Markeshia Ricks Photo
Shansky presents plan.
Another 51 apartments are coming to the former Downtown Chapel Square Mall and its attached 13-story tower unit.
The City Plan Commission last week voted unanimously to approve two site plans to convert six existing office spaces in the former mall into apartments, and another 45 office spaces in the tower unit at 900 Chapel St. The conversion would bring the total number of apartments to 161. The six offices in the mall represent 6,134 square feet on the second floor.
It is the latest step in an office-to-residential transformation that started in the 1990s at the former indoor mall and the commercial tower across from the Green.
Philadelphia-based PMC Property Management Group owns the former mall and its tower through two separate limited liability corporations. Its attorney, Marjorie Shansky, told commissioners at last Wednesday’s meeting that the conversions represent merely the interior alteration of existing space. The conversion in the tower will happen on the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors of that building, which comprise about 34,485 square feet of space.
PMC Property Management
The mall’s existing “open space” courtyard.
Shansky said that existing courtyard in the center of the former mall meets the city’s zoning ordinance regulation for “usable open space.” Deputy Zoning Director Tom Talbot wrote in the memo that though the courtyard is covered by a roof, there “is a substantial open area extending from the top of the building around the courtyard up to the actual roof overhead.”
Talbot also noted in his memo that the courtyard has asphalt paving and doesn’t have other interior elements such as heat and air conditioning.
“In addition, the open area above the building and under the roof, while screened, has nothing int he way of doors windows or any other construction that would allow for the degree of enclosure required for [the] creation of a mechanically controlled interior space,” Talbot wrote.
The New Haven Parking Authority is providing up to 26 parking spaces in the Temple Street garage for the new tenants of the new additional units. PMC also will provide 731 square feet of bicycle storage in an existing bike room on the first floor of the mall. The parking authority will provide the spaces for up to 10 years, according to a report from City Plan staff.