Busy Builder Pressed To Hire Local Workers

Hillhouse High School graduate and proud local young carpenter Davon McNeil, 27, is enthusiastic about his profession and his town. A carpenters union member, he commutes daily to a project in Bridgeport.

He’d love to hammer the boards and do the framing of the many rising new buildings in his native New Haven.

But the builders, when they acquire their properties in private transactions involving no city help, don’t have to hire local.

That issue was at the heart of a polite but impassioned conversation that unfolded at the regular meeting of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team meeting Tuesday night at City Hall.

The gathering attracted nearly 50 people — half of them carpenters like McNeil and local safety-vest wearing tradesmen like Darren Smith and his crew of dry wall installers. They showed up to make their case for local hiring to team members and to Frank Caico, vice president for development of the Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.

One of the most active builders in town, Spinnaker is in the midst of completing the first phase of its ​“super block” of 269 new dwellings called Audubon Square, on Orange near Audubon Street; . It is about to start building a new Hilton Garden Inn hotel at Orange and Elm; and a large new development on the old Comcast site at the corner of Olive and Chapel streets. It has also assumed a leading role in plans to build a mixed-use complex on the site of the former New Haven Coliseum.

Caico attended the meeting to unveil preliminary plans for the 132-room, five-story Hilton Garden Inn on the soon to-be-razed site of the old Webster Bank building at 80 Elm St.

It was into Caico’s ears that McNeil’s older carpenter colleagues like Manny Gines and Tim Sullivan of the New England Carpenters and Joiners Union Local 326 made their impassioned arguments.

“Economic development starts with community development,” said Gines. ​“We don’t want a developer to bring contractors in from out of the area.”

Gines reported that he had recently visited the Audubon Square project and spoken — in Spanish, he added — to members of the crews working there. They were from out of town , he said. Some told him they were being paid in the $15 to $20 range, far below the going rate for carpenters, especially union carpenters.

“We want developers to pay a livable wage and with benefits,” Gines declared. ​“We are all residents” who would turn those wages into fuel for the local economy.

“I appreciate the point,” Caico responded. ​“We’ll be hiring a general contractor [for the Hilton], and that contractor will solicit bids for every trade. We wouldn’t exclude any qualified contractors.”

“Our issue isn’t quality but fair wages,” Gines responded.

“We talked to you about this on Audubon, and we got the same dog and pony show. The guys at Audubon, that contractor has labor violations, and yet you still hire him! What do you bring to New Haven other than a sketchy past!!” pressed Tim Sullivan.

“I beg to differ,” Caico replied. ​“You have a vacant property [at 80 Elm] for many years, and we are making a huge investment. We plan to be a corporate citizen. I appreciate what you’re saying, but it’s unfortunate you don’t appreciate what we bring to the table.”

A neighbor, Urn Pendragan, questioned the need for a hotel. Caico said Spinnaker’s marketing studies indicated a dearth of hotel rooms, a point echoed by other local hotel developers and by city economic development officials.

“We could build that, but the opportunity is closed,” argued Darren Smith, who runs a minority-owned local contractor called HouseSurgeons. ​“You’re the developer. You can’t make it happen for us?”

Caico repeated that the general contractor will hire the subcontractors. He said all qualified folks who apply will be considered.

“We like to pull trades from the regional and local market, but at times there’s some specialty trades, and the general contractor will collected bids from all that are qualified,” he said.

Another tradesmen called out from the line of yellow vests in the back of the crowded room: ​“You keep on washing your hands by pushing it to the general contractor.”

“Community Values”

The meeting might have gotten out of hand had the management team chair, Caroline Smith, not kept tight yet polite control. Smith allowed speaker and counter-speaker to take turns, maintaining time limits. Rather than spiraling into an accusation-followed-by-defense, the conversation turned into a genuine discussion of the role the city has, if any, in private transactions when no city land or money is involved.

Because of New Haven’s hot real-estate market, builders like Spinnaker have come in without the lure of public subsidy and have not purchased city land — which means their projects don’t fall under hte purview of city hiring requirements.

Caico pointed out that even his appearance at a management team meeting was not required now that Spinnaker has received all needed approvals for the hotel. He said he showed up in the spirit of being a good corporate citizen.

“There are many community values,” countered Urban Design League’s Anstress Farwell, ​“that haven’t been honored [in this process]. There’s an historic building here [being razed]. The project [design] has no relation to our historic Green just a few steps away. I say to the city: This has not been an appropriate process. It doesn’t look like Elm Street. It’s more fitting for Long Wharf or the Berlin Turnpike.”

“We followed all the rules. It’s not like we didn’t want a public hearing,” Caico countered. ​“The zoning was in place. The BD zone allows all this. I take exception that people are insinuating we didn’t go by the book.”

As the laborers filed out of the room into the corridor above the City Hall atrium, Darren Smith said he was disappointed by what he had heard.

“Look,” he said to a reporter, as his crew gathered around him. ​“They should use local talent. We are ready to work.”

“We are going to continue to be a presence,” he added.

As he stood with Davon McNeil, an old carpenter and a new one, Sullivan said, ​“the conversation has got to be about contractors who don’t hire local people, not so much union versus non-union. I also love the argument about historic buildings. But we want folks like this young man [McNeil] not on the street, but earning a living wage so that he can raise a family. If there’s a level playing field, Davon will succeed.”

“We want to be part of everything in New Haven,” McNeill said. ​“It’d be delightful, and a much better commute,” he added.