Hotel Deal Off; Deadline Nears

I'm rooting for the "Coliseum"/"LWLplace" to succeed, but if it keeps sitting empty or just eventually turns into a strip mall, it may need a new name - Taubman 4.0, New England Development 3.0, or Galleria at Long Wharf 2.0, would all be good choices given the constantly-repeated history of this type of development in New Haven over the past 30 years.

Good, I hope the deal falls apart completely, and the City is allowed to put the 4.63 acre parcel out to bid again.

With developable land in downtown New Haven going for $5 Million an acre, why are we giving this valuable parcel away for nothing? I understand that we did so in the past because developers weren't eager to build in New Haven. But that's certainly no longer the case.

What downtown needs is not another yuppie apartment building full of transients. Instead we would profit by a condominium development, with long-term homeowners. Downtown has so few condo developments. It's really quite pitiful and no way to build a neighborhood.

Certainly the City and State have bent over backwards for this Canadian developer. If his project never materializes, is anyone sure we won't be better off?

I suspect that the extended stay development recently approved for the corner of High and George streets will meet part of the lodging demand associated with Alexion. While primarily marketed for people staying in town for a couple of weeks or months, it is technically a 115-room hotel which can accomodate people for periods as short as one night.

AT, the economics of condo and apartment developments are very different, something that came up when 360 State Street was developed. If a developer builds condos, it gets its investment back fairly quickly, if there is a market for condos. Building apartments gives you a long-term income stream, assuming the developer holds on to the property. I haven't seen evidence that there is a substantial market for condos in New Haven at this time. The two recent developments I am aware of, in Wooster Square and Westville, are tiny with fewer than ten units each. In contrast, hundreds of apartment units have gone on the market in the last year, hundreds more are being built now, and further hundreds have been approved. Finally, if the city re-bids the Coliseum site with a higher cost for the land, the additional cost will be recovered in higher remts or sales prices. Rather than getting well-to-do yuppies living in the development, you will end up with rich yuppies.

Out of respect for New Haven's history as a city let's please not call this 10th Square...I can't even believe that's a suggestion.

There is no market for condos in New Haven the ones that come up for sale now sit for years.
You cant send your kids to school here so everyone knows this is just a pit stop.

You can't call it The Place. The Place is the best restaurant in Connecticut.

"Hotel Deal Off" seems like sort of an aggressively pessimistic view of this. The truth is, the hotel agreement is with a company which no longer exists independently, so obviously renegotiation was going to happen.LiveWorkLearnPlay has been pretty forthcoming about their entire development process and certainly has a track record worth giving the benefit of the doubt.

Why people want to throw away this development in the hope that something better will come along seems insane to me. This is a great project and something the city desperately needs. There's no promise that someone else is going to come in and make this work. Look at Salvatore and the Hill development -- it's going, slowly, and not at all surely. Who knows how that'll end?

I hope Nemerson is correct that this is all going to go well and that we can this thing going asap. Not sure what the next step is -- filling in the Route 34 area to extend South Orange? What's the ETA on that? The Downtown Crossing website has nothing after 2015/Alexion soooo yeah. No time like the present!

From the article, Toni Harp: "We absolutely need hotel space for them to grow. They're [Alexion] in over 50 countries. They bring people in and out of the state." Yes, but are we thinking big enough? Would argue that as a Destefano / Murphy legacy project, Harp / Nemerson are not doing enough to raise the bar.

Even if we have another hotel, or many more, there remains no efficient way for guests to get there b/c we allow our shrill neighbors to the east to dictate this fundamental aspect of our economic future. If ever there was a case for eminent domain it would be to transform all of charter oak avenue and south end road from the sound to I-95 into tarmac and link Tweed to new rail:
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/tweed_suing_state_over_runway/
http://www.necfuture.com/

Returning to small ball, would be surprised if Salvatore were not among the developers they are talking to about the Hotel given his level of activity in this competitive space in other cities like Stamford, Danbury and most recently Hartford. Though it would seem RMS as a local independent operator would be more challenged than a national to manage the 'workforce' requirements in the development agreement:
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/live_work_learn_play_by_the_numbers/

Josh wrote that LWLP "certainly has a track record worth giving the benefit of the doubt."

Josh, can you describe the actual "track record" of this firm? I'm not doubting you, I just want to know more.

Their website lists a small number of projects, going back to 1987 or before, that "current Principals were engaged in." Most of the projects are actually consultancies or advisory reports, not actual developments, if you scroll past the flashy pictures and read the fine print on what was actually done by the firm or "current Principals."

Is there another developer behind the scenes here, with more of a track record? Or is the stuff you are talking about just simply not listed on LWLP's website? I haven't followed the project very closely, so please enlighten me.

