New Haven Independent

Smilow’s Doors Open For A Preview

by Paul Bass | August 27, 2009 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Mayor John DeStefano got his first inside look at Yale-New Haven’s soon-to-open cancer hospital — and proclaimed the dawn of a new era of development.

DeStefano took a hard hat tour Thursday of the $467 million Smilow Cancer Hospital and two related new hospital-leased complexes, the 55 Park St. clinical lab and the 2 Howe St. office-apartment-retail development.

His tour guides were Yale-New Haven Hospital CEO Marna Borgstrom (pictured with DeStefano in the entrance to 55 Park) and Senior Vice-President Norman Roth. A band of architects and development officials accompanied them.

Gone was any hint of the high-level City Hall-Yale-New Haven acrimony that accompanied the approval process for these projects.

Instead, with friendly baseball banter (“They’re hitting home runs left and right” at Yankee Stadium, DeStefano noted) and questions about electronic medical records, the officials traipsed together amid work crews, up and down and along the corridors of three projects at the center of a reborn downtown. Years of debate, speculation and drawings have turned into terracotta, brick and glass. Even amid the rubble of unfinished walls and floors, it all looked real, and impressive, to the visitors.

It was the mayor’s first inside look at the on-schedule projects. Yale-New Haven plans to start occupying the lower floors of the 14-story cancer hospital in late October.

Taken together, the three projects total over $625 million in construction. They’ll create an estimated 400 long-term jobs. They’ll bring the city $2.5 to $3 million a year in combined state payments in lieu of taxes (for the Yale-New Haven-owned hospital) and direct taxes (on the privately owned 55 Park and 2 Howe, which Yale-New Haven will lease in full from Fusco Corporation and Intercontinental Real Estate, respectively).

All during a recession.

And it’s just a start, DeStefano declared as the group set out on the tour.

“At a time when the national and state economy is kind of slow, this has been a huge benefit to families in southern Connecticut,” he said.

“As we’re finishing this phase of work, we’re pretty aggressively going to the next phase.”

The strategy: building on what makes New Haven “authentically competitive,” in the mayor’s words. All this construction, including office and retail space, is spawned from a growing health care market around the hospital and medical school, he observed. Now the city’s looking to expand the area. The city is negotiating with the state for the right to shut down the Route 34 Connector at Exit 3 and have developer Carter Winstanley build a 240,000 square-foot office and lab complex there.

A Gateway

The tour began at 55 Park, which from the outside has already emerged as the jewel of the new downtown. A six-story Rubik’s Cube constructed hard against the Air Rights Garage, it links to the cancer hospital through an underground tunnel for deliveries from trucks in the garage, and through a fourth-story pedestrian walkway. The exterior’s colors change along with the light of day.

55%20Park%20Street-Atium.jpg The tour stopped in the sunny interior space fronting Park Street. When it’s done, it will serve as an open-air atrium (pictured) extended from one floor below ground all the way to the top of the fourth floor. It will offer views all the way to West Rock for visitors to the building’s clinical labs and patient testing offices, and for hospital visitors passing through the building from the garage.

Architect Barry Svigals was on hand, calling the public-space atrium “the gift the hospital made” to bridge the city and the cancer hospital, both figuratively and metaphorically. He called it “the hospital’s welcome mat,” a “transfer point.”

“You can’t get the effect with all the scaffolding [there now] of how light-filled this will be,” Svigals said.

Peace Out(side)

The tour proceeded through the above-ground pedestrian bridge into the 14-story cancer hospital itself. Yale-New Haven’s Roth told DeStefano that once Smilow is fully operational next year, it will have 168 inpatient beds, plus four full floors for outpatient care.

He took the group to a seventh-floor “peace garden, where a pond is under construction. The hospital has planted white pine and birch trees; flowers are coming.

The garden has a two-fold purpose. One: Offering outdoor repose to patients and their families. (Electric heating pipes will help in cold weather.) Two: Contributing to the LEED-certified hospital’s environmental strategy. The rooftop garden will collect rainwater, which will be reused in the building.

