that it is an opportunity for jobs for people in the region and New Haveners. I think right now our biggest challenge is how we get our people working and employed. Trying to stop an opportunity for another city is short-sighted. I honestly think that the people that are going to come to New Haven to shop in our shops that are unique, that are not outlets, are very different from the people that are going to be shopping at outlets.”
Harp added that, at 18.7 square miles, New Haven needs to recognize that it needn’t, and can’t, try to “have everything” within city borders. “That means that advanced manufacturing, maybe we can have it here. [Or] maybe we’re not big enough. Maybe we have to look to our suburban brothers and sisters and have an agreement so New Haveners can work there and find a way to get them there.”
The Haven is planned as a 347,826-square-foot, $200 million developoment with 100 upscale outlet stores built in two phases by the West River and New Haven Harbor. West Haven is still in the process of assembling the land.
Also on the latest “Mayor Monday” episode, Harp announced that she is creating a task force of millennials to help recruit young people to serve on city boards and commissions; and she complimented her Democratic mayoral campaign opponent, Marcus Paca, for qualifying to receive matching money under the city’s Democracy Fund public-financing system. Harp said she opted not to participate in the program because “it’s a really confusing process.”
Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full episode of “Mayor Monday” on WNHH radio, which also included discussion of the policing approach to Trump-era political demonstrations.
This episode of “Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem, Moses & Devlin, P.C.