A typical project there is http://www.lwlp.com/works/revitalization/polo-park-north.html, which talks about how the firm helped suggest businesses that might help activate a strip mall in Winnipeg.

The "Many of the strategies we proposed are currently being pursued by Cadillac Fairview. Events and animation, carts and kiosks and a selection of the "best-of-the-best" food purveyors will distinguish Polo Park North from other commercial projects in the region" sounds pretty familiar here.

It's very easy to make stuff like this sound impressive. Again, I'm not doubting you, I would just love to know more about what the firm in place here has actually built from scratch, not what projects they have written advisory reports about.

Anon:

Well if you look at their projects, it seems they've done a pretty good job. They redeveloped a Master Plan for Florida State University (a huge University) which was approved by the Board of Directors -- no small feat.

They also redeveloped Whistler Village in British Columbia, which looks like it was throughout the entire process: http://www.lwlp.com/works/resorts/whistler-blackcomb.html

Admittedly, the other projects were mostly by the Principals, but this doesn't concern me particularly. They certainly seem to have their act together and if their Principals are experienced in actual development, then good enough for me.

But if we want to throw that all away and hope someone else will show up and offer more money, then... that's... also a plan.... ?

@Bradley & @ILH, -- politely, you guys don't know what the heck you are talking about.

According to Realtor.com, outside of lower-end units at Center Court, University Tower & the Kelly House, right now in downtown New Haven there is a grand total of five, (yes five), condominiums on the market for sale. (Three in Audubon Court, and two at the Johnson-Simons building).

The above represents an exceedingly tight condo market, and your suggestion that there is no market for condos in downtown New Haven is patently absurd. Retirees and young professionals love living in the area, and many of these people would become vested homeowners if more condo units were available.

The real problem slowing condominium development in New Haven are the insanely high property taxes. My suggestion to the powers that be is that the City consider offering a 10yr tax abatement to new construction, condo developments in the downtown area. That's been done in the past, and it would be the spark that's needed to get more longer-term residents to invest in the vibrant city center.

@AverageTaxpayer
Your missing some in Kelly house and its the off season there will be more in the summer. Also its not how many are for sale, the test is how long they take to sell. There is almost no turnover they sit for years because there is no market for them.

Josh: I'm not convinced, but maybe you have more information on projects they have completed.

Whistler Village looks like it was built by Intrawest, which is a massive corporation with 14,000 employees, not by LWLP... even if the current Principals were involved. And that was in 1997?

Writing a "master plan" is a million times easier than building a large development - it is more like an advisory report, which is what most of the projects on the website list as the main accomplishment.

If you think of the projects that have actually happened in New Haven recently, like the stuff by RMS, they've primarily been built by organizations that seem to have more of a track record, i.e., that have completed dozens of big development projects in short windows of time. And those have generally been much smaller projects than the one that is proposed here.

I hope it works out and all - I'm just looking for more info on what the real track record here is.

Elm City Resident.

"New Haven was laid out in the form of a large square divided into nine smaller squares - the central one reserved as common land - with a tenth square going off at a diagonal to meet the harbor." - Elizabeth Mills Brown "New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design" (Yale University Press, 1976) p. 11

https://www.raremaps.com/maps/medium/20308.jpg

The Coliseum site is where this "tenth square" extended the Nine Square grid to the shoreline. Because the proposed development contains a central plaza/square and it's located in what was a kind of "Tenth Square" in relation to New Haven's Nine Squares, it appears that the name isn't that appropriate - at least to me. Coliseum Crossing also seems fine, and it ties in with the City's "Downtown Crossing" moniker as well.

EDIT: In my previous post, I meant to say that the name "Tenth Square" does seem appropriate for this development.

As for the discussion about condos; I too would like to see larger units for both renting and buying in Downtown, but it appears that the market demand for it isn't quite there yet. While I would like to see the city look into ways of encouraging condo development as its done in the past (tax abatements are certainly one way), we should be cautious of what happened in the late 1980s when the condo market in New Haven went bust. With that in mind, it will be interesting to see what comes of all the recent construction of small rental units over the next several years. One important difference differences between developments in the 1980s and today in the City are that many of the recent projects have been privately financed rather than subsidized by the City as was frequently the case in decades past with Audubon Court, Whitney Grove Square, Granite Square, etc.

