New Haven Independent

“If you feel like you’re in Tribeca, we’ve done a good job,” said developer John Wareck, whose Christie Wareck Company has taken on the project of turning the old Simons Jewelers Building and J. Johnson & Sons department store, which have stood 10 years vacant at Church and Center streets, into 13 arty lofts ranging from 1,800 to 3,500 square feet. They’re not worried about setting almost Tribeca-like fees, either. Four potential buyers undeterred by asking prices ranging from $524,000 all the way up to $1.2 million for a 3,700 square foot, duplex penthouse have already come a-calling, Wareck said.

Designs aim at staying “upscale, luxury, and very stylish,” said Wareck Wednesday morning, leading media, proud investors and city officials, and one psyched buyer into the turquoise bathroom of the finished “model unit” to point out the West African wenge hardwood double-vanity sink, the walk-in limestone shower and matching jet-stream tub.

Designs aim at environmental soundness, too, said Wareck, who hopes that after “green” measures like installing energy-efficient windows and hot-water heaters, they’ll get LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) recognition for the building. Other decisions like stripping five layers down to the original 1875 floorboards “instead of chopping down 40 forests” might help. “We get a green point for revitalizing instead of consuming,” said Warek, and any patchiness where new flooring meets old just “fits our Tribeca thing.”

Visions for upscale street-level retail like a Parisian Le Bon Marche store, a green grocer, and the Dunkin’ Donuts restyled with marble counters are after the same fit.

“What these condo units represent is a new choice in downtown housing,” said Mayor John DeStefano, standing backlit by floor-to-ceiling window light before a giant stainless-steel kitchen island. “Seven thousand non-student residents living downtown contribute to the street-level bustle, and with this uniquely available loft-space we’ve introduced another choice onto the neighborhood market.”

New Alliance Bank’s community development corporation apparently thought it would be a good one. The biggest investor in the Johnson Simons development, New Alliance pitched in early capital in support of the “city’s commitment to downtown revitalization,” said Senior Vice President Paul McCraven (at center in the photo at the top of this story). At the other end of the spectrum, the corporation invests in affordable-housing projects like Whalley Avenue’s Fair Lawn Manor, under development by the non-profit Neighborhood Housing Services, because “different markets, a mixed economy, is the key to community development,” McCraven said. “To build a healthy neighborhood, you’ve got to have affordable and market housing.”

The ward’s alderwoman, Frances “Bitsie” Clark, for once wasn’t talking about her neighborhood’s health, or the fact that very few of its residents could ever afford this particular item of revitalization. Wednesday morning, she had something else on her mind: “Think of all the fabulous parties you could have in here!”

With a laugh, she called it “a reverse” that the young buyer of one of the lofts would work in Woodbridge and live in New Haven.

The buyer, Josh Erlanger (in right at picture, behind Wareck), said that his mother, a former Westville resident, thought he was “crazy” to be moving from Hamden to Church Street. “She doesn’t know how much it’s changed.” Erlanger himself had no doubts about a life in New Haven: “I work in Woodbridge. I socialize here.”