Fair Haven, Downtown Biz Boosters Team Up

The Grand Avenue Special Services District voted to partner with a sister business improvement organization downtown to try to raise funds to cover the costs of everything from cleaning graffiti off of buildings to power-washing sidewalks to improving the area’s trash collection, all with the goal of making Fair Haven a safer and cleaner place to shop.

That budding collaboration between the two different neighborhood business improvement districts took shape Wednesday night during the latest monthly meeting of the Grand Avenue Special Services District Board of Commissioners at the Fair Haven police substation at 295 Blatchley Ave.

At the meeting, the Fair Haven group’s board voted to partner with the Town Green District to work on submitting two applications to a newly available city-managed, federal-pandemic-relief-funded grant program called the Neighborhood Economic Opportunities Challenge (NEOC). That program funds events and initiatives that promote economic prosperity, awarding from $5,000 to $100,000 to approved projects. 

Time and again at Wednesday’s meeting, over a dozen participating Grand Avenue business owners like Musa Ugurlu voiced concerns and priorities around promoting the economic well-being of the Fair Haven neighborhood as a top priority for the group — and as driving the partnership with the Town Green District. 

Ugurlu is the treasurer of the Grand Avenue Special Services District, a business improvement district consisting of Fair Haven business owners that ​“seeks to attain a strong, vibrant, retail-successful avenue that is a desired customer destination for New Haven residents and visitors.” 

“The cleanliness of our area is important to us, and security and sense of safety are our number one priority,” said Ugurlu when asked what types of projects to be developed on Grand Avenue matter to him.

Through a federal pandemic-relief-funded city grant presented by city Economic Development Officer Malachi Bridges, local businesses, as well as the Grand Avenue Special Services District, will have the opportunity to invest in new projects that will address these concerns. 

At Wednesday’s meeting, Executive Director of the Town Green District Win Davis presented a potential proposal for the grant to the business owners. 

The proposal included using the grant to bring the Grand Avenue Special Services District closer to what downtown’s Town Green Special Services District currently is. 

Davis suggested a collaboration between both Special Services Districts, allowing for the newer Grand Avenue Social Services District to take advantage of the resources that the downtown district, which has over 20 years of experience and success, already has in place.

“For these types of Special Services Districts, we usually like to start with projects having to do with cleaning and safety,” said Davis.

Davis’s words were exactly what the business owners present wanted to hear. With the Town Green District, Grand Avenue has the opportunity to apply for two grants worth $100,000 each, money to be used to employ a full-time manager to advise and oversee community betterment projects, as well as to fund these projects.

“We can take the Downtown Special Services District as a model of what we can aspire to become,” said Lee Cruz, director of community outreach at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, who translated all of Davis’s proposals to Spanish for those present.

Davis took the opportunity to ask those present what they, given their approval of the proposed collaboration, would like to see implemented as betterment projects for the Grand Avenue area. The responses from the business owners were varied yet central in their purpose: increase business on Grand Avenue by making sure patrons feel safe and welcome.

“We have a lot of immigrants in our area,” mentioned Ugurlu. ​“A lot of them don’t feel safe walking around at all times of day, especially mothers with children. Their safe feeling will bring more business.”

Similarly to Ugurlu, many of the business owners presented examples from their own daily lives that they hope to correct in order to improve customers’ experience at their establishments and increase business. 

They brought up a variety of cases — from how the motorcycles riding on the sidewalks outside their properties have run over patrons coming out of their businesses, to how illegal parking near their establishments causes traffic that prevents people from properly parking and coming inside.

Severiano Burgos brought up the amount of loitering happening daily outside his Grand Avenue business, El Jíbaro Hair Cut, that leads to patrons feeling unsafe, driving them away. His wife and business partner, Wanta Bernier-Burgos, brought up that the trash left outside their shop by these loiterers brings smells and displeasure to potential customers.

“That’s if they even walk here; a lot of people are scared to even walk on Grand Avenue,” responded Alberto Bustos, Fair Haven tax preparer and owner of Expresso Latino Travel. ​“We have a lot of problems with speeding and people running red lights.”

Those present took turns explaining to Davis the different concerns they hope to address through the grant’s funding. In the end, the Grand Avenue Special Service District Board of Commissioners approved the proposal to work with the Downtown Special Services District in reaching their collective goals.