Residential Waterfront Plan Pitched

Imagine picking up lunch at a food hall, picnicking as kids play in a sculpture park, and viewing New Haven Harbor up close as residents move in and out of two new apartment towers.

A developer offered that pitch at a hearing about plans to build up to 500 apartments on Long Wharf.

That pitch came Wednesday night during the latest virtual meeting of the City Plan Commission. The three-and-a-half hour long meeting took place online via Zoom.

The focal points of Wednesday night’s agenda were two related land-use applications about Fusco Corporation’s plans to build up a 4.3‑acre site at 501 and 585 Long Wharf Dr. that currently consists of a parking lot, a lawn, and a currently vacant restaurant building. The site is right next door to Fusco’s current Maritime Center office complex at 555 Long Wharf, the product of the company’s first-wave, office-driven build-up by the harbor three decades ago.

Fusco and its various related companies have applied for a zoning ordinance text amendment to modify Planned Development District (PDD) #53 to allow for residential use of up to 500 apartments at the 501 – 585 Long Wharf Dr. site. They’ve also applied for a coastal site plan review for that same bid for residential use.

Commissioners did not vote on either of the applications Wednesday night because, as City Plan Director Aicha Woods said at the start of the public hearing, the city is still waiting to receive comments from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) on the coastal site plan review.

Both items were continued until the commission’s next regularly scheduled meeting on Oct. 20, by which time the city hopes to have received the necessary input from DEEP.

The bulk of Wednesday night’s hearing consisted of Fusco’s lawyer, designer, architect, engineer, and traffic analyst walking the commissioners through a high-level version of their redevelopment plans for the site. They stressed again and again and again how underused this section of the city currently is, and how Long Wharf’s redevelopment needs one big push to get started.

They also consistently cited the city’s Long Wharf Responsible Growth Plan from two years ago as a guide and a catalyst for what they hope to help build out along the waterfront.

“The land that we own has lain fallow, moribund really, for many, many years,” Fusco Corporation President Lynn Fusco said. ​“That’s a result of market conditions. We now feel very confident that New Haven has experienced a real excitement, not so much in commercial office space, but in residential development.”

Fusco’s plans share the same goals of the Long Wharf Responsible Growth Plan’s mission to ​“transform Long Wharf into a more productive, more available resource for city residents and future residents,” said local attorney Matthew Ranelli, ​“recognizing that it is not currently serving its highest and best function, to put it politely.”

410 Apts., Landscaped Park, & Market / Food Hall

So. What would this redevelopment consist of?

Ranelli and designers and architects Jason Williams and Brian O’Connor cautioned that the plan is still very much under development. The PDD modification application is teeing up the zoning to allow for residential use at this site. If that zoning change is ultimately approved by the Board of Alders, the development team would then have to submit to the City Plan Commission a much more detailed site plan review for the project.

Nevertheless, as it currently stands, here’s what Fusco envisions for that section of the waterfront:

• 410 new apartments spread across two 10-plus-story residential towers: one with 198 units, the other with 212 units. ​“These will be high quality buildings,” Ranelli said. ​“They’re what are called Type 1 construction,” and will look nothing like the stick-and-podium apartment buildings currently going up all over downtown and Wooster Square. They’ll be made of brick, masonry, metal panels, and glass. Fusco’s looking to create ​“these tall, slender forms that are beautiful and evocative” and direct the urban landscape’s focus towards the water.

• A two-acre landscaped public park filled with outdoor sculptures, pedestrian plazas, open lawns, seating areas, a concrete harbor walk along the water’s edge, and an elevated boardwalk. ​“This public realm provides a barrier-free, no-fencing, public access directly from Long Wharf Drive to the water,” Williams said. ​“The goal here is to create an engaging public destination,” added O’Connor, ​“that really puts this site on the map and for all residents to come and enjoy the waterfront.”

• A public market and food hall that will sit on the ground floor of the first residential tower. This too will be open ​“for the residents and for the visiting public,” Fusco said. It will open up onto the landscaped park and seating areas so that people can sit outside and eat along the water.

