City Acquires 9th Square Garage

The city now owns over 325 additional parking spaces downtown, including in a State Street garage that will require $6 million in capital repairs over the next five years.

The city acquired the 268-space garage, located at 270 – 290 State St., on May 30 when the Boston-based development company Beacon Communities LLC closed on its purchase of the Residences at Ninth Square apartment complex. That deal also landed the city ownership of two surface parking lots on George Street between Orange Street and State Street, adding another roughly 60 spots to the city’s publicly owned parking.

At Monday night’s regular monthly Park New Haven (aka parking authority) meeting at 232 George St., Acting Executive Director Doug Hausladen commended his staff and the commissioners for the months of work that led to the authority’s first-ever acquisition of a currently existing garage.

The authority has overseen the construction of many garages in its nearly eight decade existence, from the Temple Street Garage in 1962 to the Crown Street Garage in 1977 to the Air Rights Garage in 1982 to the reconstruction and reopening of the Union Station garage in 1986. But New Haven had never previously purchased one that already exists, according to Hausladen. The authority already manages over 8,000 publicly-owned parking spaces in lots and garages throughout the city.

“Congratulations,” he told commissioners. ​“You own a new garage.”

While the city technically owns the garage, the parking authority will manage its maintenance and day-to-day operations, as it does with all publicly owned parking in town.

With this new acquisition, Hausladen and Park New Haven’s staff said, will come a host of challenges and benefits.

On the plus side, Hausladen said, the city will be able to use these hundreds of newly acquired parking spaces downtown as a bargaining chip with developers interested in building apartments with minimal on-site parking within walking distance of the city’s public transit hubs.

“The parking authority’s garage can help spur local development nearby by donating parking,” he said. The authority already has formal and informal agreements with developers who have reserved parking spaces for their tenants at the State-Wall garage, the Temple Street Garage, and the Temple Medical Garage, he said.

With hundreds of new apartments about to be constructed at 87 Union St. in Wooster Square and with a handful of other projects planned for elsewhere on State Street and at the old Coliseum site, he said, the 270 State St. parking garage could prove to be an enticing asset in a Ninth Square neighborhood slowly losing available parking.

Furthermore, he said, the garage is more conveniently situated to accommodate overflow parking from the Union Station garage than is the Temple Street Garage, which currently serves in that backup capacity.

“Right now, that’s just too far and directions are too complicated to tell the average commuter,” Hausladen said about the Temple Street Garage providing overflow for Union Station. The newly acquired garage at 270 State, he said, will allow the authority to send commuters just a third-of-a-mile directly up State Street. ​“It’s a well lit straight shot down the sidewalk on State Street,” he said.

The garage will provide a back-up parking space for the hundreds of surface parking spots soon to be lost adjacent to the Union Station garage, he said. Whether a new parking garage or a mixed-use development will go atop that Union Station surface parking lot is still up in the air, Hausladen said, and depends on whether the city can convince the state to ditch its plans to build a new garage next to an existing one. Regardless, Hausladen said, the construction will result in the displacement of existing Union Station parkers, and 270 State can help serve them in the interim.

Lastly, the garage, now in public ownership, will provide more spaces for transient parkers or interested monthly subscribers.

The garage, formerly owned by the Related Companies, used to be reserved solely for Residences at Ninth Square tenants. Hausladen said the authority has inherited around 200 monthly parking tenants from the complex’s previous owners.

Beacon will no longer be providing free parking to the complex’s tenants. The authority will be charging a discounted rate of $83.33 per month for Residences at Ninth Square tenants. Hausladen and Park New Haven Chief Financial Officer Brian Seholm said they expect some of the current occupants to move as a result. The non-discounted parking rate for the garage is $125 per month.

On the down side, Hausladen, Seholm, and Park New Haven Chief Engineer Jim Staniewicz said, the garage has serious ​“deferred maintenance” issues that the parking authority will have to remedy.

In addition to purchasing the State Street garage for $3.6 million over the next 30 years, according to the terms of the Beacon deal, the authority must invest roughly $6 million over the next five years in capital improvements at 270 State, Seholm said.

Hausladen said those repairs will be paid for by parking revenues earned at the garage. The $6 million comes from a consultant report following a survey of the garage’s conditions. He said a $10 million grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development dedicated to local garage repairs will also help free up some parking authority cash for improvements to 270 State.

Staniewicz said those will include everything from concrete repairs and waterproofing and elevator upgrades to line striping and new signage and roof fixes. Seholm said the authority expects to staff the garage and the adjacent George Street surface lots with a cashier and two security personnel for 16 hours a day, six days a week over the next six months, with the number of on-site staff dropping as the authority gets used to operating the newly acquired spaces.

During the meeting, Hausladen played a video of him standing in the 270 State garage’s stairwell the day that the city acquired the new structure, when there just happened to be a rainstorm.

In the video, Hausladen stretches out his hands to catch a waterfall of raindrops that can be heard pittering and pattering throughout the stairwell.

“It was like being in the shower,” parking authority attorney Joe Rini said.

“Let’s just say,” Hausladen added, ​“we have a lot of work ahead of us.”