Thomas Breen photo
414 Chapel St. today.
Paris and Trachten.
Plans to convert a 68,000 square-foot office building on the edge of Wooster Square into 87 new market-rate apartments won a key city sign-off in the latest entry in New Haven’s ongoing apartment construction boom.
That approval came Wednesday night at the City Plan Commission’s regular monthly meeting on the second floor of City Hall. Commissioners unanimously voted in favor of the site plan and special permit applications required for the residential conversion of the capacious four-story, former industrial building at 414 Chapel St. in between Wallace Street and East Street.
Local developer Mendy Paris showed up Wednesday to pitch the project alongside local attorney Ben Trachten, architect Sam Gardner, and engineer James Sakonchik. The project’s applicant is Carriage House LLC, a holding company owned by Paris and Sim Levenhartz, and the building is currently owned by Morgan Reed Chapel LLC, a holding company owned by Massachusetts investor Joseph Jannetty.
Gardner walks through the project’s site plan designs.
“The 87 units are as of right,” Gardner said. The project will contain 14 studios, 46 one-bedroom apartments, and 27 two-bedroom apartments. The studios will average 500 square feet, he said, the one-bedrooms will average 600 to 650 square feet, and the two-bedrooms will average 950 to 1,000 square feet.
“These are not micro-apartments,” Paris said. Even though the project is too early in development to commit to specific apartment rental prices, he said, these apartments will be “20 to 25 percent lower than comparable apartments downtown.”
The new Wooster Square-area project comes on the heels of 25 new apartments planned for across the street at 433 Chapel St., 23 new market-rate apartments planned for the neighborhood at the former St. Michael’s Church school buildings on Greene Street, as well as nearly 300 new market-rate apartments planned for 87 Union St.
Will this project include any affordable units? Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand asked.
The level of investment required is “too high to entertain affordable housing at this site,” Trachten said. He said the developer is interested in pursuing every funding opportunity possible for this project, and pointed out that the rental prices will be closer to “workforce,” even if they’re not technically “affordable.”
Local developer Mendy Paris, attorney Ben Trachten, engineer James Sakonchik, and architect Samuel Gardner
“It’s a very important policy priority for the city right now,” he said. Even though the commission cannot compel developers building as of right projects to include a certain percentage of affordable units, he said, since the city has no inclusionary zoning policy on the books right now, he encouraged Paris to pursue whatever funding he could that might allow for cheaper rents.
The office building currently houses the businesses All Our Kin, Trachten said. Because the development will take place over two phases, All Our Kin’s will remain in place for the duration of its current lease, which the developer plans not to renew in pursuing an entirely residential project.
“It’s a handsome industrial mill building,” Gardner said, “with a lot of windows. They lay out nicely for apartments.”
City Plan Commissioner Leslie Radcliffe, Chair Ed Mattison, and Commissioner Adam Marchand.
The building will have a pool, 77 on-site parking spaces, a bicycle rack that will accommodate eight bikes, and an in-door bike storage room that will accommodate upwards of 25 bikes. The parcel currently has over 100 on-site surface parking spots, Trachten said. “I don’t think you could find a blade of grass” on the entire site, he said. That level of impervious area will be reduced with the new development.
The city will likely soon build a two-way cycletrack on East Street that connects to the existing one on Long Wharf, City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said. Positioning this building right at the center of the city’s burgeoning bicycle infrastructure network.