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Developers Introduce Science Park Plan
by Melissa Bailey | Feb 22, 2008 8:39 am
(4) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Dixwell
A plan to turn an old gun factory building into apartments and commercial space got its first airing before Dixwell neighbors.
Forest City Enterprises, a $10 billion publicly traded nationwide real estate company, was recently chosen by Science Park Development Corporation to develop a 7.35-acre site at 275 Winchester Ave. (Click here for a background story). It lies at the edge of Science Park, the series of old factory buildings that once housed more than 15,000 workers a day making Winchester rifles.
A new Winchester Arms apartment complex would complement a flurry of previously unannounced activity in Science Park that was also hinted at Thursday.
Young reps from Forest City introduced the project Thursday night to about 15 neighbors at the Dixwell Enterprise Community/Management Team.
“It’s exciting to take something old and deteriorating and bring it back to life,” said Brian Oos (pictured above), a development manager with Forest City. On the lot sit 17 buildings with 700,000 square feet of floor space. The buildings used to boom with the sounds of gun production and shots from an indoor firing range. Since Winchester stopped production and left town, the space has been abandoned, becoming “something you don’t want to walk by.”
Plans for renewal are nebulous at this point. The project would be “predominantly residential,” with some commercial and retail space, said Abe Naparstek, also of Forest City. The housing would be rental units, not condos, aimed towards a mix of graduate students, young professionals and people who live nearby, he said. He expected his company to invest “almost $100 million” in the project.
Forest City intends to own and operate the building after its construction.
“We’re going to be here for a long time,” Naparstek told neighbors. “In 20 years, we’ll still be part of the community.” The land would be leased from the Science Park Development Corporation, a non-profit group that formed as a partnership between the city, Yale University and the gun manufacturer’s parent company, Olin, to revitalize the 80-acre industrial ghost town.
“What perks are you expecting from the taxpayers?” Dickerman Street’s Ruth Henderson (pictured) wanted to know.
“We’re not expecting anything,” said Naparstek. The project would be privately financed, supplemented by federal and state tax credits for historic rehab, he said.
Would there be affordable units included? Neighborhood activist Lisa Hopkins asked. “There are plenty of luxury apartments around town,” she said — how about some for people from the neighborhood?
Forest City hadn’t analyzed the market yet to determine the price or number of apartments, Naparstek replied. He pledged to come back to the management team for an update in June.
Forest City team brought posters of similar project they’re working on in Haverhill, Mass., where a mill is being reborn as an residential and commercial complex.
The Winchester factory has similar issues of big windows and big environmental clean-up, developers said. Luckily for Forest City, the Olin company has committed to cleaning up the buildings to a commercial standard. The firm would be seeking state clean-up funds to help with the rest of the contamination from lead and other toxins.
More Science Park Renewal Afoot
Naparstek said his firm hadn’t heard of some recent developments in that area when it decided to go for the project.
In September, Winstanley Enterprises LLC of Massachusetts bought 25 Science Park, the building kitty-corner to Tract A, for $14.5 million from BioMed Realty Trust. The building’s vacancies may soon fill up: Yale University has plans to lease a sizable amount of office space there, confirmed Lisa Grossman (pictured), whose group Capstan has been consulting for Science Park. (A Yale spokesman couldn’t be reached Thursday night.)
“Seeing Yale make that commitment” to lease office space nearby increases the area’s appeal, Naparstek said. He was also pleased to hear of big plans across the street, which is mostly occupied by a three-acre surface parking lot.
Winstanley plans to tear down a factory relic at 276 Winchester Ave. and build a structured parking garage, Grossman said. The garage could hold as many as 1,200 spaces, possibly with street-level retail, she said.
Naparstek said he’s “excited” about all the activity in the strip, though his firm didn’t know about it when it zeroed in on the parcel. The Cleveland, Ohio-based company just saw “a great adaptive reuse.”
The Forest City team will present ideas before Newhallville’s management team next week, presenting at the police substation 596 Winchester Ave. on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
Post a Comment
Comments
posted by: pedro on February 22, 2008 3:04pm
This is great news. It makes me very happy that a non-downtown area of new haven is getting major attention from several players, and also that the Winchester project is going to be undertaken without city subsidies.
posted by: Carole on February 25, 2008 4:17pm
“Winstanley plans to tear down a factory relic at 276 Winchester Ave. and build a structured parking garage, Grossman said. The garage could hold as many as 1,200 spaces, possibly with street-level retail, she said.”
Parking garages are enormously expensive: Yale said last year that its above-ground garages cost $44,000 per parking space, with below-ground construction running $100,000 per car. Demand for those garages is fueled by having way too many people driving to work alone—pumping out air pollution that causes lung disease, heart disease, and global warming.
The Farmington Canal bike trail runs right next to Science Park. It would be great if Winstanley took some of the (let’s say) $53 million it plans to spend on that garage and invested instead in secure bicycle storage, showers, and incentives for people to carpool and take public transportation—maybe shuttles from the train station, for example, and/or subsidized bus passes for people who work at Winstanley tenant companies.
Ditto for the Forest City project. In fact, if they end up building a massive number of apartments, maybe they can swing a contract with ZipCar, enabling tenants to get by with fewer cars.
posted by: steve beck on February 26, 2008 2:19pm
aaaggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
another parking garage. just what we need in this era of climate change and peak oil. when are these professionals going to get with the program?
posted by: charlie on February 26, 2008 11:21pm
Steve, it isn’t about the professionals, it is about the policies. No developer is going to put 1,000 workers in Science Park and not have parking for them (honestly, that would piss off the neighborhood even more than a new parking garage!)
Lobby local, state and national government to change their policies. Work to make your community a better place for cyclists and pedestrians. Get the government to pass taxes that adequately account for the fact that gasoline actually costs $20 per gallon, instead of continuing to promote policies that promote sprawl, single-occupancy vehicles, SUVs, and subsidies for the oil and gas industry.
Just an FYI, the Federal Government recently issued a massive report planning out the next $11 TRILLION of transportation spending (hundreds of billions of dollars per year). Cyclists and pedestrians were mentioned once. Our early-20th-century train system was barely mentioned at all. That’s how bad it is.
We are currently about 80 years behind the Germans in energy and transportation policy. And people ask why our economy is so bad? It is time to get involved and change these realities.
