Audubon Square OK’d; Look Out Brooklyn?

The city gave the final needed approvals for a new mini-neighborhood to rise from a downtown parking lot, following a debate about how quickly New Haven can model itself on the car-free Brooklyn lifestyle.

The approvals came Wednesday during a City Hall meeting of the City Plan Commission.

South Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners cleared the final site-plan approval and permitting hurdles to begin building the first $75 million phase of a $160 million project on a ​“super block” bordered by State, Grove, Orange and Audubon streets.

(The city created buildable ​“superblocks” during the urban renewal era of the mid-20th century by eliminating small side streets.)

In its first phase, Audubon Square, as the development’s called, will feature 269 market-rate rental units, plus 3,900 square feet of retail, and a pool and rooftop terrace on 285,000 square feet 335 – 367 Orange St. on the northwest corner of the block. Construction, expected to last 18 months, could begin as early as this summer.

Click here to read Spinnaker’s site plan and special permit application.

The land, which formerly housed the New Haven Register until the mid-1980s, has served as a surface lot for nearby Frontier Communications. Spinnaker now has the OK to construct a seven-story apartment building there as well as a 716-car garage, for which the commission granted a special permit Wednesday night. Spinnaker agreed to build the garage when it purchased the land from Frontier as an accommodation for the 525 employees who currently park at the site.

Despite concerns that adding more cars will worsen congestion and disrupt bus riders and pedestrians in the area, commissioners unanimously approved the project after the city described planned traffic-mitigation strategies. Developers will now need to collect sign-offs from various city agencies proving they meet permit conditions.

“Can’t You Ever Favor Anything Good?”

After the commissioners voted Wednesday night, a heated debate outside the room in the City Hall atrium about the parking garage the broader transit and development challenges in an era when developers like Spinnaker are knocking down the city’s door looking to build market-rate apartments.

That debate took place between city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson and Anstress Farwell, head of the New Haven Urban Design League,

Downtown might need these parking spaces today, sure, Farwell argued, but is building another lot a prudent decision for the city’s future? If New Haven hopes to poach residents from Brooklyn and Boston — a strategy Nemerson has promoted — should it devote all that prime space to accommodating automobiles rather than denser mixed-use development?

n written comments to commissioners, Farwell had criticized the ​“inappropriately located” and ​“poorly designed” parking structure. In its place, she argued Spinnaker should have instead submitted plans for a 12-story apartment tower on the corner of Orange and Grove — a denser streetscape the zoning technically allows.

Nemerson, who also favors dense development, told her New Haven isn’t ready for projects of that scale. ​“A lot of Anstress’s theories are absolutely correct for other cities and other times,” he said.

As much as ​“new urbanists” aspire to remake Elm City in the image of a metropolis like Vancouver or Portland, its economy doesn’t yet match it, he argued. New Haven still relies on commuters, Nemerson pointed out: both suburbanites working in the city and reverse commuters heading out. With a ​“lousy bus system” and ​“trains [that] don’t go that many places,” he added, retaining 525 parking spaces for Frontier isn’t that bad of a deal.

“Think about the infrastructure that goes into adding 1,000 people to Guilford. You need new roads, new sewer systems, new plumbing, new cul-de-sacs,” Nemerson said. By comparison, ​“this is an environmentally sound project. This is using space so accurately, so well, to have people going out in the daytime” — Audubon Square residents — ​“and nighttime” — Frontier employees heading home.

“This is going to generate bicycle trips and pedestrian trips. People will be shopping locally. Not driving in their car out to East Haven to go to Shop & Stop,” Nemerson said

Nemerson, wearing a tie depicting cartoon cars and buses, raised his voice, which echoed through the atrium: ​“My god, Anstress! To be against this is so wrong. Can’t you ever — can’t you ever — be in favor of anything that’s so good?”

If the problem is crummy public transit, Farwell rebutted, why not fix that?

“You build me a subway system; I’ll get rid of all the parking,” Nemerson replied.

“We just need good buses or streetcars,” Farwell retorted. Why hadn’t Mayor Toni Harp followed through on promise to create transportation improvement districts? she asked.

“We Still Pay A Cost”

The city looked into utilizing tax-incentive financing for this area, Nemerson said, particularly because the administration originally thought it would be on the hook for building a new parking garage. ​“I thought this developer (or whoever it was) would come to me and say, ​‘I just bought this land. You, city, have a year to get these 400 friggin’ cars off there, because I’m going to start development.’ And Frontier’s going to move out of town if you don’t find them free parking. How lucky are we that we don’t have to put a penny into that?”

Farwell wasn’t buying it. ​“But we still pay a cost,” she pressed.

“What cost?” Nemerson asked, barely audible, in disbelief.

“The cost is the land that could be used for better, productive purposes. More housing with less parking,” Farwell answered. ​“All kinds of purposes that human beings are inside,” she said. Essentially, not cars.

Maybe the city isn’t doing enough to fix the regulatory structures impeding growth, Nemerson conceded. But projects like Audubon Square, at seven stories, are a good start.

“Anstress, it comes down to, we’re trying to make a great city a block at a time,” he said. ​“We are fighting a battle to get people to move here, to get taxes here. The federal government wants to kill cities, especially New England sanctuary cities.”

For now, it seemed, a gradualist approach would win out. For the time being, Brooklyn and Boston don’t have much to worry about.