New Haven Independent

Posted by: Bruce | February 7, 2007 5:38 PM

Well, hopefully the new landlords will be more aggressive about finding tenants.

The R&D company I work for used to be in Science Park, but moved to North Haven just a few years before I was hired. The management tells me it was cramped and not well suited for our needs -- we do combustion research so we often move around heavy equipment and make noise. Our Science Park space was on an upper floor in a shared building. I'm not sure how the current rent compares, but we now have all the space we need. I see why it is hard for cities to compete with the suburbs for businesses like ours. If you need room to grow, it just isn't there -- especially if you need to manufacture rpoducts. I suppose biomed and chemistry R&D are better fits for that park.

Posted by: Esbe | February 7, 2007 6:13 PM

Research scientists typically have the option to work someplace like Cambridge (MA) or San Franciso -- i.e. close to Heaven for academically oriented types. So, it is a bit of work to get them to move to New Haven, although we have some advantages like cheaper housing and a generally improving town.

However, when, on top of everything else, you ask them to work at Science Park in the middle of one of New Haven's worst neighborhoods (sorry, but its true), then you have a real problem. The renovated biotech complex at 300 George Street downtown is, frankly, more plausible.

Add to this the generally poor-to-middling state of biotech start-ups right now, and it is not surprising that Lyme properties is cutting back. Would have been nice of them to at least call city officials, though.

Posted by: what a surpirse | February 7, 2007 7:43 PM

That is one of the problem with having an economic development department with a director that knows nothing about the city. And now, for campaign payback a deputy director that has no experience at all.

Once again, the three years of ingoring the city buy our mayor has begun to show the signs of the dep fiscal crisis you will read about when the new budget is announced.

The city is broke. No new businesses have come in, except IKEA, who came on their own. All other developments are in a deferral program, so no real revenue is coming from them. To top it off, the failure to assert some control on how many $500,000 units could be absorbed before we gave huge tax breaks away to developers may result in a downtown filled with vacant units and plunging values. Give it until March when the new budget comes out, heads will spin. The mayor really abandoned New Haven, and only now are we starting to see more and more proof of the lack of management he left behind. Maybe that is why Karen D. Walton was moved along to NHHA. Wasn't she the acting mayor, running this fair city? If not, who was running it into the ground?

Science Park failed due to the fact that the city ignored the obvious, especially when Bayer left West Haven. Alternatives uses should have been explored, but New Haven had no respected representative at the table, with a sense of the market in bio-tech. They were too busy turning the remaining available land in downtown in non-profit uses. Hold on folks. It's going to get very ugly. I know, I have seen the numbers, also expect to see property value do a nose dive when the new taxes hit, expect about a 20% increase over what you paid last year, and in some cases more.

New Haven needs a leader and even if one surfaced the hole is too big to fix in only a few years. This could take a decade.

Posted by: charles | February 8, 2007 11:47 AM

What A Surprise, the city is actually in very good condition. Thousands of young people are moving in and the office vacancy rate just plummeted from about 18% to less than 7% in the past year, as financial related firms move up and out of the much more expensive Stamford area. The biotechs are also doing well - 300 George is 99% leased to companies that have brought in over $300M to the local economy just in the past year. As evidence, just look at downtown property values and how they have gone up by 400+%.

Science Park would start leasing up if the developer hadn't been trying to sell it (which they have been for about a year now). I predict that in 2-3 years, it will be over 75% leased. The new owners are very good. Obviously it isn't in as desirable of a location as 300 George Street/downtown or San Francisco, but the prices are much lower.

The addition of service at Tweed will also help, although the East Haven mayor and residents near the airport are keeping all of us hostage. Their petty squabble is costing the rest of us billions of dollars in future revenue. The clear thing to do, which would be done in any other country, would be to relocate the residents and double the size of the runway.

As far as housing values around the city go, there may or may not be a correction in values depending on the national economy as a whole and interest rates. But as the past few years show, New Haven's property has appreciated a lot more in value than any of the surrounding areas, and it's likely that even if expensive homes fall in price, the average price won't fall by that much.

I agree with you, however, that the city should stop giving land over to nonprofit uses downtown. Downtown New Haven should be developed almost exclusively as high-rent housing and office space. To make this happen even more quickly than it would without anyone's help in the matter, the downtown should be better connected with train service.