@ATP / JH:

"The real problem slowing condominium development in New Haven are the insanely high property taxes"

"I too would like to see larger units for both renting and buying in Downtown, but it appears that the market demand for it isn't quite there yet"

Do not share the view that either high-taxes or lack of demand are the primary cause here. More so than those, fundamentally, are barriers and risk. No project is easy to initiate, condo's are not immune, and are compounded in some respects with additional administrative requirements to build not only a building, but also an organization to own it in common. Once entitled to proceed however they are notoriously difficult to deliver to market. Owner's are more litigious than renters, to say nothing of the collective aggression of associations once owners are pooled together. Have read internal memos from several large national development organizations who will not perform their services on projects even with a small condo component. This appears to be specifically because of the perceived inability to end a project effectively and profitably.

The topic is so sprawling legally that UConn Law has tried to create a single on-line resource to collect information on the different aspects (and these are only some of the legal ones!). Would welcome you to read some of it here:
http://www.jud.ct.gov/lawlib/law/condominiums.htm

If all of this seems unreasonable and you would like to see more of this type of development as you appear to want, please do write Martin Looney here:
http://www.senatedems.ct.gov/looney-mailform.php

and/or Brendan Sharkey here:
http://www.housedems.ct.gov/sharkey/contact.asp

It doesn't take any longer to do so than posting a comment on NHI.

Ask them to please prune some of this regulation so the obvious need in the market can be addressed.

AT, according to an article in the February 25 edition of the Register, the median (average) sales price of condos in the New Haven region fell by 22.5% between January 2015 and January 2016. This does not suggest a tight market, and owners may be keeping their condos off the market to avoid losing money. (BTW, the relevant statistic in determining the tightness of a market is the vacancy rate, not the number of units offered for sale.) Developers have built and are building hundreds of rental units. If they thought the condo market was as tight as you suggest, they would have built a substantial number of condos.

I have nothing against condos and would like to see more built. But one of the market realties is that many of the Millenials who would normally form a good part of the market for condos are dealing with student loans that preclude them from buying housing.

I also have no objections to your tax abatement idea, other than the apparent lack of statutory authority. In Connecticut, municipalities only have the powers expressly granted them by the legislature, or necessarily implied by these grants of authority. I believe the five-year phase-in of taxes would apply to condo developments, but I am aware of no specific authorization for an abatement that applies specifically to condos.

"However, in light of the merger with Marriott, there is an entire new series of executives that we would have to deal with. And the senior executives that we were dealing with at Starwood have both left Starwood for other companies,"

Unfortunately, the new Marriott executives are likely the same ones that New Haven harassed and drove out of town on the aborted attempt to build the Marriott at the corner of Howe and Elm street: and the attempt to hold up transfer of their liquor license to the new owners of the Marriott Courtyard. Oh well,.... (sigh)

If we really need more hotel space, why don't we act like it. I would rather see a hotel at that corner than the unsightly woodpile.

Time will tell whether Nemerson can deliver on his boast:

When businesses look to add new markets, one of the first things they look for is nearby transportation, especially air travel. With Tweed only having one airline route, Philadelphia, it puts the city in bad light. Cities the size of New Haven across the country have service by at least two airlines and connect to two or more hub airports. When a flight is cancelled at Tweed, there are no other options to re-accommodate passengers and therein lies one problem with the local air travel scene.
Most airlines have agreements with each other to endorse tickets to another carrier so when flights are cancelled or late, the passenger can be routed to their destination.
In the past, there were several companies who were interested in New Haven, but the lack of good air service made them look elsewhere. Comments made by some in the past regarding Tweed don't understand how important a vibrant airport to the area for many reasons. All one has to do is look at the amount of increased business activity that results from good air service. Companies relocating and or expanding, airport and airport related jobs are created, and more of the travelers dollars are kept in the local area and not leaked to areas out of the county.
Also local fliers benefit by reducing time wasted on ground travel to other airports, avoiding traffic jams, and not having to deal with larger airports that have long lines at the airports security check points and not being number 20 in line for take off.

Does anyone know if the design of the Orange Street crossing been finalized yet? Is this being designed in conjunction with the redevelopment of Church Street South? There might be an opportunity to reroute South Orange Street through Church Street South to better connect with the train station.

Existing conditions: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/128521636.jpg
City's Hill-to-Downtown Union Square Plan: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/128521639.jpg
Potential alternate route for South Orange Street: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/128521638.jpg

Renewhavener,

In general, it's a good thing for a city to have long-term residents like families living Downtown and not just transient single person households in small rental apartments. Larger households require larger units and families often seek homeownership opportunities rather than rentals - unlike what has recently been constructed in the City. Personally, I think that Audubon Court, Whitney Grove Square, Friendship Houses, and some other developments offer the kinds of opportunities that I hope will become more desirable and more available in years to come. So while it's unclear to me at this point whether New Haven would be able to accommodate further growth of those kinds of large-unit multifamily dwellings, in general, a mix of units types in both size and cost is good for a vibrant Downtown.

Thanks for the links, by the way - very interesting.