THomas MacMillan Photo
As neighbors and city planners gathered to discuss a plan to fill in part of the Route 34 corridor with new construction, some questioned the notion that the project could “stitch” together long-separated neighborhoods. There are no longer neighborhoods there to reconnect, they said.
Planners offered a slightly different twist: They see a move to undo the “scars” of urban renewal and reinvigorate an asphalt dead zone.
Those observations surfaced during a Thursday evening “community workshop” in the downtown public library, where the discussion topic was the Downtown Crossing project. City officials, consultants, and neighbors gathered in the Elm Street library basement to talk about the city’s plans to overhaul the downtown section of the Route 34 mini-highway between State and York Streets.
The plan is to fill in the area between North and South Frontage Roads — where the Route 34 Connector now sits — with new construction, and connect Temple Street to Congress Avenue and Orange Street to South Orange Street.
One of the goals of the project is to “stitch neighborhoods back together,” said Kelly Murphy (at left in top photo), the city’s head of economic development.
That’s not going to happen, said a couple of New Haveners, including Tokunbo Anifalaje (at center in photo). The areas around that part of the Rt. 34 connector ceased being “neighborhoods” long ago, they said. There are no neighborhoods there to stitch.
A project is already in the works for a portion of the area, which will be known as Downtown Crossing. Developer Carter Winstanley, of 300 George St. and Science Park fame, is planning 240,000 square feet of retail and laboratory space between the Air Rights garage and College Street. That project will cost between $140 and $160 million, said Murphy.
The rest of downtown crossing comprises three more parcels on Rt. 34 between College and Temple, Temple and Church, and Church and Orange. Thursday’s workshop was intended to gather ideas about what should happen in those remaining three parcels.
From Cut-Through To Destination
Gene Festa (pictured in yellow), an architect and board member of the New Haven Urban Design League, offered an articulation of the project that he said was lacking. The objective of Downtown Crossing should be to transform a pass-through into a destination, he said. The Rt. 34 extender was orginally designed as a way to get people from the highway to the Boulevard. That notion needs to be eradicated, Festa said. The area should be designed to attract people to the area, not encourage them to zoom through it, he said.
City planners said Festa’s vision is part of the point of the Downtown Crossing. Festa said he hadn’t heard that stated explicitly enough.
Thursday’s workshop began with an overview of Downtown Crossing presented by Murphy and Bob Brooks, a project manager with the Parsons Brinckerhoff, the consulting company the city has hired to study and plan the project.
The Route 34 Connector is a natural place for the city to grow, Murphy said. It will build on the city’s “core strengths,” like higher education and medical research.
Among the goals of the project, Murphy listed “breaking down physical and psychological barriers” to “stitch neighborhoods back together.” Downtown crossing will emphasize ease of access by pedestrians and cyclists.
Murphy showed pictures of the area before and after the Rt. 34 Connector was built in 1960 as part of New Haven’s urban renewal effort, which leveled swaths of the Hill and Dixwell. The goal is to go back to the before, to create a mix of uses and “make this a 24-hour place again,” she said.
Brooks offered a timeline: The preliminary design should be complete by 2011, the final design by 2013. Construction will begin in 2013 and be finished by 2016. Winstanley’s development should be built by 2013.
Brooks said the project will have two levels of roads, with North and South Frontage operating as multi-lane “boulevards” while lower level driveways will connect the different parcels of Downtown Crossing. In place of bridges connecting the halves of College, Temple, Church, and Orange, “fill structures” are being contemplated, Brooks said. “Like a causeway,” he said. The road would be supported by filled-in dirt between retaining walls, eliminating the need for costly bridge maintenance.
One of the main challenges of the project is striking a balance between how much can be built and how much traffic the area can accommodate, Brooks said.
Later, after snacking on cookies and sliced fruit, workshop participants gathered in small groups around tables with aerial photographs of the Rt. 34 Connector.
Festa spoke up. The goal of the Downtown Crossing development should be to reverse the original intent of the construction of the Rt. 34 Connector, he said. The project “should diminish the role of 34 as a high-speed through road,” he said. It should not be seen as a way to get quickly from the highway to the Boulevard.
Drivers will need to be trained to take I‑95 down to the Boulevard exit, he said. The perception of 34 will have to change. “It will become a different animal.”
City Plan department staffer Donna Hall agreed that is a point of the project. “You’ll no longer be able to hit York Street at 70 miles an hour,” she said. “This isn’t going to be this speedway in.” The character of the area will no longer encourage high speeds, she said.
“That should be a stated objective,” Festa said.
It is, Hall replied.
A little later, Parsons Brinkherhoff staffer Joanne Crowe Frascella asked what people thought about the idea that Downtown Crossing will connect neighborhoods.
“I don’t think it’s going to do that,” said Festa. “That’s a false objective.”
“It’s not going to create a neighborhood,” said Anifalaje (photo), a West River neighborhood resident who studies urban planning at the Pratt Institute.
“It’s already not a neighborhood,” Anifalaje said, after her discussion group broke up. The area is surrounded by commercial property, she said.
There may be an opportunity to stitch neighborhoods further west on the 34 connector, Anifalaje said. But not east of the Air Rights garage. “This is about economic development. This is not about communities,” she said.
Festa later expressed similar sentiments. “Neighborhoods will knit together westward,” he said. But along the area that will be Downtown Crossing, “there are no neighborhoods.”
Murphy had a slightly different perspective. Downtown Crossing will be like an extension of downtown, which includes residential properties, she said. “You’ll see changes over time,” she said. As the area is developed, it will fill up with commercial and residential property. “There’ll be everything,” she said.
Alex Krieger, a Boston-based architect, Harvard professor, and urban design guru, is working on the project. As he walked out of the library, he reframed the situation. Maybe “knit” or “stitch” are not the right terms for what Downtown Crossing will do to adjoining areas, he said. What it will do is create “continuity,” like the continuity “that exists here,” he said gesturing to nearby Temple Street, Elm Street, Yale University, and the Green, where cars and pedestrians moved and buildings coexisted without the interference of a highway.
As it is now, Rt. 34 is like a “scar” in the city, he said. “Things recede from a scar.” When the scar is healed, he predicted people will move towards the area. “It will be the center of things,” he said.
One of the problems with New Haven is that the Green is historically the "center" of the city, yet does not actually function well in that regard because of its large size and its being surrounded by Yale and other civic and institutional buildings. What New Haven needs is another "center." When you drive through German towns, for instance, you always know where the market and retail "center" is by following signs to the "Stadtmitte." And you know it when you see it.
Stitching two parts of town together is great and far superior to the Connector, but there is an opportunity here that I hope isn't missed. The opportunity is to create a retail "center" for New Haven --- adjacent to or including this corridor. If you want to attract people, there has to be a "there" there, in addition to the actual retail, residential, etc. functions. Whether that "there" takes the form of an outdoor pedestrian mall-type thing, an intelligently designed plaza-type or square-type thing, or whatever, it's got to create an identity -- a destination. That was the golden opportunity that was totally lost in the design of the ill-fated Long Wharf Mall, which could have been a multi-use waterfront development, rather than a "mall."
There are retailers who I think would choose New Haven if the "Stadtmitte" could be created (think Blue Back Square.) I recently contacted Eddie Bauer regarding the closing of their Trumbull Mall store and complained that I had to drive all the way to Danbury to shop in their store. They responded that they are LOOKING at south central CT. Apartments are not enough. You need retail -- REAL retail --- not high-priced boutiques.
Along with "stitching", I hope the planners are also considering "creating."