Illustration by Jeff Stikeman, for Robert A. M. Stern Architects
Yale University’s two new proposed residential colleges, still called by placeholder names “North College” and “South College,” took a major step to becoming reality Wednesday night when the City Plan Commission provided initial zoning approval and gave the nod to go ahead with more detailed design.
The vote was not unanimous and followed the expression of concern for how welcoming a face the new buildings will offer the rest of the city.
At issue was approval of a new “planned development district” for a roughly seven-acre triangular plot bounded by Prospect Street, Sachem, and the Farmington Canal Greenway path. That zoning change allows Yale to put the $600 million project there.
The proposal passed in a three to one vote, with Commissioner Roy Smith voting for approval despite his concerns that the new colleges may not have sufficient openness to the rest of the community.
East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker cast the only no vote. He called Yale’s designs insufficiently detailed for an aspect of the plan, a theater proposed at the Sachem and Prospect corner
The plan calls for housing two colleges and their attendant facilities, each with about 420 to 460 students on land Yale already owns. The university’s Vice President for New Haven and State Affairs Michael Morand (left, with architect Robert Stern) said this is the first enrollment in expansion in 50 years. It was needed to admit more bright kids, in a manner that does not expand the university’s footprint.
After presentations by the university’s chief planner Laura Cruickshank and architect Robert A.M. Stern, commissioners generally praised the brick and stone buildings’ design; they feature masters’ houses, courtyards, and two towers, along with architectural details that essentially mirror the university’s existing 12 colleges, most of which are in a gothic-look-alike style by the architect James Gamble Rogers.
Commissioners’ task Wednesday night was not to approve design but to decide how it relates to the community. They focused their praise on Prospect Walk (in the rendering at top), a 15-foot wide pathway proposed from Prospect Street through to the trail and bike path that would divide North and South College (similary to the High Street pedestrian walkway between Elm and Wall). It would be open to the public as part of what Stern called a “new east-west connecting system.”
Commission Chair Ed Mattison asked why a similar path could not run from Prospect Walk up to Sachem Street, which in his view currently risks being an uninterrupted wall and not as enlivened as the street might be.
Morand suggested that would be giving up too much space needed for the buildings. Stern said the street is already enlivened on the north side by the busy Ingalls Rink area.
The Yale officials were at pains to point out how the colleges would have student rooms facing the street on all sides, including the Greenway trail. The streetside facades would be only two stories, with higher buildings behind, offering a residential feeling especially where the new complex faces residences on Winchester Avenue. All the streets surrounding the mini-campus would be designed with either bike lanes or sharrows.
In short, active and not presenting a walled look.
Mattison expressed some skepticism: “Give some thought to making the entryway [to Prospect Walk] on Prospect clearly public.”
Stern replied that the mayor raised that point in discussions which have been ongoing since 2006. “I think we can satisfy you that it is open, wide, and inviting, short of putting a sign up ‘Eat at Joe’s,’” Stern said.
Commissioner Smith (pictured) was more concerned. “As a kid growing in New Haven, these [Yale] courtyards were not inviting,” he said.
Smith called the proposed buildings beautiful but the walls prohibitive. Over his 50 years in New Haven, most spent in Newhalville, he said, his neighbors have felt that way about Yale.
Morand countered that “40 percent of residents of New Haven use [the Yale] walkways.”
Smith said he appreciates the efforts Yale had made but wants to see more and a “thinking outside the box.”
“It may not be a bad idea to put a bike trail from Dixwell right through the two colleges [onto Prospect Walk],” he said, so people can travel straight through or push a carriage with kids.
When it came time for a vote, East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker focused on the most unfinished aspect of the plan, a 250-seat theater at the Sachem-Prospect corner.
No architect has been retained yet to design the theater, which officials said was in any event only 10 percent of the proposal. Still Elicker was concerned it would not be responsible to give a recommendation to the Board of Alderman for something so inchoate.
“What if you build a huge wall?” he asked rhetorically.
Morand assured him more detail would come later. The project needs general approval now for those and other plans to move forward, he said.
Mattison and the others agreed. Commissioners compromised by passing with the condition that there be a public hearing on the theater when that design is more advanced.