Paul Bass Photo
(Updated Thursday 12:59 p.m.) A gentrifying downtown block will soon lose some of its most struggling denizens, as the Salvation Army prepares to shut down a George Street rehab facility.
The 40 or so men who live in the Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) at 301 George St. learned Monday morning that the facility will close on June 16. The evangelical Christian charitable organization—which allows men in recovery or otherwise unable “to cope with their problems and provide for themselves” to live mostly for free in return for participating in “work therapy” for the group — has promised to find the men spots in other regional facilities.
The Army is closing its ARC in Bridgeport, as well, merging it and the New Haven operation into its Hartford facility. The organization just closed its last outpost in lower Manhattan’s Bowery.
The Army decided to merge the Connecticut ARCs in the interest of efficiency, according to Trish Raines, spokeswoman for the “Eastern territory.” She said she didn’t know if the organization plans to sell the two-story 4,536-square-foot brick George Street building, which was constructed in 1900. It’s attached to another 1900 brick building, which has 7,834 square feet and which the program uses for meetings. The property includes a 6,576-square-foot warehouse as well.
The Army also owns a 9,360-square-foot family thrift store directly behind the George Street ARC, at 274 Crown St. Raines said Wednesday the Army has “no plans to close the store at this time.”
(Update: Another Salvation Army spokesperson emailed this information on Thursday: “A satellite intake office will be opening at the Army’s New Haven Citadel Corps Community Center on George Street. It will provide initial intake counseling and referrals for area residents interested in our services and transportation to the Hartford program will be provided free of charge to those accepted. Also, the rehabilitation center is funded mainly through in-kind donations of clothing, furniture and other household items that are sorted and recycled or sold in The Salvation Army’s Family Thrift Stores throughout the state and, as Trish confirmed for you, there are no plans to close the New Haven store.)
As the Army has been ministering to the needy and the poor (as well as to bargain hunters) at those two locations, the surrounding block has gentrified. A popular brick-oven pizza and drinking establishment, bar, opened up. A developer recently won approval to convert a dilapidated parking garage next to the thrift store, at the corner of Crown and High, into 24 modern market-rate apartments. The biggest change: As the ARC boarders clear out, right next door a construction crew (pictured above) is busy digging up half the block to construct a $50 million project called “College & Crown” (pictured below) with 160 luxury apartments and ground-floor retail.
Centerplan
Tenants shuttling Tuesday evening in and out of the ARC, which is set back from George in a parking lot across from the 300 George St. biotech center, expressed dismay at the news. They declined to be identified by name or photographed.
“Right now people are upset,” said one. “There’s a lot of turmoil.”
“It’s kind of a bummer. I hate to see the place go. I don’t know if I’ll go to another facility, or if I’ll go on my own,” said another.
A third boarder, who said his nine months at the ARC have “helped me get clean,” said he “would have hoped they would have told us a little sooner” than this past Monday that the center will close on June 16.
Captain Bayode Agbaje, the Army official in charge of the George Street ARC, and Major Dean L. Satterlee, who oversees the local Army HQ up the street at 450 George (which he said is staying put), declined to comment for this article.