New Haven Independent

Posted by: Leslie Blatteau | June 12, 2007 4:15 PM

Wow! I am so surprised that the Coliseum site will be used as a parking lot. Serious cultural enrichment. Make no mistake New Haven, three years from now, we will hear about the city's plans for three more years of parking. Building parking lots does not move our city in a greener direction, it only encourages more people to drive.

Posted by: charlie | June 12, 2007 5:50 PM

Leslie, as much as we'd all like to, you can't rebuild a city overnight. The phasing of the college and the planned new parking garage at Union Station are important considerations.

Ultimately the Coliseum site is far too geographically, economically and culturally valuable to remain as parking, and will be most likely filled in with offices, valuable apartments within close proximity to the train (although, please no more subsidized units!!!), and the Long Wharf Theatre complex.

I wouldn't be surprised if this remains a parking lot for 2-4 more years, but would be VERY surprised if it did for longer than that.

Posted by: steve beck | June 12, 2007 7:44 PM

I have heard all along that a parkiing lot was planned for the site on an "interim basis." Being new to New Haven I have heard many people say downtown is on big parking lot. So true, so ture.

Posted by: TrueBlueCT | June 12, 2007 8:33 PM

How much does ProPark pay its employees? Isn't it required to pay the City's Living Wage rate of $11.50/hour? Will they be doing this??

"For all hours worked on a City property or site, employee's or subcontractor's employees must receive a wage consistent with the ordinance (see table below)."

Posted by: Jonathan Dranoff | June 13, 2007 7:20 AM

I suspect that Leslie is right. Placing a parking lot is a cheap cop-out, which will allow the city to take years to develop a project that could in turn take a decade or more to complete.

Amazingly, several strong multi-use plans that would enrich the city at a cultural and aesthetic level were proposed a few years ago. Does anyone recall the open-air storefronts, ice skating rink, and Long Wharf relocation that was presented? What happened to that?

An expansion of KOC would be a poor choice. As any downtown regular might note, the current KOC building is strictly an 8-to-5 operation, which becomes a mini-ghost town at night. Furthermore, there are plenty of unused offices throughout the city. If they are not sufficient for KOC operations, renovate them!

Large open-air parking lots are not attractive, environmentally friendly, or useful to neighborhood residents. But the lot proposed for the Colisseum site is most worrisome, because it may lead to a vision-less, second-rate project that seems to be emblematic of New Haven's approach to development over the years (for example, the Rte. 34 underpass to nowhere and an incomplete Colisseum without storefronts as was originally proposed).

This is an important issue - we citizens of New Haven must put pressure on our leaders not to allow another example of municipal mediocrity in our otherwise beautiful city!

Posted by: The Sieve | June 13, 2007 8:46 AM

I agree that parking lots don't add to the culture of the city. And there should be better use of the old Coliseum space.

However: There is a major parking shortage at Union Station - this will not solve that problem at all. The main garage for Union Station is full by 7:30am on most mornings and all day every weekend. It can take up to a half-hour to pay to get out. There is a 3 year wait list for tokens. Unlike every other station along the Metro-North line which serves primarily its own town or a few smaller surrounding towns, New Haven's Union Station is the point-of-origin of choice for commuters from all over the state and even Massachusetts. Go into the garage on any given day and the license plates you see reflect this. Another problem -The NHPD uses the lot as spillover parking. I have counted as many as 12 patrol cars in the lot at one time. This further eats away at the space available for commuters. New Haven, with State help, needs a long-term solution to this problem. A new garage at Union Station is good for the environment, the safety of our highways (congested 95), the strength of the New Haven housing market and its position as a transportation hub. There is a big lot across the street from police headquarters. This would free up the Colisuem and other sites for more cultural, aesthetic uses. What are we waiting for?

Posted by: Joe | June 13, 2007 4:02 PM

Why doesn't the Mayor just build another magnet school on the site...Isn't that his specialty?

Posted by: urbandev | June 13, 2007 5:15 PM

So once the site is cleared next month the real discussions can then start on the development - it takes two years minimum before a shovel gets in the ground to agree on terms of a sale, zoning and design approvals, building contracts and the construction. Rather than let the land sit empty why wouldn't you use it to provide much needed parking in the interim and have the City get much needed revenue from the parking? It is a requirement that any operator pay living wages. To the Knights of Columbus question - it is their world headquarters,they employ over 700 people, pay significant taxes on the property (as an insurance company)it is the type of business any city would want to attract - so the idea is to not only keep what you have but work with them to expand.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | June 13, 2007 7:27 PM

I think they planned on another non revenue project which was a nice idea and would of added to the citys culture.....but..with all the heat and elections right around the corner to anounce they are going to be building another no revenue site would close any chance of him winning this time around. Soooooo we wait. But also remember as New Haveners we asked them to slow down on the spending of our money. I hate corperations but at this point in time we need one. Maybe some fat cat will buy the site and bring some real money into the city.
We do need parking everywhere
here is the last parking plan
http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/EconomicDevelopment/pdfs/NewHaven_Parking_StrategicPlan.pdf

Not one of the maps shows what the future plans are for this site. Non profit

Posted by: Taxed To Death | June 14, 2007 10:43 AM

Excuse me, but it was several years ago, when DeSefano summarily and unitarily decided to demolish the coliseum. From that time til now, no plans have been developed? What have they been doing for all this time? Oh, yeah..running for governor and whoever was in charge of development? uhhh, oh he was helping DeStefano run for governor too. Let's see, oh and we had to refine the City ID program ...and lots of other important stuff. Since private sector job growth is in the toilet and has been for the last decade, but poverty is growing and homeownership is declining -- Just build lots of low income housing and add a magnate school focusing on city government -- that way, the city can subsidize their rent and teach them to get a government job at the same time. And it will be so close to City Hall.