Zared Enterprises LLC
A two-story central atrium exhibiting community artwork and artifacts. Two “child development” activity rooms for young people. A teaching kitchen to host cooking classes. A rooftop patio with herb gardens for seniors. A music recording studio adjacent to a teen lounge. A half-court gymnasium.
Local architects Regina Winters and Kenneth Boroson showed these features and more in a presentation of preliminary plans for the rebirth of Dixwell Community “Q” House.
Community members gathered in Wexler Grant School’s auditorium Thursday night responded favorably to the plans and eagerly offered suggestions for new programs and design elements.
“We heard you,” said Winters, whose company Zared Enterprises was hired to design the center, together with Kenneth Boroson Architects. The architects worked off of a “site, a budget and a list of things the community wanted,” she said.
The results included design elements tailored to different portions of the community, from kids to seniors, and activities ranging from socializing to skills training.
“They did an excellent job of capturing it,” said Jacqueline Bracey, the chairwoman of the Concerned Citizens for the Greater New Haven Dixwell Community Q House. She has led the campaign to reopen the center for more than 10 years.
Winters and Boroson proposed a set of symbols to decorate the Q House that would represent the heritage and hard work of the people who fought to re-build it. The design for the “Q” is a set of concentric circles — the inner circle represents family and the outer circle represents house. “Together, it literally represents community,” Winters said.
The Q House on Dixwell Avenue served as an anchor for the black community through much of the last century, a home away from home for local kids. The 1924 settlement house closed in 2013 after running out of money. The state approved $1 million in March to hire an architect and engineer for the center’s “pre-development” phase, after spending $40,000 for a feasibility study last year. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to deliver around state bonding money to have the center built.
Mayor Toni Harp made revamping the Q House a cornerstone of her 2013 election campaign.
Chief city architect Bill MacMullen laid out a basic timeline for the next steps until completion. After the current “schematic” or planning stage, the architects will work on design and development for about four months, figuring out exactly “how to put the building together.” Then they will begin a four-month period of contract development before demolition and building.
“If everything goes according to plan, it will take 18 months to have the building ready to open,” MacMullen said.
The 54,000 square-foot building will cost about $14 million to build, he said.
The Q House will also provide a home for an expanded Stetson Public Library and Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center Dixwell branch, both of which are now located across Dixwell Avenue from the site. The merge will defray part of the total cost.
Board of Alders President Jorge Perez said the city plans to set up a fundraising committee to boost the endowment, decreasing the risk that the center will face closure another time.
Aliyya Swaby Photo
“We would like to raise at least $3 million, because we don’t ever want to have this conversation again,” said Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison (pictured), to strong applause. Later, she increased this figure to $5 million, adding, “I have high hopes.”
Within three years after construction, the center would gain 501c3 nonprofit status with a board of directors and executive director, Perez said. The board will have the power to make decisions on Q House programs and functions.
In the discussion after the presentation, many in the audience inquired about job availability specifically for New Haveners. Morrison said that this is a priority for the project, and hiring will begin as soon as the general contractor is chosen.
The city will hire its own monitor to keep track of the employment process.
Doris Morrison-Little (pictured), who is 78, said she hopes people will commit to providing free programs in the Q House once it opens. She works at an agency that might be able to give nutrition courses. Though she now lives in West Haven, she used to frequent the Q House “when it was just a little building on the corner.”
She said the center provided local kids with security and stability. “If you did something in the Q House, before you got home, nine different people would know about it. And you would get nine different beatings. Whatever you did wrong in the Q House, you wouldn’t do it again,” she said. Morrison-Little is Dixwell Alder Morrison’s aunt.
Charles Atkinson (pictured) said he has spent 50 years working in construction and approves of the designs he saw in the presentation. He lived on Ashmun Street in the 1930s and 40s, around the corner from the original center during its prime. The new center “will help a lot of needs” for the community, he said.
Two questions come to mind? Why have a teaching kitchen taking up so much space? Is that what the community asked for? And there should be a full court basketball court. That's what kids like to do for exercise and camaraderie. Half court may as well not be built. It's a "less than" solution.