It’s time to start exploring whether New Haven needs to start over looking for someone else to build a new project on the grave of the old New Haven Coliseum.
Mayor Toni Harp said Tuesday that she has given that message to her development chief, Matthew Nemerson.
Harp’s administration has been at odds with the developers chosen by its predecessor to build a new mixed-use project on the site of the former New Haven Coliseum, currently a 5.5‑acre parking lot bounded by Orange, George, and State Streets and MLK Boulevard. The developer, Bill and Max Reim of Montreal-based LiveWorkLearnPlay (LWLP), bought the city-owned lot and promised to build a $400 million new urbanist mini-city there with 1,000 mixed-income apartments, 30 – 40 new businesses, a four-and-a-half-star hotel with 160 – 190 rooms, 30,000 square feet of stores, and a public square.
But years after it had promised to finish the project, it hasn’t even started. It blames the city for that. The city blames LWLP. Either way, the builder has no shown evidence of having the money or any commitment from a hotel to build on the site.
Harp said in an interview this summer that Reim had promised to give her a final word within 45 days about whether he had lined up someone to buy him out or invest as a partner. Click here for a full previous story on that, and on the issues dividing the two sides.
Those 45 days have passed. It has now been more than 60.
“We will be reaching out to them about what has occurred. Ultimately we will be working with them to disengage if they now don’t have a financial commitment,” Harp said Tuesday .
Reim could not be reached for comment.
Nemerson told the Independent Tuesday that his main focus now is on completing work on the next leg of the Downtown Crossing project reconnecting downtown to the Hill by gradually eliminating the Route 34 mini-highway. The city has the money. It’s in the process of putting out bids and then getting the work started. The pace of that project is one of the sticking points between LWLP and the city.
Nemerson also noted that plenty of other projects are underway or in the planning stages near the site, from planned apartments a block away at State and Chapel to a new garage in the works at the train station. So in the short term parking will be needed at the surface lot, he said.