nothin Downtown Crossing Details Stress The Upscale | New Haven Independent

Downtown Crossing Details Stress The Upscale

Thomas MacMillan Photo

Carter Winstanley will have to make art objects” a part of his big new development project. Pictures of New Haven, too. His tenants can sell wine — but no beer. Dollar stores? Adult” establishments? Forget it. And he’ll get prime reclaimed downtown land for free with $7 million of city improvements — but he promises to spend some $100 million to turn an empty highway into a glittering office building.

Also, Winstanley gets the right to veto city design plans for surrounding streets, if he reasonably” thinks they would negatively impact” the development.

Those are some of the details that have emerged about Downtown Crossing, the $135 million plan to transform part of the Route 34 highway to nowhere” into a new hub of activity.

City officials have negotiated the legal details of the deal for more than a year with Winstanley, the developer. Now those details are public: They’re contained in a proposed 199-page development agreement. The DeStefano administration submitted the agreement — among between the city, the New Haven Parking Authority, and a limited liability corporation created by Winstanley Enterprises — for consideration to the Board of Aldermen Monday night. The submission follows over 70 public meetings (by the city’s count) on the plan.

Click here to read the proposed agreement.

Under the deal, Winstanley would pay $500,000 to improve the site. The company would then spend an estimated $100 million to build a new garage and medical-tech office building. Both of those investments will bring in new city jobs and significant tax revenue and for years to come, according to city officials.

The pact, which is now headed for an aldermanic committee in advance of a full board vote, would pave the way for the first phase of an 11-acre overhaul of the Route 34 corridor project known as Downtown Crossing. The effort aims to reclaim what is now a stretch of urban highway and — according to planners — knit together downtown, the Hill, the medical district and the train station.

In the first phase, Winstanley aims to put up a parking garage and the 10-story office building filled with biomedical companies. Supporters say the development will bring jobs and taxes to the city. Detractors worry that the plan, which they say is geared too much toward accommodating cars, will not create a livable inviting area for cyclists and pedestrians and that the new jobs will not go to New Haveners.

The proposed agreement offers the first glimpse into the project’s nitty-gritty details. Some of those details are curious or abstruse. (All parties waive their right to jury trials, for example.) Others amount to promises worth millions of dollars.

Exhibit S of the proposed agreement lists the dollar amounts each party would spend to improve the site for development. The city is on the hook for $7 million, the parking authority for $1.2 million. The feds and the state would put up $16 million and $10.4 million respectively. Winstanley Enterprises will contribute only $500,000.

No money would change hands when Winstanley Enterprises receives the property in a quit-claim deal with the city. The closing is scheduled for June 1, 2013. (The state currently owns the land. It would hand it over to the city before the sale.)

City officials justify that deal by pointing out that Winstanley would be spending millions to construct its new garage and office tower at 100 College St., which are expected to bring in many temporary and permanent jobs to the city along with taxes.

Deputy economic development head Mike Piscitelli said people should keep in mind that the property does not now belong to the city. It belongs to the state, and is being ceded to the city for economic development, not for one-time revenue generation from a land sale, he said.

The value to this deal is not only on day one,” Piscitelli said. The value, as for 360 State, is in years of taxes and filling out” a new district to spur other growth.

It’s yet to be determined just how much the city would pick up in new tax revenue. The property has not yet been assessed because it technically doesn’t exist yet, explained city spokesperson Elizabeth Benton. Right now, the site is a state highway and won’t exist as a separate property until a transaction is completed between the city and the state.

Piscitelli said acting city assessor Alex Pullen will look at the proposed agreement and plan for construction and make an estimation before the aldermanic committee meeting of the amount of taxes the city can expect. Piscitelli said the taxes will be comparable to those for other similar office buildings, like 300 George St. and 55 Park St. (Piscitelli said he doesn’t know how much those properties produce in taxes.)

Read on for more details of the agreement.

The City Promises To…

Fuss & O’Neill

A recent iteration of Downtown Crossing.

The agreement lays out the city’s obligations with regard to the site, which include significant traffic improvements.

Those improvements, detailed in Exhibit F of the proposed agreement, include removing exit ramps off of Route 34, widening and adding bike lanes to North and South Frontage Roads, replacing the College Street bridge over Route 34 with a fill structure.”

In making such improvements, the agreement would require the city to consult with and seek to incorporate the Developer’s comments and suggestions in such design,” unless they would significantly increase the cost.

The agreement would give the developer a great deal of power to shape the traffic plans. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the City shall not design the City’s Traffic Improvements in any manner that the Developer reasonably believes would negatively impact the Development Parcel,” the agreement states.

This is significant in light of the conflicting visions for the area held by the city and New Haven’s active cycling community.