• The residential buildings will contain one floor of parking, loading areas, and valet parking options for parking spaces at the nearby 1,800-space Maritime Center Garage. According to the PDD amendment application, there will be 39 spaces under the buildings where valet cars will be staged. There is also ​“a plethora of on-street parking in the area.”

Ranelli said that the city’s recently adopted redevelopment plan for Long Wharf envisions a long-term strategy for converting a part of the city currently dominated by surface parking lots and oil tanks into a bustling urban landscape. This proposed residential development will hopefully help spark more such building plans, he said, and will also in and of itself create a mini-neighborhood feel by adding a significant number of new residents all at once.

“Our idea is to create synergies to make this area more inviting and, little by little, attract additional development.”

“A Peaceful Place”

The commissioners, city staff, and members of the public who spoke up during the public hearing portion of Wednesday night’s meeting were generally enthusiastic about Fusco’s redevelopment plans for the waterfront.

Hill resident Thomasine Shaw praised the prospect of a new, peaceful gathering spot for city residents to lay out a blanket, sit with children, and enjoy some outdoor music or the sounds of the water.

“I really do believe that we need more areas like that in New Haven,” she said. ​“This project seems to be one that wants to add to that type of atmosphere.”

Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez said the plans as currently envisioned could turn Long Wharf into an area where ​“neighbors can walk down, an area where they can be entertained.” A lot of seniors don’t want to go downtown on a Saturday night because they view that hub of the city as dominated by college students, she said. ​“We look forward to being able to come down [to a redeveloped Long Wharf] with our families. .… I believe it’s time that this waterfront area gets attention.”

City Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre described Fusco’s residential development pitch as ​“a solid first step and something that’s going to bring more of this type of investment to Long Wharf.”

And City Plan Commission Chair and Hill resident Leslie Radcliffe stressed how important it is for city residents to have a place ​“to go and sit and just look at the water and have a peaceful place” to be. Downtown is not always family friendly, she said. ​“It’s a project that we do like and are really looking forward to,” she said about Hill neighbors’ reaction to the project so far. ​“I’d like to enjoy Long Wharf before the floods come.”

What About Water Access, Flooding?

The most critical testimony of the night came from Save the Sound Land Campaigns Manager David Anderson.

Anderson said that the Fusco plan deviates too much from the city’s vision for the so-called Harbor District because Fusco does not plan to build out a new wharf or new docks to allow for actual access to the water. Just being able to walk alongside and look at the water is not the same, he said.

He also warned that climate change-induced rising sea levels over the next two decades will likely imperil any residential development right along the coastline. ​“While the Growth Plan does call for relatively intense development to support the primary objective of increasing opportunities for commercial and recreational boating,” he said on Wednesday and wrote in testimony submitted to the commission in advance of the meeting, ​“it should be noted that the impact analysis depicts a higher proportion of retail and commercial use and a reduced concentration of residential housing at this site. Evacuating an area of non-critical commercial activity, as is done with the vendors of Food Truck Paradise, has a much lower impact than evacuating people from their permanent residences and providing shelter for them elsewhere.”

City Plan Commission Vice-Chair Ed Mattison also raised concerns that the project at this early stage looks ​“over-planned,” and that the two towering residential buildings are too large an opening salvo for an area that the city hopes to grow steadily over time.

Fusco’s attorney Ranelli responded that the plan as currently envisioned does include plenty of pedestrian spaces and ​“urban spaces” and, with the sculpture park and market and walkway, ​“allows for a lot of creativity of how people can use it.”

He said that the nearby interstate highway system separating Long Wharf from downtown means that ​“people don’t come down here. It is not at the moment a functioning part of the urban environment, and that’s what we aim to change, that’s what the city aims to change.”

He said that the developers are intentionally looking to create a ​“passive experience” for public enjoyment of this stretch of the waterfront. ​“We don’t necessarily want jet skis and powerboats in there,” he said. The nearby Canal Dock Boathouse provides public access to the water. This area is designed to allow people to walk alongside and look at the water, but not necessarily go in.

As for the threats of sea-level rise and climate change, he said, the buildings will be constructed at such an elevation and a stormwater management system will be built out to handle flooding. He promised to go into more detail in responses to any concerns, including flooding-related ones, at the Oct. 20 meeting.