New Haven Independent

Merchants at the 11-building, nine and a half-acre plaza have always intended to form such an association ever since the city built the shopping strip in 1969 with the hope of boosting the business core of New Haven’s oldest black neighborhood.

The plaza has had its ups and downs over the years. Recently its fortunes have risen with a combination of merchants from all over the world operating alongside the Stetson public library branch and the Hill Health Center’s neighborhood outpost. A New C-Town supermarket is moving in, too.

The merchants never got around to incorporating the condo association over the years. That has limited the merchants’ ability to collect on shared fees for maintenance or to enforce rules.

They’ve made progress in securing promises of fix-up money from foundations and other funders over the past two years. But they learned they needed to have the formal association in place to get the money. So they got to work.

After months of hammering out the agreed upon rules, all the present merchants signed the legal incorporation papers over the past week. They’re waiting on two last signatures — City Hall’s (for the Stetson Library) and C-Town’s.

“Today’s the mayor’s signing date,” and it’s a done deal, promised Baron Poitier of City Hall’s economic development office. He also said the city told C-Town’s owners about the need to join the condo association before agreeing to sell them the building at the plaza. Poitier said the owners expressed no hesitation about signing. (They couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.) The condo association’s rules forbid the selling of alcohol or Philly Blunts.

Len Smart of the Greater New Haven Business and Professional Association (at right in picture) called the day a long time in coming, and a cause for celebration.

“It felt good,” he said over candy corns, and amid the scraping of workers finishing a new roof, during a conversation Tuesday at the association’s plaza headquarters. “The one thing that bothered me was that I forgot to bring my camera, because of what it took to get to this point.”

Now the merchants hope to close on loans and grants for new facades and other repairs as well as a long-term plan.

Continuity & Change

The promise of continuity and renewal can be seen inside Hayes’ Right Way Cleaners, where Serrette Edmund was changing a sweater zipper (in photo) Tuesday morning.

Ernest Jones used to own that cleaners. He opened it in the original Dixwell Plaza, and kept it open during times both lean and flush. Jones and Gerald Clark kept the merchants group going all those years, too.

Jones retired last September. He sold it to Elizabeth Hayes, who’s investing in it. She wants both to preserve the business’s historic role and to build on it.

“I didn’t change the name. I’m just enhancing it,” she said. “I’m making it environmentally friendly. I’m not using any chemicals.”

She also hired Boomer to teach new workers the dry-cleaning ropes. Boomer has worked in the biz for 26 years, including stints at Newhallville, Monarch and Rainbow Cleaners.

The plaza has also attracted entrepreneurs, both landlords and shop owners, from South Korea, India, Turkey. Karim Sidi, who rents out Frances Beauty Salon and the Best Offer urban clothing store, is an Indian-American who came to the U.S. from Kenya.

Sidi expressed cautious optimism about the new condo association.

“It depends on whether everybody who’s bound by that will continue to follow the bylaws,” he said. “Every clause was well-thought and well-prepared.”

Among the regulations:

• No pool halls or nightclubs, package stores, gun or pawn shops, or adult bookstores.

• No car repair shops or 24-hour convenience stores.

• No selling of “drug paraphernalia, including but not limited to rolling papers, Philly Blunts or similar cigars, individual cigarettes, and small plastic collectors’ bags.”