New Haven Independent

The $5.3 million government-funded project is being built by the corner of Whalley, Fountain and West Rock avenues. It features a row of six apartments with working studios for artists, above three ground-floor stores, directly across from Edgewood Park; and a new corner building that will house a restaurant.

The project began two and a half years ago. It has suffered continual delays.

The delays included the discovery that a subcontractor was ripping off immigrant workers. He was eventually removed from the job.

By August, the project’s not-for-profit developer, Mutual Housing, had taken over construction, and long-awaited glass had arrived. Mutual Housing chief Seila Mosquera declared the lofts would be done by Sept. 15, artists would move in by Oct. 1, and the corner building for the restaurant would be done by December.

Four months later, the row of lofts looks pretty much the same. The corner building (pictured at the top of the story) remains a shell.

But key players associated with the project — Mosquera, neighborhood organizer Thea Buxbaum (who came up with the original idea), and City Hall’s Liveable Cities Initiative (LCI) chief, Andy Rizzo — said not to worry. The project is indeed near its completion. It continues to suffer from the usual delays you find on construction projects, they said.

Once the subcontractor was fired, “We moved along really well,” Mosquera said this week.

“They’re a little behind. That’s not unusual,” Rizzo said. “They never run as planned. I’ve never seen too many come in on time.”

Buxbaum said she has lined up an Iraqi-American restauranteur from New York to open a combo sit-down and take-out Middle Eastern place in the corner building, “hopefully” by Mother’s Day.

And artists are invited to an orientation session at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley, Wednesday, Dec. 27, about how to apply for spots in one of the lofts. (Call Mutual Housing at 562-4514 for details. Or just show up.) The lofts need proch rails and paved walkways, and then they’re complete, she said.

The project’s architectural plans had to be redrawn because the foundation was poured at the wrong angle, and the framing had to be realigned, Buxbaum said.