However, the deal also states that the City and the Developer acknowledge that each fully embraces enhanced bike/pedestrian improvements in a manner consistent with the City’s Complete Streets Design Manual.”

The agreement also includes required improvements to the Air Rights Garage, to be completed by the parking authority. Together, the city and the parking authority are predicted to spend $8.2 million improving the site for development.

The Developer Promises To…

On the other side of the bargain, Winstanley Enterprises would be responsible for building tunnels and driveways at the site, which will be public rights-of-way.

Winstanley would also be responsible for streetscape improvements,” which are not detailed in writing in the agreement, but are mapped out in Exhibit E.

The cost of these improvements is estimated to add up to $500,000. After that investment, Winstanley would receive the property from the city.

Under a subsection headed Purchase Price,” the agreement states, The Development Parcel shall be conveyed to the Developer in consideration of all of the Developer’s financial and other obligations hereunder and the mutual covenants and conditions herein.”

No Dancing (Unless You’re In School)

Winstanley also, of course, promises to design the building and parking garage the company plans to put up at the site. The city shall have the opportunity to participate” in that design process, the proposed agreement states.

The agreement requires the building to be used primarily for offices, research, development and/or testing laboratories, medical or health care offices, health care clinics, associated medical uses, retail, commercial and/or other uses as are allowed by the zoning.” Downtown Crossing plans call for a change to the areas zoning to accommodate development.

Certain uses are prohibited by the agreement, including: a discount department store, a dollar store,’ a charity thrift shop, a five and dime’ store or other such retailer that regularly markets all or most of its merchandise for sale as discounted merchandise, a commercial establishment of any nature related to adult” use/entertainment, an establishment related to the sale or use of firearms or weaponry, a dance/music hall (but a dance studio or a dancing school is a permitted use), a tattoo parlor, an automotive repair or sales establishment, a package store, or a research laboratory that is dedicated to the study of highly infectious diseases … Notwithstanding the foregoing, a wine shop may be located in the Building.”

Public Parking Available (For 5 Years)

The agreements states that the parking garage to be built would include up to 1,000 parking spaces, depending on the final size of the office building. The garage would be open for public use after 6 p.m. on weekdays, for five years. It would be up to the developer whether public parking would be available after five years.

Jobs & Job Training

The agreement addresses several areas of community benefits, including jobs, job training, and minority and small-business hiring. All of these are specific concerns named by the city’s new union-majority Board of Aldermen.

A letter to Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez from economic development head Kelly Murphy says that the project is anticipated to create 2,000 construction jobs over two years, that between 600 and 960 permanent new jobs would be created, along with another 1,800 to 2,880 permanent jobs in the city and region as a result of the economic impact of this Project.”

However, none of those numbers are set down in writing in the proposed official agreement.

The agreement enshrines the following:

Winstanley promises to contribute $150,000 toward the establishment of an educational and job training program for New Haveners to foster the skill necessary to secure positions in” the Medical Office/Research and Life Sciences Industry.” The program would be created by the city, working with the Board of Ed, the Workforce Alliance, Gateway Community College, and the Economic Development Corporation.

Winstanley would also actively participate” in an architecture, construction, and engineering mentoring program with the Board of Ed. The project’s building contractors would attend a business fair” to be organized by the city.

Winstanley would be required to abide by all city and state laws regarding fair hiring and the contracting with small and minority-owned contractors.

Green, Silver, Showers

The building would meet LEED Silver green building standard and would encourage a minimum of 20 percent of building occupants to take public transportation rather than driving. The parking garage would have bike parking and spaces for electric cars to charge. Showers will be provided for cyclists who work in the building,” the agreement states.

Artistic Objects”

The Developer will install and maintain Artistic Objects’ on the Development Parcel,” the agreement states. “‘Artistic Objects’ under this
subparagraph may include posters, banners, graphic art, mixed media, decorative screening projections on the side of the Parking Garage, photographs, statues, sculptures, and/or a water element, all as chosen by the Developer and as may be replaced from time to time by the Developer.”

The agreement also states that the construction fencing for the Development Parcel shall be of a high quality and with appropriate material, height, materials, and content, such as images of New Haven selected by the Developer, which shall be reviewed by the City”

Come Again?

The 199-page agreement also includes pages and pages of esoteric legalese regarding defaults, remedies, contingencies, and penalties. That’s in addition to 31 pages of definitions, which theoretically help to clarify what’s being discussed, but sometimes do quite the opposite.

Consider the following stumper: A reference to including’ means including without limiting the generality of any description preceding such term and for purposes of this Agreement the rule of ejusdem generis shall not be applicable to limit or restrict a general statement, followed by or referable to an enumeration of specific matters, to matters similar to, or of the same type, class or category as, those specifically mentioned.”

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