Posted by: david silverstone | February 8, 2007 1:00 PM

I don't usually make comments in this medium but having seen this story I am compelled to respond.Contrary to assertions and misstatements Science Park is alive and well. Science Park Development Corporation owns two buildings with approximately 130,000 sq. ft. of lab and office space. Almost all of this is leased at commerical rates to going concerns employing hundreds of people. Science Park is also the home(albeit temporary)to the Amistad charter high school. In addition Science Park Development Corporation holds ground leases to the rest of Science Park and has leased the land to Lyme Development Corporation. Lyme has rehabilitated #25 Science Park where the Chamber recently held its Business Expo. This building has a fair number of tenants and could certainly accommodate more. It is true that the rest of the development has not gone quickly enough and it is also true that we read about the proposed sale in the media. I share Kelly's frustration with both these facts. New Haven should be assured that everyone involved in Science Park (Olin, Yale, City of New Haven, the neighborhood representatives)continue to work to enable Science park to realize its full potential.
David Silverstone
Chairman
Science Park Development Corp.

Posted by: pinkbicycle | February 8, 2007 3:00 PM

Great job of re-educating What A Surprise. It's those types of comments--stemming from ignorance that produce nothing. More a part of the problem that the solution. David, Charles & ESBE your comments were right on the money--more substance and less bullshit. What a Surprise should take a page or atleast some notes, or better still get out and see New Haven. The only way the City will be better, is if her citizens are better. Got a grip run for office. There are 30 seats on the BOA run from your neighborhood, get involved, do something. If not shut the F-up Oh sorry this is America! Keep bitching...it's your right!

Posted by: What An Idea! | February 8, 2007 9:34 PM

Here's my humble opinion. I haven't seen the numbers and I don't work for city hall, but I've been around long enough to know that our little city has some deep layers of corruption. Too many Boise Kimber types with real power; a complacent police force; non-profits that do almost nothing but pay salaries; too many alderpeople without real jobs (and their hands in various pots); gang wars flaring up again in a big way; a mayor who spent more than a year running for governor rather than running the city(and will likely do it again), one of the worst school systems in the state; and the growing divide between the poor in this city (minorities) and the upper middle class (largely white).

Just because there are many wonderful things about the city doesn't mean that the above things aren't true. And frankly, I don't really care how wonderful all you employees of city hall think your boss is or what a wonderful and "special" place New Haven is. Many of you are all so busy patting each other on the back that you can't face up to the real problems that are growing larger and larger and are threatening the city's positive future. Science Park getting dumped by its current owners may be part of that decline.

Posted by: Ned | February 9, 2007 8:20 AM

I can't comment on the economic or legal aspects of the deal; however, wouldn't a diplomatic response from the city sound something more like "we look forward to working with the new owners to make Science Park a success"? The "we're going to take legal action against you" doesn't seem very pro-business or pro-development to me, especially when trying to market a building in a slum, surrounded by decaying abandoned factory buildings...

Posted by: Cedar Hill Resident | February 9, 2007 9:29 AM

What An Idea
Well said!!
and wait .... they can't fill that space hmmmm I wonder....if the city is ready for another GIANT LIABLITY!! I am sure that will be on it's way. Ohh what a tangled web we weave... you know the rest...

Posted by: Esbe | February 9, 2007 4:17 PM

OK, this Yale Daily article really does put a different spin on things. Lyme sold a giant portfolio of properties to another major manager of research facilities. Very successful properties in Cambridge were also sold, etc. Science Park probably hardly figured in the deal at all, so speculating on "why this happened to Science Park" is beside the point. Further, the Science Park board has to approve the sale, and since the new "owners" are quite reputable, I am sure that they well. But the new owners are going to need some time before their attention shifts to us, or so I guess.

Posted by: g | February 10, 2007 1:29 AM

Those of you who insist on calling our neighborhoods "slums" and "worst" because you say your description true, contribute absolutely nothing to support this project. I wonder what you will the HUMANS who live here. Including the many harding working and educated individuals who provide for our children, help them with homework, pick up trash, have college degrees and actually try to do something that makes a difference.

Posted by: Anxiousforspring | February 11, 2007 4:03 PM

Every time I read about another business leaving New Haven without comment or action by the Mayor, I feel as though my pocket has been robbed. Every time I see yet another school being built and then physically neglected after the ribbon-cutting and the hooplah subsides, I feel stomach sick. Why isn't the money being spent in New Haven being spent on education, not mortar and bricks? Why has my alderwoman, who I felt would be an advocate for my neighborhood, become a politician like the ones before her? Because this is 2007, and it is what it is. We used to be a caring city, we used to look after our neighbors, now we are just trying to get ours. I want my city back - who stole it?