New Haven Independent

This hug between Mayor DeStefano and Yale-New Haven Hospital Board Chair Marvin Lender was just one among many Thursday, as construction of the $430 million cancer center got off with a bang. The clatter marked the start of phase one of the project: demolition of the old Grace building at Park and So. Frontage to make way for the multi-pavilioned medical mammoth to come.

After turns at an outdoor podium by the mayor, Lender, and hospital chief Marna Borgstrom, among others — to declare their thrill at breaking ground on a project so “important to New Haven, to Connecticut, to the country, and to the world” — hard-hats were donned and all eyes turned on Corey Maitz. It was Maitz at the controls of the LVA company excavator, waiting with bucket raised for the collective whistle of the leadership team.

“We’ve been waiting for this a long time,” said LVA’s vice president and the project’s captain, Jim Quish. “It’s nice to get started.” The moment had been years in the making, and signaled the start of a projected three-and-a-half years of demolition and construction to come. Quish cast his eyes back across the lot at the physical mark it left: a crumpled heap of aluminum sheathing atop a ragged yard of exposed brick. “It’s symbolic, I guess.”

City Plan’s OK

The crashes ringing out at 13 Park St. sounded all the sweeter to cancer center administrators like Norman Roth (pictured at right with Rick D’Aquila), coming on the heels of City Plan approval the night before of the building they intend for the site. “It was very significant to us,” Roth said about Wednesday night’s site plan approval from the commission. They’d had the demolition permit for weeks. But now all signals were go, also, for the intended “North Pavilion” facility to go where the Grace building now stands. Designs include an “air-walk” to the Air Rights Garage and another pedestrian bridge to the center’s West Pavilion.

City Plan gave its approval Wednesday after a presentation from Turner Construction’s Bob Buckley of the month-by-month game plan for building, with just a little wincing at the thought of Park Street down to one lane for the 13-month “steel erection” phase, and a little “housekeeping” led by City Plan chief Karyn Gilvarg, in line with community and aldermanic concerns about pollution and extra traffic.

Was Turner Construction aware of New Haven’s noise ordinance? Yes. They’ll be quiet.

Do they have a regime for dust control? They do.

Is the plan to attach “particle separators” on construction equipment to minimize fumes? What are those? Buckley promised de-tox attachments called “scrubbers” and said the crane would be electric.

Turner Construction’s Kevin Dow (pictured, at right, on site Thursday with project captain Jim Quish, back and center) was also in City Hall Wednesday, with details on the temporary parking lot to go between Sherman and Tyler streets during construction. It will be unpaved for easy re-greening later, and complete with a license plate-monitoring scheme to assure workers are parking there and not in front of, say, your house.

Hospital attorney Susan Bryson submitted a more detailed environmental impact-mitigation plan. With that, the cancer center team got their “Aye,” and all went to bed dreaming of the triumphant bite of serrated steel into crumbling cinderblock.