Long Wharf 2.0 In The Works

More than a half-century after the birth of Long Wharf, New Haven is asking the state for $935,000 to reimagine the city’s ​“welcome mat.”

The city’s Economic Development Administration has prepared an application for that money to the state’s Office and Policy and Management for a ​“transit-oriented development” planning and construction grant.

The grant would start in process a re-imagining of the 352 acres east of the train tracks to the harbor, bounded by Water Street, New Haven Harbor and Union Avenue. The district includes Sargent Drive, the Long Wharf Nature Preserve, and the land around Hamilton and Water Streets east of Wooster Square. Toni Harp first floated this idea in her 2013 campaign for mayor.

The city promises to use the grant to spend:

• $150,000 on an economic analysis of the district and a strategy for filling in vacant spaces like the old Pirelli building next to IKEA.
• $90,000 producing ​“constructing ready-drawings” for streetscape changes along Brewery Street and Long Wharf and Sargent Drives.
• $110,000 on plans to improve traffic controls and ​“complete streets” in the district.
• $500,000 to install sidewalks, handicapped-accessible ramps, signs, trash receptacles, and power connections for mobile-food vendors along Long Wharf Drive.
• $85,000 on planning improvements for public access to the nature preserve and veterans’ memorial and Long Wharf Park along the harbor.

Here is the full application.

Colon: Park Rescue Overdue

Before the application goes to the state, the Board of Alders must give its OK. The matter is on the board’s agenda for Monday night; the city needs the approval that night in order to qualify for the grant.

Hill Alder Dolores Colon, whose ward includes Long Wharf, said she anticipates the measure will pass. ​“Who’s against free money?” she quipped.

She also called the project much needed, and overdue.

Especially when it comes to the park by the water, which not just neighbors but people throughout the city treasure, Colon said.

“Our retirees are so angry we haven’t fixed the pathways and we let the food trucks litter it to high heaven, Colon said. ​“There are rats the size of cats. The veterans are very angry that some of the people who frequent the food trucks urinate and defecate on the monument. So we need to do something about that whole area so people can treat it more like the park it is and show some respect for the monument.”

The grant application prepared by the city promises that the plan ​“will create a stronger economy in a mixed use environment with dramatically enhanced bike, pedestrian and transit connections. This application builds upon current work, including the City’s coastal resiliency planning to address the convergence of inland flooding and coastal storm surge,” the grant application’s summary argues.

The planning would build on recent changes nearby on the other side of the railroad tracks: The gradual removal of the old Route 34 Connector mini-highway to nowhere; and a new ​“Hill-to-Downtown” plan to redevelop the area from the train station through Church Street South to the Yale medical district.

Meanwhile in the Long Wharf district itself, first Ikea, then Jordan’s Furniture, have brought in big-box retail; while storms have battered the waterfront park, with climate change pointing out the need for coastal protections. Mobile-food operators are thriving near the water; the area was the site of a successful food-truck festival last summer that is now slated to become an annual event. Surface lots cover much of the district, providing opportunity for new development. And people have been moving back into the city, raising the potential of residential construction.

Added altogether, this makes for a prime moment to push ahead with a broad rethinking of Long Wharf, which the government filled in during the mid-20th century to build I‑95 and to create land for employers like Sargent’s hardware, the Food Terminal, as well as the Long Wharf Theatre.

A ​“responsible growth plan” prepared with the application calls Long Wharf the city’s ​“welcome mat” offering the ​“first impression” of New Haven and serving as a ​“gateway not only to New England generally but specifically to the City’s Downtown and many diverse and vibrant neighborhoods.”

In a conversation Thursday, city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson called the planning project a ​“once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“This is all landfill, found land that came out of the highway project of the ​‘50s. Maybe every 50 years — in this case 60 years — you have a shot of thinking about what to do with the land.”

Among other improvements, Nemerson said he’d like to see the city put in bike paths, improved walkways, an esplanade and safer parking in the park by the harbor. He’d like to see the land reconfigured where the food trucks operate across Long Wharf Drive, with a sidewalk put in and the trucks located to the west of that.

In addition, Nemerson said, ​“we have to ask questions about the Teletrack site, the Sports Haven, Gateway [terminal], the water authority site —when you add them up, you’re talking about close to 100 acres. It could be anything. It could be thousands of apartments. It could be a retail development. It could be an industrial development. We have to think it through.”