New Haven Independent

Lower Orange Street merchants like Tom Melillo (pictured) are bracing for an even tighter squeeze for parking as a plan to build a 31-story tower and mixed-use complex on the old Shartenberg lot at Chapel, Orange and State begins.

The merchants support the project and the new business they hope the apartments and offices and stores will bring to the area. But they’re struggling to hold onto business in the meantime — some say receipts have fallen dramatically — as already limited parking continues to vanish.

The latest point of contention has been the fate of the lot itself (pictured). Until December the city leased the land to an operator of a surface parking lot. After the city approved the new tower, the lot was closed. Poof! went 225 desperately needed spaces. Even though construction has started yet.

Paula Squillacote (pictured) said that has been the kiss of commercial death.

Squillacote manages the property of offices and storefronts extending from the corner of Orange and Chapel up to the federal building. She has been unable for months to rent seven cut-rate upstairs office spaces. “Everyone [potentially renting] looks at the parking” and says no, she reported.

She and Omar Rajeh, owner of Mediterranea restaurant, complained as well about extra parking tickets they’re getting as they try to conduct business. For instance, Rahen said, he has nowhere else close enough for food deliveries, so he parks his van out front short-term and hustles. He’s still been hit with $260 in tickets in the past months. His overall restaurant business has dropped 30 to 40 percent, he said.

The city did open two surface lots three blocks away with 535 spaces, the gravesite of the old New Haven Coliseum. Squillacote and Rajey said their customers consider that too long a walk. “Ladies in high heels aren’t going to park over there” and rush over for a quick meal on a lunch break, Rajeh said.

“It’s a waste not to be using that parking lot,” said Duncan Goodall, owner of Koffee on Orange. Goodall made the city an offer: He’d manage the lot short-term until construction begins on the Shartenberg project; he’d pay a fee to rent it, obtain the insurance; and swallow potential profits by offering heavily discounted rates.

Goodall said his business has dropped 20 percent in the past few months for two reasons: the closing of the Shartenberg parking lot as well as the Dec. 12 three-alarm fire that destroyed buildings a block away.

“Even if it’s for only two weeks, let me open that lot,” he said. He and other merchants wonder when construction on the project will actually begin.

Figure three weeks, said Tony Bialecki, point person on the project from the city’s Office of Economic Development.

Bialecki said that the project’s construction manager, Fusco, is in the final stages revising architectural drawings. Site preparation work is scheduled to begin once the final terms are settled with subcontractors. A representative for the developer, Becker + Becker, confirmed Thursday that work is supposed to begin in the coming month.

In the meantime, the developer has been doing some work on the site, such as testing the soil for pollutants and getting a head start on an environmental clean-up.

Bialecki said the city kept the lot closed the past few months, instead of renting it out to Goodall or anyone else, also because the lot would have needed potholes and other substandard conditions fixed.

Tom Melillo (pictured at the top of the story), co-owner of the Blossom Shop, said he’s more concerned about the long-term parking impact of the project once construction begins.

“Whether it’s now or a month from now, they’re going to start building. Eventually the buiding is going to be an advantage to the area. It’s a matter of going through the construction that’s going to be very difficult.

“Nobody has explained to the people what is going to happen when they start trucking steel. Will Orange Street become a construction site? Will we be able to enter Orange Street?”

No to the first question, yes to the second, Bialecki said.

Bialecki said the city has held meetings with the merchants to discuss the upcoming construction. He said Orange Street will not be closed off to handle truck traffic for the construction site. Rather, trucks will enter the site from State Street and proceed into the underground tunnel there. A “basement” area has been created directly under the site for trucks to park and unload; an elevator will lift steel and other materials to ground level.

The city recently decided to add some new metered street parking spaces in front of the Chapel Street buildings destroyed by the fire. (Drivers were illegally parking there anyway.) Roughly the same number of spaces, a half-dozen or so, will be lost once the Shartenberg contruction begins: directly in front of the site, on the north side of Chapel between Orange and State. However, no other spaces will be lost, according to Bialecki.

“The site is big enough that they can do almost all the work onsite,” Bialecki said.

Bialecki said he’s not concerned that the recession will threaten the project. It’s moving right ahead, he said. The developer has solid financial backing, he said, and the downtown rental market (as opposed to the condo market) appears to remain strong, fueled by Yale’s growth, Yale-New Haven Hospital’s expansion, and a desire by young professionals to live in an enlivened downtown.