Thomas Breen photo / Svigals + Partners design
Breaking ground for the new parking garage: Lynn Fusco, BOA President Tyisha Walker-Myers, Mayor Toni Harp, Larry Stubbs, Peter Levin, Michael Piscitelli, Jim Marzi. Below: The design of the new garage.
Dozens turned out for the groundbreaking of the “Rt. 34 West” superblock’s latest development — a four-story, 763-space parking garage owned by the Hartford-based LAZ Parking.
Mayor Toni Harp, Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, Fusco President and CEO Lynn Fusco, and LAZ Parking Realty Investors Chief Acquisition Officer Larry Stubbs led the ceremonial groundbreaking and dirt shoveling at a Tuesday midday press conference at 243 Legion Ave.
Attendees at Tuesday morning’s presser.
Standing in front of an active construction site with an excavator perched alongside piles of dirt and a half-dug foundation, Harp said that this project represents yet another step forward in the city’s years-long effort to revive the vast expanse of pavement that once housed the Oak Street neighborhood before it was razed during mid-century Urban Renewal.
“Progress here represents another reason to celebrate,” she said. “Follow-through on a commitment made years ago to knit this area back together, provide retail opportunities, a new hotel, and new parking capacity to handle it all.”
Harp.
The Continuum of Care headquarters, the Rite Aid pharmacy, and The Learning Experience daycare center have all already been built on the superblock bounded by Legion Avenue, MLK Boulevard, Dwight Street, and Orchard Street, she said, a new planned 130-room hotel project was just greenlighted last week by the City Plan Commission. LAZ Parking Realty Investors won site plan approval for the new garage from the City Plan Commission in July.
“Promises made,” she said. “Promises delivered. That’s what we’re celebrating today: The hallmark of responsible, productive city government.”
Walker-Myers.
Walker-Myers, who represents West River’s adjacent Ward 23 (the garage is just over the border in Hill Alder Ron Hurt’s Ward 3) commended the builder, Fusco, and the developer, Laz Parking, for working with city leadership and communicating openly with the surrounding community about the project.
“Everywhere you go, you hear about parking,” Walker-Myers said. “I come from the neighborhood side, and we want people to have parking so that they can stop parking on our streets. When we come home, we don’t have a place to park.”
The parking garage construction site.
More importantly, she said the developer communicated design and construction plans to neighbors, and has committed to hiring local residents as the project is being built.
“The only way to get things done in this city is to work with everyone,” she said. And here is a parking project that satisfies the needs of the developer, the city, the surrounding businesses, and the neighborhood.
Fusco.
Fusco said that this garage represents the first built entirely in-house by LAZ Parking, which has been operating in New Haven since 1985 and is the largest private owner and operators of garages in the country.
“I believe that Laz [the company’s founder, Alan Lazowski] chose New Haven to build his first garage in not only because of its enormous economic growth and future potential,” she said, “but also because you can get things done here, unlike many other cities across the country.”
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full press conference.