Back downstairs, the tour stopped at Smilow’s front entrance. Outside, workers were completing a huge mast frame for a glass canopy above the three-lane driveway.

In the main lobby, DeStefano chatted up workers putting together the reception desk.

Roth pointed to the “farm raised maple” wood ceiling, another LEED feature. He pointed to a wall where a floor-to-ceiling granite waterfall will greet visitors along with a player piano.

As she viewed the culmination of years of planning, CEO Borgstrom said in effect a new, equally massive job is about to begin: running the place. “The next big challenge,” she said, “is going to be making sure we operate this as cost-effectively as possible, always with patient safety in mind.”

Share this story

Share |

Comments

Posted by: James | August 27, 2009 4:36 PM

Congrats, Mr. Mayor. Important development still can survive in this city despite your best efforts to screw it up.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 27, 2009 4:47 PM

ok Johnny even you have to admit that the yellow monster is the most ugliest building in the city! With the water street school coming in a close second.
But with that said I say we start charging taxes to the people coming into new haven to work!

And yes it is exciting to get this in the city but the tax payer can not keep paying so much for yale. We need to tax the non residents that work here!

Posted by: lance | August 27, 2009 5:06 PM

destafano didn't break into "YMCA", did he?

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 27, 2009 6:39 PM

oh and one more thing... with becker and becker hiring a management company from MD and not New haven that 360 state is going to be empty!! A non resident tax will get more to want to live in the city!

Posted by: Norton Street | August 27, 2009 6:54 PM

dito CedarHill.

The rubik's cube thoroughly confuses me. I really don't understand what its relation to the city is. And the Metropolitan school on Water Street is just the 2000's version of the old 1960's era Jacky Robinson School.

Posted by: Election Year Again | August 27, 2009 8:03 PM

Wow. Look at what Johnny Boy's doing. I must vote for him. Not a chance. Hes the biggest hippocrite ever. He delayed this building for years. Playing politics with lifes is an abomination. With men like DeStefano health care can never be government. If he wants photo opps go to Raynham. See what his administration can really do.

Posted by: Brian V | August 27, 2009 11:27 PM

Wow Paul you really made it seem like King John had some helpful hand in this. Lots of pics w/ hard hat, lots of King John this and King John that.

He DELAYED the center for a year, trying to get unions in. And FAILED to get the unions in!

"As we're finishing this phase of work, we're pretty aggressively going to the next phase."
What phase are you working on King John?
The phase where you spend all those millions giving raises to political cronies? Great "work".

Posted by: City Hall Watch | August 28, 2009 7:47 AM

It is with great hubris that DeStefano takes this tour. Has he apologized to Marna? Has Kelly Murphy apologized? I would have marginal respect for the mayor if he would have held a press conference and apologized for subverting the approval process. He takes credit for the cancer center by association and implied leadership. The fact is he delayed the cancer center for more than a year, cost the cancer center more in terms of construction costs and financing and deprived New Haven area citizens construction work while he diddled around with SEIU. DeStefano even went on public radio and took credit for the eventual settlement. It's disgusting. I'll bet similar photos will show up on his re-election site.

Posted by: Missed Opportunity | August 28, 2009 8:33 AM

Mayor DeStefano should have taken Staggers and Paca along with him. His proteges could then have had great photo opps to advance their campaigns.

Posted by: jdavis | August 28, 2009 10:02 AM

I actually like the new buildings. And since when does a building "need" to reference the city it's placed in? Take a look around you, the city is filled with one off buildings, which soon become the fabric of the city. Maintaining history is important, but context is overrated.

Posted by: Jay | August 28, 2009 11:42 AM

I agree with you, Jdavis, 100 percent.

Posted by: anon | August 28, 2009 4:27 PM

It's been many years since the community requested crosswalks, walk signals and guardrails along the Frontage Roads, and they still aren't there. Many people have been killed and seriously injured: ironic for a hospital district. Will all of the new signals be in place by the time the hospital opens?

