Zoners Want More Answers From Furniture Giant

It might have trapezes or trampolines. Or a bowling alley. Or a Bose shop. Or fine dining or a Fuddruckers. Or it might never get built.

Eliot Tatelman learned Tuesday night that if he wants city permission to open one of his furniture mega-stores inside the Register building on Long Wharf, his plans will need to get more specific.

That was the upshot of a public hearing held by the Board of Zoning Appeals.

The board, meeting in the Hall of Records at 200 Orange St., considered a proposal to open a 200,000 square-foot Jordan’s Furniture store at 40 Sargent Drive, in what is currently the New Haven Register building. The paper plans to move its shrunken staff downtown. (Click here and here to read more about the Register’s efforts to sell the building.)

The company has hired politically connected lawyer Anthony Avallone to shepherd its proposal through city approvals.

Asked to provide more details about the store’s plans, Avallone told zoners ​“that’s not how the world works.”

After a long presentation by company representatives and comments by concerned neighbors Tuesday night, the board voted to continue the public hearing next month before taking action.

The applicants sought a number of special exceptions, including for more signage and less parking than ordinarily allowed. But it was the permissions for in-store entertainment that drew the most skepticism.

According to the meeting agenda, the proposal asked for special exceptions ​“to allow a restaurant or other establishment selling alcoholic beverages for consumption on or off premise including entertainment thereto including operation until 2:00 a.m.”

That was a sticking point for neighbors who came to speak about the proposal. Angela Hatley (pictured at the top of the story), a member of the Hill South Management Team, said she had supported the proposal when Tatelman pitched it as ​“family-oriented” at an earlier meeting with her group. Now she was incredulous at the prospect of the store selling alcohol until 2 a.m.

“That sounds like a nightclub,” she said, summing up much of the opposition. ​“We would like assurances that this will not happen.”

Neighborhood Alderwoman Dolores Colón said that while the store has the potential to bring new jobs and tax revenue to her ward, she worries about ​“something open till 2 in the morning after people are liquored up.”

In response, Tatelman (pictured) and attorney Avallone stressed that they have no intention of installing a bar or keeping the business open so late. The liquor license, they said, was necessary to attract desirable restaurant tenants — not to open a bar or nightclub.

“Who wants to buy furniture in an environment like that?” said Tatelman. ​“Trust me, I don’t want it more than you don’t want it. We’re not selling furniture at two in the morning.”

Avallone said that the 2 a.m. language was included merely to match city liquor license ordinances. He suggested that the proposal be modified to include an earlier closing time as a condition of approval.

A potentially more intractable problem is what members of the board saw as the vagueness of the proposal, which calls for permissions for ​“an assembly hall, bowling alley, indoor amusement center, dance hall, game rooms, trampoline center, fairs and carnivals.”

As part of an hourlong Powerpoint presentation, Tatelman, the company president and son of the founder (Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought the company in 1999), tried to explain what all that had to do with a furniture store. Clicking through slides with images of other Jordan’s locations, he emphasized, in language that echoed an IKEA or Stew Leonard’s marketing campaign, what he called his Massachusetts-based company’s unique business model: ​“We’re not just a store. We’re an experience.”

In addition to retail and dining tenants, the stores contain elaborate entertainment attractions: IMAX theaters, trapeze lessons, motion simulators, a model of Boston made of jellybeans. As he introduced one fanciful diversion after another, Tatelman pounded home like a preacher the theme that the stores’ ​“fun and entertainment brings people from all over.”

The display of variety may have only increased the board’s concern over the vagueness of the proposal.

“What you’re asking for is an approval for all the possible things that you might want,” said board chair Pat King (pictured). ​“You’re asking us to approve something we don’t know the details about.” 

Tatelman acknowledged that the proposal lacked details. He argued that providing such details would be impossible at this stage because potential tenants won’t sign on to the project before it receives permission. 

Avallone, who said the project would cost more than $15 million, conceded that in a perfect world, he would be able to tell the board exactly what would go into the store. ​“But that’s not how the world works,” he said. The most they could offer was a general sense of the types of retail and entertainment that might end up in the new store, based on the existing locations.

Thomas Talbot, deputy director of zoning, told the board that without more specific details, ​“I don’t think you have the authority to approve this.” Moreover, he pointed out, the special exceptions attach to the land, not the tenant.

“It’s not just about this applicant,” he said. If a liquor license is approved, any future tenant will be able to use it without going through the zoning board.

“That’s just not acceptable,” he said.

The board ultimately voted to keep the public hearing open, delaying referral to the City Plan Commission for another month. King said she hopes that would be enough time for the applicants and community members to ​“iron things out.”

In the meantime, Tatelman exhorted the people at the meeting to visit his other store locations, confident that that would convince them to welcome a New Haven outpost. ​“Please, I will send buses if you want,” he said. ​“Call anyone you know in Massachusetts.”