New Haven Independent

Those were two of the highlights of a wide-ranging briefing offered to aldermen Tuesday night by a bevy of city economic development officials including Michael Pinto, foreground, and Deputy Director Tony Bialecki. The briefers outnumbered the alders two to one; only four alders out of 30 showed up.

Here are highlights, along with some questions and concerns expressed by alders in attendance, Ina Silverman, Dolores Colon, Carl Goldfield, and Allan Brison.

Gateway Community College:
People in New Haven had hoped that the college’s street level would have retail when the campus moves downtown, in the image of the Yale Center for British Art. That is not the route designers are going, Bialecki reported. The city has little say. “The state is the 800 pound gorilla in the room,” said Bialecki, meaning that the state is building the college and for its own reasons. So: no retail.

Still, the college’s bookstore, library, and the restaurant connected with its culinary arts program will be on the ground floor of Church from Frontage to George and up to Crown, with a façade bright with glass and glazing and provide a lot of interface with the city. Alderwoman Colon she’s heard the restaurant operated by the students produces food that is both tasty and affordable.

Alderwoman Silverman renewed her questions from a previous design hearing as to whether the pedestrian bridge over George will be more transparent. Bialecki said the designers, who have been gracious in trying to accommodate the city’s concerns, are meeting with officials at the end of the month.

Coliseum Site
On April 1 the city hopes to have a batch of potential developers who have answered its request for qualifications (RFQ) to develop the site. It’s all being conducted online. Developers are receiving a package for development of a 4.5 acre site; the package includes the plans evolved already by the Long Wharf Theater, which is going to occupy 1.5 acres. Long Wharf has received $30 million from the state. Its general plans are part of a step to release those funds, which the theater must match for the project to be complete.

The Knights of Columbus, among the city’s biggest employers, said Development Administrator Kelly Murphy (at right in photo), has rights to develop two smaller parcels on the Coliseum site near Orange Street.

Shartenberg:

Developers, Becker + Becker secured permission for 20 Section 8 vouchers from the Housing and Urban Development Administration. The development deal calls for the 31-story building to have 475 units, including 50 of affordable housing. Now the developer must find financing for another 30.

Fencing for excavation should be going up in as soon as four weeks, and some of the soils might be used for fill in the River Street Development project, particularly at Blatchley Avenue, where Colony Hardware will be moving.

55 Park St.

This laboratory/office building, a support facility for Yale-New Haven’s Smilow Cancer Center, just received approval from the State Traffic Commission (STC) stating that the project is causing “no impact.” Murphy said she is excited about the corner atrium and skywalk connecting the new building to the center and the way it will look less like a hospital than an office building.

Colon (pictured with Green Alder Brison) asked how late the pharmacy or restaurant scheduled to be in there might stay open because “after seven, that area is ghost town.” Deputy economic development chief Chrissy Bonanno said the lighting is designed to enhance safety and to connect the medical district with the rest of downtown.

Lot E
This parking facility wrapped by retail at South Frontage and Howe is moving forward to seek approval from the STC at the end of the week. Intercontinental Realty, the developer, is looking for a bank to occupy some of the space because the area has none.

Science Park
Winstanley Enterprises is studying how to bring parking and supportive services like a coffee shop to 25 Science Park, where the only tenant currently is Higher One. And Forest City Enterprises, the developer of Building 1, Tract A, also at Munson and Winchester, is negotiating an environmental clean-up on the site of the old arms factory. (Click here for related story).

Previous owner Olin is obliged to pay for remediation up to commercial standards, but for Forest City to bring it to residential and mixed use standard, that will cost a lot more. More talks with management teams in Dixwell and Newhallville are scheduled for June.

Union Station
The three-phase “transit-oriented development” plan not only to build desperately needed new parking, but also to “merchandise” and activate the potential of the Union Avenue area, moves apace. Murphy said the state Department of Transportation has asked the two other players — the city, and the parking authority — to assemble an implementation committee to get the project off the ground. Aldermanic President Goldfield asked if the long-needed parking will come sooner with this new plan than later. Murphy said sooner, with enough parking in Phase II to meet the station and area’s needs, she said, through 2025.

Brewery Street Post Office Site
In the most inchoate of the plans, Michael Pinto said the city has “secured a place at the table” as the JDA Development Company of West Hartford negotiates development of the post office site.

JDA, he said, is just beginning to talk to the post office about moving. The idea is to develop the site in connection with the ring road and the I-95 redo and connect it with Union Avenue’s development. Murphy said JDA is “doing all the heavy lifting, but we are able to say, for example, that we don’t want a big box store there, but more mixed use.” Very preliminary, but full of potential.

River Street Municipal Development
So long to Blatchley Avenue by the Sea, as Colony Hardware Co will be giving up its site in the Port Authority and moving to River Street at Blatchley Avenue, eliminating a previous plan to run Blatchley down to the water. (Click here to read a recent story.) Still economic development officer Helen Rosenberg was pleased. “I think this can be a model for how these challenged sites can be put to use- - and it takes a committed citizen like Colony.”

River Street sites are among the most polluted in the city and therefore hardest to develop. Colony, Rosenberg said, has right of first refusal for the re-development of 142 River Street for their further expansion.

Economic Development Corporation
EDC’s CEO Michelle Whelley is set to begin forming this new public-private group at the end of March with a $1.6 million (guaranteed for five years by Yale) budget for business retention and attraction. Murphy said that Kevin Walsh, publisher of the The New Haven Register, has just been added to the seven-to-thirteen member board, which is headed by David Silverstone of the Regional Water Authority. Already agreeing to serve are Murphy herself, Karyn Gilvarg, Bruce Alexander, and Alderwoman Bitsie Clark. Murphy said they are looking for representatives from the commercial neighborhoods to fill out the board.

Walter Esdaile (pictured) of the city’s Small Business Initiative said his staff has already applied on behalf of the EDC for a new federal program for the marketing of federal tax credits to induce developers to the city. The city’s approach to promote small and minority-owned businesses, he said, has become a model for the state. He pointed to the special importance of mentorship programs between large contractors, for example, and smaller. “The idea is for small contractors to develop longevity and stay in as players after a specific project concludes.”

Murphy said the EDC’s portfolio will include working with small companies and fledgling business groups in just such commercial neighborhoods, such as the Upper State Street Association, just formed; and the Whalley Avenue Special Services District, around for a while but in need of more staff attention than the city can provide.

The EDC is going to be housed, Murphy said, in the New Alliance Bank building.