Coliseum Site Redo, Take 2, Takes Shape

(Updated) A Norwalk-based developer plans to begin construction next spring on a new seven-story, 200-unit apartment building to be built at the corner of Orange Street and George Street.

That’s the first phase of a planned transformation of the 5.5‑acre surface lot atop the former Coliseum site into a mini-city of 700 apartments and tens of thousands of square feet of new retail, restaurants, offices, labs, and open green space.

Spinnaker Real Estate Vice President Frank Caico divulged those development details Monday night during an hour-and-a-half virtual presentation about the potential future of the Coliseum site. The meeting was organized by city government’s economic development team.

Spinnaker and the New Canaan-based investment firm The Fieber Group took over the development project in July 2019 after the Montreal-based firm LiveWorkLearnPlay failed to realize plans laid out in a 2013 agreement with the city.

Caico’s presentation Monday offered the first detailed look at how Spinnaker’s vision and design plans for the site have evolved since the Norwalk-based company first held a few community meetings on the planned building project last fall.

“This is a very iconic redevelopment site for downtown New Haven,” said Caico (pictured). ​“It’s large parcel. It’s a vacant surface parking lot. The idea is: How can we develop and design a plan that meets the needs of the community and the neighborhood, and doing it in a way that’s more on a pedestrian scale.”

Caico, architect Heather Wassell, and landscape architect Wesley Stout said that the development will be built over the course of three phases: Phase 1A, Phase 1B, and Phase 2.

Phase 1A will include the 200-unit apartment building at the northwestern corner of the Coliseum site, at Orange and George. It will also include roughly 16,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, 43 ground floor-parking spaces at the new building, a triangular public plaza just east of the new building closer to State Street, and a landscaped ​“shared street” or ​“laneway” to the south that will bisect the site and connect Orange and State.

Wassell said this ​“shared street” will be open to both cars and pedestrians, with landscaping and street demarcations separating the two uses and discouraging high speed travel. Caico said some of the planned retail will be lined along this new street, as well as on the outward-facing edges of the development site.

To the south of the ​“shared street” will remain 238 surface parking spaces, Wassell said. At least, for the duration of Phase 1A, until new construction replaces those spaces later on in the project’s development.

Stout added that the open space on the northeastern side of the site — near State and George — could be used as a seasonal outdoor ice skating rink or as an outdoor movie theater in between the completion of Phase 1A and the start of the next phase of development.

Caico said that, pending site plan approval by the City Plan Commission later this summer or fall, Spinnaker plans to begin construction on Phase 1A in Spring 2021 and complete construction within 18 to 24 months.

Phase 1B and Phase 2, meanwhile, should bring in significantly more apartments, another public plaza, a new parking garage, and, potentially, new office towers and lab space.

Caico said the total development as currently envisioned by Spinnaker should see the construction of 700 apartments, 594 parking spaces, 50,750 square feet of retail and restaurants, 44,440 square feet of public open space, and 199,950 square feet of office and/or lab space.

Per the terms of the Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) with the city, Caico said, at least 20 percent of the apartments must be affordable, and at least 10 percent of that set-aside must consist of two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, rather than studios and one-bedrooms.

That means that a total of 140 of the 700 planned new apartments will be set aside for tenants who earn between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income (AMI), said Greg Fieber of The Fieber Group.

When asked how the affordable units will be funded, whether through grants or density or some other outside source, Caico and Fieber said that, per the DLDA, some public funding will be used to subsidize those affordable units. (Update: See below for a response from the head of the city’s housing authority.)

“The vast majority of the affordable units will be funded through private capital,” Fieber said.

Will the garage be engineered to be convertible to other uses? asked Anstress Farwell.

“We’re exploring that,” Caico replied. He said that such engineering would require the garage to have flat-plated sections to allow for a transition at some point in the future into another use, like residential or office. He said that is much more expensive than building a typical, precast garage with sloping plates.

Will the project require any kind of zoning relief from the city? asked one listener.

“None whatseover,” Caico replied. ​“We are completely within the BD zone both in terms of use and density.”

When asked about how the Covid-19 pandemic and associated economic crisis has affected the project’s timeline, funding, and feasibility so far, Caico said that the pandemic has had little impact on the timeline in terms of design, entitlements, and city design submissions.

“We’re still meeting the timelines as laid out in the DLDA,” he said. He said he still expects to begin construction in Spring 2021.

“Once we have our approvals and are ready to go out to capital markets to get financing, I can’t answer that question right now,” he continued. ​“We are hearing that multi-family development and construction is still very desirable from a lending standpoint, so we expect that the capital marktes will be there.

“But I can’t predict 100 percent until we’re ready to go out with a detailed plan, probably later this fall or early next year.”

Caico said that Spinnaker plans to submit detailed site plans for Phase 1A to the City Plan Department in the next few weeks. Those plans should be the subject of City Plan Commission review and public hearing later this summer or fall.

Housing Authority Head: ​“Workforce” ≠ ​“Affordable”

Per the terms of the DLDA, which can be read in full here, the city shall work with the developer to secure 19 Project Based Section 8 Vouchers and $1.5 million in capital funds from the city’s housing authority.

The DLDA also states that the city and the housing authority shall seek to secure between 135 percent and 150 percent of ​“Fair Market Rents” for Phase 1’s affordable units.

And the DLDA defines affordable as ​“housing restricted to low income and workforce households with household incomes between 50% and 120% of the Area Median Income as defined by the applicable affordable housing programs.”

Elm City Communities/Housing Authority of New Haven Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton told the Independent that the developers’ aiming for the higher end of that affordability range is simply untenable.

“If they are seeking to do 140 units at 80 to 120%, that’s a non-starter for us,” she said by email Thursday. ​“I have no product that subsidizes at that income level. Vouchers could not be used for that and our ECC/HANH funds would not be used for that.”

She said a family seeking a two-bedroom unit would need to make in excess of $60,000 to $70,000 a year to qualify for the ​“affordable” units at 80 — 120 percent AMI.

“Our programs target families up to 80% of AMI,” she continued. She said that the housing authority houses families’ whose average income for similar family sizes is typically in the $20,000 to $35,000 range.

She said there is a need for ​“workforce” housing at 80 – 120 percent AMI. But rents associated with that level of income are simply not ​“affordable” for the very poor.

“Communities thrive when there is opportunity for all,” she wrote. ​“Hopefully their private funding will subsidize units at that level.”