55 planned new apartments on Whalley, now boosted by state $.
A long-delayed, church-led affordable housing development on Whalley Avenue took a big step towards breaking ground — alongside a suite of traffic calming measures on the perilously car-heavy corridor near Stop & Shop — thanks to a $7 million infusion from the state.
City and state officials joined representatives from St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the related St. Luke’s Development Corporation on Tuesday afternoon to celebrate two grants designed to transform that stretch of Whalley. Both grants come from the state’s Community Investment Fund, and were approved by the State Bond Commission in early October.
One grant is for $6 million, and will go towards St. Luke’s construction of 55 new apartments — 49 of which will be priced at 50 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) or below — at the site of the to-be demolished Papa John’s pizza restaurant and adjacent parking lots at 117 and 129 Whalley Ave., 12 Dickerman St., and 34 and 36 Sperry St. According to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 50 percent AMI in the New Haven-Meriden metro area currently translates to an annual income of around $57,350 for a family of four.
That planned six-story development will include 3,843 square feet of commercial space, and has been in the works for over a decade.
Housing authority chief Karen DuBois-Walton (center) at Tuesday's presser.
“The third time is the charm for us on this,” said Elm City Communities/Housing Authority of New Haven President Karen DuBois-Walton, who said that the public housing agency’s nonprofit development arm Glendower will work with the St. Luke’s development team to make this project a reality. That was a reference to previous unsuccessful funding applications for a project that has been planned for years and years. “We chase every funding round,” she said. “This was the successful one.”
DuBois-Walton said that the 49 restricted affordable apartments will be made available to renters currently on the public housing authority’s 32,000-family waitlist.
City spokesperson Lenny Speiller said the total cost for the project is around $32.6 million. DuBois-Walton said construction should begin in “the last quarter of 2024,” with the 16-month-build slated to be completed and open to new tenants in March 2026. She said funding for the project is a mix of tax credits and project-based vouchers, in addition to the newly announced state aid.
Click here to read about the City Plan Commission’s approval of this mixed-use development’s latest site plan in March of this year.
Traffic calming plan and rendering (below) for Whalley between Howe and Orchard.
Mayor Justin Elicker and City Engineer Giovanni Zinn also spoke at Tuesday’s presser about a second state grant approved as part of the Community Investment Fund and by the State Bond Commission for the improvement of this stretch of Whalley: namely, $1 million that will go towards traffic-calming efforts on Whalley between Howe and Orchard.
Elicker and Speiller said these funds will support a $1.8 million total project that will see the construction of two raised intersections on that stretch of Whalley as well as one raised midblock pedestrian crossing right by the Stop & Shop, along with other traffic-calming measures and “streetscape / lighting / facade improvements.”
“Frankly, this is a dangerous road,” Elicker said about Whalley. There have been too many crashes, too many drivers and pedestrians and cyclists hurt.
Click here to watch the press conference in full.