Elkus Manfredi Architects/ NH Biz
Rendering of proposed 101 College tower.
A second Winstanley-built tower has appeared on College Street — at least on paper.
The 500,000-square-foot biosciences lab and office tower would have an address of 101 College St. It would include incubator space for life-sciences start-ups as well as conventional office and meeting space.
Developer Carter Winstanley would build it across the street from the 530,000 square-foot Alexion office tower he built at 100 College St.
For years city officials have been negotiating with Winstanley to build the second tower to meet the demand for bio lab and tech space in town. Those negotiations are progressing well, according to city development chief Michael Piscitelli.
The tower would be built on land filled in on the former Route 34 Connector mini-highway-to-nowhere, as part of the ongoing “Downtown Crossing” project connecting downtown to the Hill. Under the deal, the state, which owns the land, would deed it to the city, which would in turn sell it to Winstanley (who also converted the 300 George St. complex into lab and office space, as well as the 25 Science Park building).
Winstanley’s architect on the project, Elkus Manfredi, has drawn a rendering of the proposed tower (pictured above), which has begun making the rounds and building public interest in the project. The New Haven Biz news site first published the rendering and reported that story Wednesday, with details of the planned building and business community reaction.
The city still has some obstacles to overcome before finalizing a proposed 101 College land disposition agreement with Winstanley, which would then go before the Board of Alders for review. The chief one involves engineering, Piscitelli told the Independent Wednesday. The city originally applied for a $40 million federal TIGER grant to fill in more of the former Route 34 Connector as Phase III of the Downtown Crossing Project. That would include preparing the land for the 101 College tower. The city ended up receiving $20 million, not $40 million. So it has been working on redrawing the plans to fit the available budget, so they can still support the proposed new tower.
The city is also working with a developer to retrofit unusued space at the former Higher One complex in Science Park to open up the much-needed lab space in town. A similar idea to add new lab space last year at the DISTRICT tech innovation center in Fair Haven ended up not materializing.