Architect’s plan; corner of MLK and Orange is at bottom right.
The city went public Tuesday with phase one of a developer’s plan for the Coliseum lot: A strollable “town square” with five- or six-story apartment buildings; top-of-the-line wine shops and restaurants; and a “woonerf”—a special lane for pedestrians and cyclists, not drivers — that takes you to State Street.
Those were among the main features in the preliminary plans that Montreal-based LiveWorkLearnPlay (LWLP) unveiled at the regular meeting of the New Haven Development Commission at City Hall.
The laneway is designed to be able to be closed off to vehicular traffic.
If all goes well — and that’s a big if — LWLP would in later phases build a world-class 160-room hotel at MLK Blvd. and Orange; in later phases, a corporate office tower and a residential tower along State Street.
City Development Administrator Kelly Murphy put the eventual cost in the “$250 million to $300 million range.”
“This is a mixed-use development centered around a town square. It’s not 360 State Street [all residential] or 100 College [all business],” said LWLP Vice-President Richard Martz in a presentation that drew enthusiastic support from commissioners.
“We’re very early on. We’re completely open to changes,” said LWLP’s founding partner, Max Reim.
“The first aim is to deliver a ‘town square’ with residence over retail,” said Martz. That would be the first phase, to be built at Orange and George.
The city named LWLP a preferred developer to pursue a plan on the graveyard of the former New Haven Coliseum (now a surface parking lot) at State, MLK, Orange, and George. The latter phases depend on the city receiving state backing to continue Orange Street past Route 34.
The developer is not seeking any government subsidies for the project as planned, officials said. The city wants to see affordable housing in the mix; that could raise the subsidy question later. The city would be on the hook for infrastructure (roads, utilities) costs.
LWLP’s Kiran Marok and Reim.
Reim said his firm envisions buildings for the northwestern half of the site to rise no more than five or six stories high. Later phases will include the hotel at MLK and Orange, and then more residences in a “tower over podium” style — that is with the tower recessed over a lower-height-street level building, and an office tower ideally for a corporate tenant.
He guessed the towers would be 15 to 20 stories, but all dependent on needs of potential leasing tenants.
All told, the project would blend low and high-rise residencies with 524 new apartments, a four-star hotel, and “town square” to attract people as a destination for concerts, new idea incubation, or just hanging out.
There would be no back end or backyard to any of the buildings. To maximize flow through, all parking garages and Dumpsters are envisioned underground, said Reim.
Martz said New Haveners have to think of a new kind of development, so maybe a Dutch word would be useful: “woonerf,” essentially a street where “the pedestrian is dominant. We want cars to be the guest.”
The hotel’s gymnasium, pool, and other amenities would be open for community use in LWLP’s vision, Reim said.
Commisioner Pedro Soto (with aldermanic rep Sarah Eidelson) pronounced what he heard “fabulous. You guys have the right fit.”
Currently LWLP only has a memorandum of agreement with the city, recently renewed for one more year, through next spring. LWLP came into the picture after Northland Investment Corporation bailed out as preferred developer at the time of the economic downturn.
LWLP doesn’t own the land. It is working with Newman Architects to develop plans on their own nickel, said Kelly Murphy.
They seek to create a “destination” linking to the Green, train station, Wooster Square, and the Hill. The motto for the project is: “New Haven Starts at Orange Street.”
Much depends on the city’s negotiations with the state Department of Transportation to create a street crossing for Orange at MLK, said Martz and Reim.
You can’t bring a world-class hotel [and other businesses] without Orange Street crossing and connecting across Route 34, said Reim.
Murphy called the Orange Street connection “very important to how this development gets developed. … We are all working hard on how to get the best intersection we can to reconnect this site to the train station and the Hill and vice versa” while tackling challenges with “grade, draining, traffic,” and cost. She said she hopes the city will have a development agreement and land disposition agreement ready for the Board of Aldermen later this year; the city and the developer are still in negotiations over details of the project.
Reim expressed concern that with a new mayor taking office next January, a new economic development team at City Hall might not share the current team’s enthusiasm for the project.
“We’re hoping before the end of the year to have a development agreement and an LDA [land distribution agreement] and to keep it going,” said Kelly Murphy, who was attending the Tuesday commission meeting.
The LWLP team is bringing its presentation to the Hill North Management Team Tuesday evening and to Hill South on Wednesday evening. Both meetings begin at 6 p.m. It plans another presentation next Tuesday night at the Downtown Wooster Square management team next Tuesday.
This looks awesome.