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A largely abandoned former factory district near the harbor may come alive with professional BMX races, kids’ basketball tournaments, and track meets if a $70 million dream under consideration by the city becomes a reality.
The dream goes by the name “Centric Sports & Cycling Center.”
A not-for-profit group has submitted a plan to build the 350,000-square-foot center on a pollution-remediated, city-owned lot at 100 River St., part of a blocks-long stretch of empty or razed factories where the Quinnipiac and Mill rivers converge on Fair Haven’s southern border.
The group — the not-for-profit Everybody Plays Foundation — is currently negotiating details of the plan with the Harp administration.
The center would include four venues under one roof, according to an initial submission to the city:
• A “world class 200-meter velodrome” — or oval bike-racing track — “with 2,500 permanent seats.”
• A “world class BMX track with bleacher seating for 2,500.”
• A “world class 200-meter running track with hydraulic banked turns [and] flex seating.”
• A “team sports hall with 6 – 8 basketball courts and soccer field [and] flex seating.”
The plan envisions a dozen “3‑day World Cycling League meets” a year, “up to 50 track and field meets,” amateur competitions, collegiate and high-school meets and practices, youth and adult leagues, basketball tournaments, camps and coaching programs inside the facility.
Mayor Toni Harp said she hopes to see the plan come true.
“If we can do this, it will absolutely turn that area around,” she said in an interview. “We will be one of the only indoor track operations in the state. We’ll be able to get regional games here.”
“This would be huge,” agreed Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo of the Livable City Initiative (LCI), the city agency handling the negotiations. “It would transform an area that’s been sitting for many years without any new infusion.”
The city has been working for years on a $20 million-plus revival plan for the Mill River District. Click here and here to read about some of that.
As part of that work, it had the former Hess oil site at 100 River cleaned up, then purchased it in 2012 after a deal fell through to move Colony Hardware there.That’s the land the foundation now proposes to buy to build the facility.
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Rick Mayer and Sue D’Aniello started the Everybody Rides Foundation (referred to alternately in the city proposal as the Everybody Plays Foundation) to promote cycling and sports and to pursue the “dream” of a grand indoor velodrome.
“Sue and I have been working on this thing for over four years now. It’s been a dream of mine over 20. To have the mayor behind this and Bill Dixon on board” is “very exciting,” said Mayer, who lives in Guilford and has worked in sustainable agriculture and with a small family foundation. D’Aniello ran D’Aniello’s Amity Bicycles shop with her husband.
“We can’t envision a better site than this. It’s a central location. You can see it from [I-]95. The neighborhood for 25 years has been in dire need of something,” Mayer said.
He said the group has raised an initial $50,000 to jump-start the project. It is currently negotiating a sales price for the land with LCI. After that, the proposal would go before the city’s economic development department for review, then the Board of Alders for approval, Neal-Sanjurjo said.
The proposal claims the center would bring in $10,195,892 in revenues its very first year from corporate sponsorships, ticket revenues, and unspecific foundation and government investments. It would spend $9,166,102. The proposal anticipated a spring 2017 groundbreaking and fall 2018 opening.
“We have consultants we’re working with to raise” up to $70 million, claimed Mayer. The proposal lists New Haven’s Svigals + Partners as the architect.
Click here to view the group’s website for the project.