New Haven Independent

New Haven’s building department approved a permit Thursday for a revised version project, meaning it’s closer to actually getting off the ground.

The project, “360 State St.,” inhabits the site on Chapel Street between Orange and State, the leveled home of the old Shartenberg department store. The city last fall approved a massive new complex of apartments, stores and parking on the lot. It’s the largest and most visible new downtown project in a generation. If built, it will alter a stretch of downtown, the Ninth Square, that previously was built to a more street-level, pedestrian scale.

Delays have plagued the start of construction, including a parting of the ways with the first construction manager, the Fusco Corp; and a redesign of the project in the face of rising steel and oil prices. (Click here, here and here for stories about the project’s progress to date.)

The project’s developers, Becker and Becker, submitted new plans for the project this month in quest of a building permit. The City Plan Department OK’d them earlier this week, then the building department Thursday morning, according to Livable City Initiative (LCI) chief Andy Rizzo.

The new plan lowers the complex’s defining apartment tower from 31 to 26 stories. That tower, set back from Chapel street, sits atop a wider five-story platform: one story of street-level stores and four levels of parking. So that makes the project a total of 31 stories, as opposed to the originally envisioned 36.

“I’m excited about the permit,” Becker and Becker attorney Sara Bronin said Thursday. “We’re ready to go as soon as we can fine-tune the budget.”

With government OKs in place, all that’s left before construction can start is a sign-off on the new budget by the project’s new construction firm, Suffolk, and its main financial backer, the Multi-Employer Properties Trust pension fund. Bruce Becker, the developer’s managing member, was meeting with the construction firm Thursday; Bronin said they hope to have both sign-offs, and work proceeding, by the end of August.

The project was originally expected to cost $165 million. Bronin said the developers don’t have a final new estimate yet, but the cost should be lower.

She said Becker and Becker had to revise its plans because of the rising steel and oil prices. The oil hikes trickle down to the prices charged by suppliers because of increased transportation costs.

A recent letter from the developer to the city laid out the changes in the new plan from the original scheme approved by the city:

• The residential tower will not only be five stories shorter, but also 53 feet longer. And the structure has changed, “from a concrete column system to a staggered steel truss system with concrete planks.” The developer also “added architectural metal wall panels” to parts of the tower’s facade.

• The “terrace area” built into the block-long plan has shrunk, as well, by about 4,000 square feet, to a total 20,993 square feet.

• The cellar area will increase 1,900 square feet, to a total of 11,637 square feet. The city’s traffic department had wanted more room for trucks to maneuver in that area.

Both Bronin and two key city officials — LCI’s Rizzo and City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg — said that the changes don’t necessitate new zoning or aldermanic approvals. They said the slightly shrunken project remains within the approved range of total square feet. Also, while the terrace area is smaller, according to the developer’s letter, “we still exceed the open space requirement in our zoning variance.”

Bronin said the project remains on its “green” track as well: Connecticut Innovations Inc. has approved a $985,000 grant for a 400-kilowatt fuel cell to help power all portions of the project. That grant still awaits approval from the state Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) of conditions for “submetering apartments,” according to Bronin.