Techy Architects On Board For James Street Project

A local architect who redesigned Clinton Avenue and Truman schools is teaming up with a national firm that designed offices for Google, MTV, LinkedIn, and Mashable to plan the look of New Haven’s next planned tech hub.

The architects — New Haven’s Ken Boroson and Studios Architecture— have agreed to design ​“DISTRICT,” the $20 million technology incubator center planned for the former CT Transit bus depot at 470 James St., according to developer David Salinas.

The city named a partnership formed by Salinas and Eric O’Brien the preferred developer for the site in a competition concluded July 31. (Read all about that here.) Since then the city has been negotiating a land disposition agreement (LDA) with the partnership, under which the developers would buy the 6.95-acre property along the Mill River for $1 (from the state, possibly passed first through the city). The partnership would then build the tech center along with a kayak launch and riverfront beer garden and bakery run by Caseus’s Jason Sobocinski, featuring suds from his Black Hog craft brewery. The complex would also become the headquarters for Salinas’s design and innovation firm, Digital Surgeons; and O’Brien’s CrossFit gym, along with local companies like Launch Capital and SeeClickFix.

City Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson said Tuesday that he expects to submit the LDA to the Board of Alders, which must approve it, some time over the next two weeks.

Salinas said the goal is to begin construction right before or after the new year and complete it in the first quarter of 2017. That’s when the leases for CrossFit and Digital Surgeons run out at the complex across the street at 1175 State St. The developers have started marketing 470 James St. with the above drone-shot video.

Potential Deal-Breaker

Meanwhile, the city and Salinas are awaiting a crucial piece of information from the state: Whether it will cover the cost of cleaning up pollution at the site.

The state’s Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) has signaled it will cover some of the cost, but hasn’t said whether it will cover all the cost, for which estimates have varied wildly. An updated estimate, based on which DECD will decide, is expected to exceed $5 million. It is expected to be completed this week, and then DECD will make its decision.

A ​“no” could be a potential deal-breaker. (DECD Deputy Commissioner Tim Sullivan, a member of the committee that chose the preferred developer for the project, couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday. He previously told the Independent that his agency is ​“excited” about the project but considers the financial details still needing to be worked out.)

“We’re comfortable we have enough money for the build-out, not so much for the remediation,” Salinas said Tuesday. He said his group plans to spend $12-$13 million on construction.

He said he’s excited about the architecture team on board for the project. Studios Architecture’s work with companies like Google and Pandora and LinkedIn ​“gives a sense of the tech feel we’re looking for,” he said.

As part of the LDA, the partnership agreed to host at least one public community event on the stage it plans to build by the water, according to Salinas.

A sticking point arose over parking during negotiations on the LDA. The project as planned now has surface parking. The city wanted the ability to have a garage built on the rear of the property later on if, as hoped, other new development arises in the surrounding ​“Mill River District.”

“This is a public building right now,” Nemerson observed. ​“We’re facilitating a handoff to the private sector. I think the public deserves the right to utilize some of that asset othe benefit of the rest of the city” down the road.

The city’s trying to think longer-term and learn from mistakes made in past deals, he said. ​“Sometimes we sell properties and wish we had them back. Sometimes we allow people to do developments that hold up other developments. Every time we’re involved in a deal [now], we think about what might we want it to be, what might we want to extract it, over 20 years or so.”

Salinas’s group balked at making that kind of commitment. In the end, the two sides agreed to leave the issue open for future discussion.

“We’re going to be open to having conversations with the city,” committing ​“to meet on as-needed basis” about extra parking, Salinas said