New Haven Independent

Kilpatrick heads New Haven’s parking authority. Along with City Hall and the state Department of Transportation, the authority is hatching plans for the long-long (long-) delayed, and much-needed, new 1,100-space garage at Union Station. As part of those plans, the authority advertised for consultants to submit proposals to help draw up a “transit-oriented development” (TOD) plan, a hot concept in new-urbanist planning these days. The idea is to use a train station as a convenient spawning place for concentrated new commerce and residential living.

Kilpatrick met with the DOT Tuesday to show officials the six proposal that came in. Now a committee from the authority, DOT and City Hall will review the proposals to pick a winner.

The process can’t happen fast enough for weary commuters. Union Station’s existing garage’s 1,170 spaces fill up by 8 a.m. most days. Hundreds more commuters must then park downtown at the Temple Street garage and wait for a shuttle to take them to a train station. The situation has been a major disincentive to people commuting by train — even though both the city and the state have been trying to convince people to ride trains instead of driving on highways.

Disputes between the city and the state, as well as a train station-like series of departures of state transportation chiefs, have held up plans to build the second garage. For an entire decade. (The state owns the surface lot where the garage would be built; the city leases the land.) Click here to read about those delays.

Kilpatrick Wednesday portrayed the DOT’s receptivity to the TOD plan as a sign of progress.

“If we can get a TOD and the garage, it’s a home run for everybody,” he said.

Kilpatrick asked bidders to submit proposals to do site and market feasibility studies and to draw up two versions of development plans: one just covering the land that’s currently a surface parking lot adjacent to the current garage; and a second plan encompassing the police station across the street. (Under that scenario, the station would be demolished, and a new cop headquarters would be incorporated into the development.)

“From the City’s perspective, the expansion of the medical district and downtown toward Union Station creates a synergy of economic and transportation activity,” the request reads. “The initial concept plan envisions over $500 million in private investment resulting in 1.1 million s.f. of new development and 620 new residential units.” The scenario including the police station would add 1.35 acres.

The responses that came in to Kilpatrick vary widely both in terms of the time frame as well as costs. Here’s a snapshot of the six responses that came in, based on the prospectuses:

• Wallace, Roberts & Todd (WRT) Design of Philadelphia proposes to charge $214,375 to spend five months putting together a plan. Its hourly fees will range from $70 for $210 for employees slated to work on the plan. The firm helped design hubs and station areas for New Jersey Transit’s Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Line, among other projects. Its partners in the proposal include Nelson/Nygaard, a consulting firm hired by new Haven’s Connecticut Center for a New Economy to “provide planning and expert testimony to the community in its struggle against Yale-New Haven Hospital’s proposed construction of a five-level garage in conjunction with a new Cancer Center.”

• The New York office of Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle proposes to take 14 weeks and charge $180,000, with hourly fees ranging from $200 to $525. Its team included new Haven-based architects Herbert S. Newman & Partners, whose many local credits include the renovation of Union Station itself, plus planning for the new Downtown Gateway project.

• Urbitran Architectural/ Engineering Group, which has an office right at Union Station, proposes to spend 16 months on the plan, and charge $175,400, with hourly fees ranging from $29 to $250. The firm has a “long-running on-call contract with Metro North Railroad where we provide comprehensive planning and design services for all of their station projects and new Transit Oriented Development initiatives.” It has done that at the line’s Harrison and Beacon, N.Y. stations.

• BAE (Bay Area Economics), which has worked largely with commuter rail systems in California, proposes spending six months putting together a $169,000 plan. Hourly fees range from $90 to $225. One of its subcontractors would be Wilbur Smith Associates, whose New Haven office has worked on downtown development projects as well as school rebuilding.

• BL Companies, a Meriden architectural firm, proposes spending six months on a $138,000 plan, with $45-$225 hourly rates. It has worked on New Haven’s Broadway, College Street and Ninth Square renovation projects.

• Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, a national real estate and planning consulting firm, submitted a $90,775 proposal. It would take six months and include hourly fees from $70 to $225.