Kenneth Boroson Architects
A design rendering for new apartments at 16 Miller St.
A nonprofit development duo is one big step closer to building 56 new affordable apartments atop a long-vacant strip of Route 34 land, now that the builders have secured more than $17 million in state and federal subsidies for the project.
The New York City-based NHP Foundation sent out an email press release this week about reaching that funding milestone for the new housing project planned for 16 Miller St., which is bounded by Ella T. Grasso Boulevard to the west, North Frontage Road to the north, Tyler Street to the east, and Legion Avenue to the south.
The NHP Foundation and the locally-based West River Self Help Investment Plan (WRSHIP) plan to build atop that 4.3‑acre site 56 new townhome-style rental apartments, as well as a clubhouse, a community center, a coffee shop/bakery, parking, a playground, and a gazebo, according to the press release.
NHP Foundation
An aerial view of the latest rendering for 16 Miller.
The new apartments will include 14 units for households earning up to 30 percent of the area median income (AMI), 23 units for residents earning up to 50 percent AMI, seven units for residents making up to 60 percent AMI, and 12 market-rate rentals.
NHP Foundation Senior Vice President Jamie Smarr told the Independent that the project has received $13.2 million in federal tax credits from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA), a $4 million loan from the Connecticut Department of Housing (DOH), and additional Section 8 vouchers from the city’s public housing authority.
He said the project should cost roughly $24.2 million to build, and that the development team anticipates beginning construction in the Spring of 2022.
The next immediate step for this project, he said, is crafting a final Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) with the City of New Haven, which still owns the vacant Rt. 34 strip of land where the developers plan to build.
Markeshia Ricks file photo
Co-developers Smarr and Dawson (center) at a 2018 City Plan Commission meeting.
“This is really a big step in putting the community back on this parcel that was torn down decades ago” during Urban Renewal, Smarr said. “We think it will do a lot for affordable housing, and a lot for the City of New Haven in connecting downtown” to West River and the Hill.
WRSHIP President Anthony Dawson agreed.
“I know it’s going to happen,” Dawson said about the planned development. “Now it’s just a matter of taking our time” and working out a land disposition agreement with the city before beginning construction next year. “We’re optimistic.”
“The project represents the first new housing to be constructed on a vast stretch of land in New Haven that has been vacant for over four decades,” Dawson is quoted as saying in the press release. “It is also a major step for the inclusion of New Haven’s African American community in major economic endeavors.”
The development project first won site plan approval from the City Plan Commission in September 2018. Alders then granted the project a 17-year tax break later that fall.