101 College, Route 34 Fill-in Ground Broken

History had a chuckle Monday as government and business leaders grabbed shovels near the border of the vanishing Route 34 Connector.

The leaders gathered to mark the start of the latest phase of New Haven’s ongoing work to fill in the Connector, a never-completed mini-highway built during mid-20th century Urban Renewal to enable suburban drivers to zip in and out of the city.

As the shovelers flung symbolic dirt in the parking lot of the 2 Church St. South medical office building, a Manafort Brothers crew (pictured) began work on Phase 3 of the project, called ​“Downtown Crossing.” This phase will fill in the mini-highway between Temple Street and Congress Avenue, connecting the Hill and Downtown with a slow-speed road friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.

They were also marking the start of construction of 101 College St., a 10-story 500,000 square foot bioscience tower, depicted in the above drawing, to rise directly across from the 100 College St. bioscience tower.

The historic irony: In the 1950s and 1960s, the predecessors to the mayor, governor, senator, alders, and business execs gathered at Monday’s groundbreaking would gather in the same area to break ground on projects that destroyed neighborhoods. New Haven was at the forefront of that national Urban Renewal experiment: It received more federal and foundation money per capita than any other city to destroy buildings, erect new ones, and test out social programs all in the name of ending poverty. (Didn’t happen.) The Route 34 mini-highway, called the ​“Oak Street Connector,” displaced 881 families and 350 businesses when it was built in 1959.

Now New Haven is again at the forefront of urban highway planning: It is one of four U.S. cities already filling in previously built highways, as two dozen others look to follow suit. (Read all about that in this New York Times article.)

New Haven began working a decade ago on filling in the Connector. It secured $36 million in federal grants and $21.5 million in state money to make it happen. U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro announced Monday she will seek another $20 million for Phase 4 of the project through the renewed Congressional earmarking process.

“It was the federal government that tore this all down. Now it’s federal money that’s building it all back up,” observed former Mayor John DeStefano (at right in above photo at Monday’s event with Assistant Police Chief Karl Jacobson), whose administration got the project rolling.

At an hour-long ceremony preceding the raising of the symbolic shovels, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal noted the original plan called for the Oak Street Connector to continue miles west to connect highway drivers to the Naugatuck Valley. But construction stopped after a mile; hence the ​“road-to-nowhere” and ​“mini-highway-to-nowhere” nicknames.

“Route 34 became a road to nowhere because of a broken promise. — the broken promise of Urban Renewal,” Blumenthal declared. ​“Today we are fulfilling a broken promise.”

Hill Alder Ron Hurt reached further back than Urban Renewal to put Monday’s event in context — to the federal Home Ownership Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps that designated neighborhoods like the Hill undesirable areas for investment, which is believed to have set a pattern of selective urban disinvestment, redlining, and racial and economic segregation that lasted generations.

Hurt and fellow Hill alders along with the city negotiated agreements with builder Carter Winstanley to help Hill residents apply for and obtain some of the 700 – 1,000 expected long-term jobs created by the project. Winstanley also agreed to include classroom space in 101 College for New Haven Public School students to learn research skills alongside some of the companies there. Similar tie-in projects were struck with Gateway Community College and Southern Connecticut State University.

“We have experienced 80 years of segregated development. Neighborhoods like mine have been cut out of opportunity,” Hurt said in sermon-style remarks that woke up a crowd wilting after an hour in the outdoor heat. ​“We ran for office to change this history … of segregated development.” He called the city’s deal with Winstanley ​“a job well done in working with us. This gives us hope that our children will not be forgotten.”

Yale President Peter Salovey spoke of how the project fits into New Haven’s emergence as a bioscience hub. Yale entities have already signed us as major tenants of Winstanley’s 101 and 100 College Street buildings — just as it did with bioscience projects he has successfully carried out over the past two decades at 300 George St. and at Science Park.

The neuroscience-focused Wu Tsai Institute is filling floors that Alexion abandoned at 100 College St. At 101 College, Yale has committed to renting 125,000 square feet of space. Arvinas, which develops drugs to treat cancer, has committed to 160,000. A coworking outfit called BioLabs has committed to another 50,000.

“This is a momentous day for New Haven,” Mayor Elicker declared.