New Haven Wednesday officially completed a long-awaited downtown dream — building not a coliseum, but a community college campus. A sea change in economic development philosophy led to the moment.
The event — a ribbon-cutting and series of speeches by statewide pooh-bahs — drew an estimated 800 people into the sunny environs of the new 300,000-square-foot campus of Gateway Community College campus at George and Church streets.
Paul Bass Photo
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Gateway President Dorsey Kendrick (pictured) led the ribbon-cutting. Some 11,000 students will begin attending classes at the $198 million campus next Tuesday. (Click here for a recent tour.)
The college stands on the graves of the old Edward Malley and Macy’s department stores, symbols of New Haven’s urban renewal-era development strategy a high-century ago: Try to compete with suburban strip malls by bringing big-box retail and a sports-circus-concert arena downtown.
Even after those stores closed, city officials through the 1980s sought to bring a new, bigger, mall downtown to replace it.
Then, eight years ago, the strategy shifted. New Haven started lobbying the state to build the new Gateway campus, both as a magnet for bringing people downtown and upping the emphasis on using economic development dollars to train local workers for jobs in the new economy.
The idea was that large-scale, publicly-subsidized suburban-style retail or culture won’t rescue city economies. Building on local strengths will instead.
The city even blew up the nearby New Haven Coliseum, hoping to replace it with a “new urbanist” mix of housing and arts matching the organic, small-scale development that has revived downtown.
At Wednesday morning’s Gateway event, Mayor John DeStefano noted that historic shift.
In remarks to the assembled crowd, he quoted a new bumper sticker in town. It reads: “New Haven Deserves A Coliseum.”
He begged to differ.
“I think like a lot of families, we have a lot of things we’d like to do in our lives,” DeStefano said. “And then we have special things we need to do. Smart decisions are discerning the difference between what is smart to do and what is essential to do. This was a smart decision and an essential thing to do.” He spoke of “the importance of putting our workforce development institution next to our major employers.” His remarks come at a time when a new labor-backed majority on New Haven’s Board of Aldermen has pushed the city to create a “jobs pipeline” to match local unemployed and underemployed people with local jobs.
In his remarks, DeStefano compared Gateway’s mission in New Haven to Yale’s.
“While there’s another college downtown, Gateway College is the first college [people] see” when they drive into New Haven now, DeStefano noted. “And it is the college that will serve our families, our businesses, our possibilities and opportunities.”
The event’s emcee, WELI morning-show host Vinnie Penn (pictured), Gateway Class of ‘89, introduced DeStefano as “New Haven’s older brother. The one who won’t move out.”
High-powered duos meeting up at the event included Gateway College Foundation Chair Lindy Lee Gold and New Haven state Rep. Toni Walker …
… Kendrick and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro …
… gubernatorial aide Michael Lawlor and state Senate Majority Leader Marty Looney of New Haven …
… and Laurie Pennacchini (Vinnie Penn’s sister), who organized the event’s community fair with local businesses like Elm City Market, whose community outreach manager, Jennifer Daddio, is pictured above at right beside Pennacchini.
Yay for Gateway and the vitality it will bring to downtown NH. Now to find room for the approximately 8,000 people who will flood into NH every day and need to park. Ouch.