Yale Goes One For Two

The Board of Alders Monday enabled one major project on Yale University’s development to-do list to move ahead and delayed another.

At their August monthly meeting, the alders used their unanimous consent power to vote (rather than wait a month or more to vote) in favor of certifying that no amendment is needed to the university’s parking plan for its medical area, clearing the way for the Yale Child Study to move from three locations to one at 350 George St.

But a Wooster Square alder denied unanimous consent to allow the university similar certification for a project that would transform the Hall of Graduate Studies at 320 York St. from student housing to instructional space.

Yale was preparing to go to the City Plan Commission next week with site plans for both projects. Now it will be able to present plans only for making the former Frontier Communications call center at 350 George into laboratory and clinical space for the center and Yale School of Medicine faculty and staff affiliated with the center.

Child-Study Consolidation

Yale bought the 350 George property from Carter Winstanley in early 2016 after it learned that Alexion Pharmaceuticals planned to use every floor of its 100 College St. headquarters. Yale purchased the three-story, 119,000 square-foot office building for $16.5 million, several million shy of the $20 million that Winstanley paid in 2015 for the property which was formerly a call center for Frontier Communications. (Read more about the sale here.)

In a letter to Board of Alder President Tyisha Walker dated July 27, John Bollier, Yale associate vice president for facilities, said the university has submitted an application to City Commission to change the use of the former call center to a university use to facilitate the consolidation of the Yale Child Study Center. The center currently operates in three downtown locations 230 Frontage Road, 40 Temple St., and 98/100 York St.

“All of which is a source of confusion and frustration for families,” Bollier noted in his letter. ​“The laboratory space will support research at the Yale School of Medicine.”

Because the former Frontier building is located in a business district, or BD, zone, Yale is permitted by right to change the use of the space to a university use.

“The renovation to the interior space includes building and life/fire safety upgrades, mechanical and electrical upgrades, and installation of new interior partitions, finishes, lighting, and furniture. A new roof will be installed and new windows will be installed in the existing building façade,” Bollier wrote. ​“No parking spaces will be added or lost as a result of the project. There is no parking requirement for university use in a BD district. Further, parking will not be required under the zoning ordinance in any event because the faculty and staff are being relocated from other nearby University facilities, the University uses to be located in the building are existing, no new faculty or staff will be added, and no places of assembly will be created.”

Work at 350 George St. is expected to start in early 2018 and be completed by June 2019.

HGS Delay

But now it’s unclear when work will be able to begin at the Hall of Graduate Studies. Yale needs alders to give it a similar OK on a parking plan for the Central/Science Campus in order move forward with a site plan review for converting graduate student housing at 320 York St. into academic space.

Yale graduate students will have new housing starting in the fall of 2018 in the form of a six-story building that boasts 41 two-bedroom units, currently under construction at 272 Elm St. The university seeks to make the Hall of Graduate Studies into a center for humanities that features a 300-seat lecture hall and a 100-seat film screening room/classroom. As with the 350 George St. project, Yale maintains that parking spaces would not be added or lost with the 320 York St. project.

But the large lecture hall and the classroom gave pause Monday night to Wooster Square Alder Aaron Greenberg, who also happens to preside over Yale’s new graduate student union. Greenberg voted against speeding up the alders process for moving legislation by voting against unanimous consent. That means the matter now gets assigned to an alder committee to review; then if the committee votes to approve the plan, it returns to the full board for consideration.

“I know that building pretty well,” Greenberg said. ​“I have some questions when plans are calling for a 100-seat film screening room and a 300-seat lecture hall and its impact on traffic, transit, and parking. I think my colleagues need more information.”

Lauren Zucker, associate vice president for New Haven Affairs and University Properties, said failure to move the Hall of Graduate Studies project along Monday night means that it can’t go before City Plan next week. Work was estimated to start on the 320 York St. project in June 2018 and be completed in July 2020.

She said that delays the project for Yale, but also construction-related money that would flow into city coffers in the way of permit fees, and into the pockets of New Haveners in the form of jobs.

“It’s disappointing,” she said.