Thomas MacMillan Photo
The owners of the New Haven Register plan to ask the city for a zoning variance to help lure a big-box store — but not an Adult Video Liquidators or “Luv” boutique — to the campus the paper plans to leave on Long Wharf.
The newspaper company has been shopping around the former Gant shirt-factory property it has occupied on Sargent Drive since the early 1980s. Since downsizing its newsroom and outsourcing its printing operation, as part of a new “digital first” strategy to adapt to 21st century publishing, the paper no longer needs its 200,000 square-foot building. It plans to move to a smaller space downtown.
Once it sells the Long Wharf property.
Company officials have told policymakers and others in town that they’re preparing a request to the zoning board to allow for retail use on the property. Currently the property is zoned for industrial use.
In recent weeks, word spread that Target was among the potential suitors for the property. That prospect seems to have faded. (“Target does not have plans for a new store in New Haven,” Target spokeswoman Meghan Mike told the Independent.) Journal Register Co./ Digital First, the paper’s corporate parent, has continued speaking with other retailers.
“We’ve gotten some interest. We certainly don’t have anything that’s far enough along to talk about” yet, said Joe Miller, the company’s vice-president for real estate.
The company has retained CB Richard Ellis realtors to handle the sale.
Meanwhile, the company has kept local officials like Hill Alderwoman Dolores Colon updated on plans. “They’ve been approached by a bunch of retailers,” she said. She said she likes the idea of a store coming to the location — as long as it’s family-friendly. She said she’s holding back on taking a position on the company’s zoning request until she sees the fine print.
“I don’t want adult films” here, she said. “We have to put something wholesome there. A Target or a Kohl’s or something.”
Not to worry on the porn front, Miller said: “We would never do that.”
Development officials originally pressed the company to find a manufacturer, not a retailer, for the site (pictured). The thought was that a manufacturer would hire more people, or at least pay them more, than would a retailer.
Now the consensus seems to have emerged that retail might make more sense, or at least bring a new employer to the site faster.
“I would still absolutely prefer to see it be manufacturing. But I’d rather see it turn over jobs more quickly,” said Anne Haynes, head of the quasi-public Economic Development Corporation. “It’s better for it not so sit vacant. That would be the worst.” A retailer might even help nearby IKEA lure more shoppers looking to hit more than one store in one trip, she added.
Mayor John DeStefano had originally expressed a preference for an industrial use for the Register property. “That’s an industrial zone,” he said in an interview. “But as we see from the presence of IKEA down the at the other end of Long Wharf, it’s self-evidently a desirable retail site” right off I‑95.
The district has been evolving. It still has a major factory, Assa Abloy, and Long Wharf Theatre and produce and meat distributors. Besides IKEA, a nightclub and a gelato factory have moved in. And Gateway Community College is moving its campus downtown; the city hopes to put a vo-tech school in the building there, which is next to the Register.
“I would certainly look at” the Register’s retail zoning request, the mayor said. “I can’t contemplate changing the zoning without knowing what the deal is. When we get a proposal, we’ll see.”
DeStefano said he would weigh his position based on four questions:
• How many jobs would be created?
• What would the net tax benefit be?
• “What is the value of having a store like that proximate to the Hill and downtown?”
• What are the alternatives?
Sometimes, he said, “we need to be patient” and wait for the right kind of use for a major piece of property rather than going for the currently available options. “Like we are with the Coliseum site,” the temporary parking lot that stands where the New Haven Coliseum used to stand.
At other times, DeStefano said, it makes sense to embrace an option that may not sound “perfect” but promises to be the best one available. For instance, the city sold the old New Haven Arena block to a private developer to build a new home for the FBI even though the preference was for a denser, higher tax-producing site. The city wanted to keep the FBI downtown. (The agency had considered moving to North Haven). The deal was structured to produce taxes. And it’s not clear that waiting would have produced a better alternative, the mayor said.
As for the Long Wharf Register property, he predicted that any new owner will tear down the plant and build a new structure.