It's amazing to see the city celebrate the stuff that they think is a big deal, while simultaneously neglecting -- and in some cases destroying -- the small things that are responsible for the largest part of our city's economy, health, taxes and vitality. For example, the expansion of Whalley Avenue into a highway through a dense residential area.

Town aid is about to be cut big-time in Hartford. We will need strong and desirable neighborhoods, not just a couple of new hospital buildings.

Posted by: kris | August 28, 2009 5:53 PM

City hall watch,I agree 100%.I don't know why Marna took this rotten **** on a tour to begin with.He held up the cancer center from being built and now he wants to act like he built it with his bare hands.He publicly bashed Marna and Yale and tried to bully her into letting a union in but thank god Marna didn't back down from him.I wish I ran into him while I was at work because I would have said everything to him that I bet Marna was wishing she could say!If he ever bashes YNHH ever again and complains about the taxes he better go back and read this article.We the employees fought hard to keep the union out and we will continue to do so for years to come.Mr.DeStefano,the cancer center has been built(no thanks to you) and YNHH is not unionized(and never will be) and you can take your "agreement" you signed with Marna and **** ** ** **** ***Do you remember making this comment Mr.Mayor"I have no confidence in the management and board of this hospital anymore "So I ask,why go on a tour and act like you love the place?Maybe because you will need a job soon and the only employer in NH hiring instead of laying off is Marna's house! I say,Marna for mayor!

Posted by: Brian V | August 28, 2009 7:02 PM

I HATE saying this but- good one Lance, 1st time I ever laughed at something you posted.

Posted by: Charlie O'Keefe | August 28, 2009 7:49 PM

Does city hall support the Independent in any way. I am asking as this story and the Register's story are so different. The Register indicates an open tour by YNH for anyone interested. This story makes it look like a DeStefano special. Is the Independent giving DeStefano an election year boost. Nothing wrong with that. I'd just like to know who pays for what.

I am amused at what was considered important. A green roof, a waterfall and the maple reception desk. Some of the commenters here seem really concerned about the architecture. I'd be asking who are the doctors going to be. What are their reputations. Is the nursing staff first rate. I would think a cancer hospital's mission is to cure patients. I get the impression everybody is more concerned that its a trendy place to die.

[Editor's Note: City Hall does not support the Independent in any way.]

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 28, 2009 8:04 PM

Well put anon.

Posted by: Bulldog | August 28, 2009 11:24 PM

Yale is having the last laugh. Look what we've built, Johnny Boy. You delayed us. You denied good medical care to hundreds of very sick people. Good eventually prevailed over your evil empire.

Posted by: robn | August 29, 2009 10:01 AM

CHW,
I'm not disagreeing with your points about the mayors intention, but in a weird way, the delay to the cancer center may have actually saved them money by delaying thier bidding process and pushing it closer to the recession and lower construction costs.

Posted by: anon | August 29, 2009 8:48 PM

I doubt that's true, ROBN, considering that the construction all started well before the drop in costs. If anything, getting the projects underway earlier would have saved significant amounts of money.

Thanks, CHR.

Posted by: Walt | August 30, 2009 6:30 AM

Those who are ardent for a non-resident workers' tax might consider that the majority of the top dogs and Directors or decision-makers of most larger employers, are non-residents,

Tax them personally for working in New Haven and providing jobs for New Havenites and you will strongly encourage re-location to the suburbs as UI and the Gas Co. have done for other reasons.

Dont blame you for wanting their taxes, but pass such a law, (not permitted, I believe, under State statutes) and you will lose much of the current tax base(Hospitals probably excepted).

Smilow’s Doors Open For A Preview

Comments

Sections

Neighborhood News

Special Sections

Legal Notices

Some Favorite Sites

Government/ Community Links

Flyerboard

Sponsors

N.H.I. Site Design & Development

NHI Store

News Feed