Luxury Apartments Open On College Street

Does the bad corporate art come with the rental, or is that extra????

Lovely article! But J. Press is not "Yale-themed," although it sells some Yale insignia items. It is a timeless purveyor of traditional prep-wear, which can be worn earnestly or ironically, in a coherent uniform or as one part of a sublimely dissonant ensemble, by the young or old, by the white, black, or other, by male, female, or anywhere on the gender continuum. We all need some J. Press.

Once again, the real New Haven residents i.e. the working people who actually live here take it right up the wazoo.Shame on Harp and her oblivion to what housing looks like. It isn't low income or disabled or senior housing. It is affordable housing that supports working families. AFFORDABLE!! We will be dealing with this soon in the Hill North section of the city where gentrification is about to intrude even more than it already has. The developer here in addition to building that monstrosity,the Novella (who thinks these names up??!!) has 2 bedrm. apts.that begin at $2700.00 a month!! So where is it exactly the REAL people in the Hill are supposed to live? He is promising jobs too in office bldgs. How many jobs does that make per office like 3? This isn't Stamford thankfully. This isnt Bridgeport but if this continues, NH will surely end up its twin. Where r our BOA members,our reps. in Hartford we do vote yanno!! I get that we are not Westville or East Rock but aren't we people too? Join us at our neighborhood management team mtg. the second Tues. of the month, 6:00 pm at Career High's cafeteria! PLEASE we are gonna need all the help we can get!!! New Haven cannot be left to look like Stamford!

I have a girlfriend who was one of the first tenants and no the bad corporate art is not included lol

At least the exterior of this building is decent unlike a certain other building that just opened. It already houses a JPress though, which is just further symbolic of a downtown increasingly becoming a place out of touch to most New Haven residents

Bob Landino, CEO of Centerplan Development, which constructed the project, said the building "creates connectivity" between Yale-New Haven Hospital, Yale's downtown campus, the city's arts district and Alexion Pharmaceuticals, which is moving its headquarters to the new 100 College St. tower.

The building also the begining of Economically Segregated Neighborhood and Classism.

Madcap,

I second the motion.

I have been watching this development contest with the The Bordello from the get go.

All I can say is it's a wonder the difference couple blocks can make.

Now I feel like my up-coming neighborhood is strictly second-rate, but at market prices....

ATTN: PAUL BASS and NEWHAVENINDY crew:

There's a story that is not being told:

I'm curious about the cheap and tacky materials that were used, especially the glued-on brick facade that glares at us whenever we walk past the building. Were these materials the architect's choices (Svigals + Partners), or did the developer take the architect's design and decide to make it cost less so he could turn a larger profit?

Please investigate!

Adelaide: If we don't build 10-15 more buildings like this every year, then the neighborhoods will gentrify much more quickly. The only way to keep housing affordable is to build a lot more housing. Somehow getting developers to add 10 or even 100 more units of it makes absolutely no difference when you consider the broader housing market of millions of units.

The responses here are as predictable as the sunrise and sunset. You could set your watch to them.

I second HewNaven's sentiment! The thin brick tile glued onto particle board is so cheap and shoddy that this building will not last very long before the walls start shedding skin. The use of EIFS is shameful and the ornamentation looks downright dangerous.

The city needs to form a design review board with qualified architects and engineers to approve such massive buildings to ensure the ticky-tacky is durable enough to last without endangering the public (or greatly offending our aesthetic sensibility)!

Josh Levinson,

If I want one person's opinion without the opportunity for rebuttal, I'll turn to a personal blog like yours. If I want an honest debate about real issues that affect me and my fellow citizens, I'll come to the INDY!

To me, a healthy dose of criticism is better than acquiescence or submission to the plans of greedy developers with poor taste.

Adelaide, what you are worried about is real, we need to be aware of the long term stability of lower income New Havenites in the downtown core. Urban communities across the country are feeling the effects of the transitioning urban population and higher paid, higher educated people are FLOCKING to downtown and convenient "just outside" downtown neighborhoods from Boston to Seattle.
This building, along with all the others being built within the downtown bubble, can definitely be seen as the smoke in the distance by many. Hey, maybe there's some truth to that.
The difference is,… these 160 new luxury units are coming online at this location without replacing 1 unit of middle or low income housing. They are replacing underutilized building or parking lots – Although they are too expensive for most of my friends and I, I am HAPPY that these buildings are here.
A bigger thing that we keep forgetting is that we have ADDED 160 units to the pool of properties available to rent in this town. That means that we now have 160 OTHER, most likely less expensive, units available that would otherwise be housing those that CAN afford to live in this new construction. This is a win for New Haven and we need to continue adding MIXED INCOME units to the city, especially the downtown core!

Other Areas that desperately need this type of construction: Lower Whalley Ave and State Street.
Whalley Ave?… COME ON! I feel like we should take this strip and rezone it ENTIRELY for mixed- use HIGHLY dense construction. This is our chance to expand downtown up into the city. I feel that this stretch is a sad excuse for property so close to coveted real estate and the downtown and Broadway shopping districts. 10-20 floor, mixed use and market-rate properties would be ideal here.
State Street is full of holes: parking lots and underdeveloped properties. Parking garages, office space, mixed-income housing, retail – Why aren't we doing this here? TRANSIT ORIENTED development? State Street station sits alone on a side of State Street that was once FILLED with housing and retail. Let's get back to that?!
IF we keep building smart in this city, Adelaide and others might be able to keep those they advocate for in this town! If not? We will ALL be feeling the crunch.

I'm afraid the author was duped on the appliances. Those are not real STAINLESS STEEL. They are the imitation that companies like GE make (e.g. CleanSteel). If Landino is willing to lie about the appliances what else is he hiding?

http://blog.yaleappliance.com/bid/92693/The-Difference-Between-Stainless-Steel-CleanSteel-and-Silver-Mist

It's amazing how CHEAP the developer, LANDINO, was with this project. And, then he still has the guts to look for willing suckers to pay $3,000/month for the privilege of living in his tacky building.

The classiest addition to the facade is of course the hundreds of plastic dryer vents pointing out toward college street....or are those cannon and Landinos planning on broadsiding the ArtsCOOP HS?

Amen to what theNEWnewhaven says.

Both College and Crown and the Novella essentially replaced parking lots. In both cases not a single working-class resident was moved or displaced, and both of these developments did not use a penny of public financing.
(Novella- might - have gotten historic tax credits for moving the old building). They are not getting a single incentive above and beyond what any other person building a building in New Haven would get.

The projects that have taken public money do have workforce and affordable housing in them, including 360 State and Winchester, as will the forthcoming Coliseum development.

This is not some sort of "net net" game where buildings like this automatically mean that others lose out. The people developing these are doing so because there is an actual market for it.

This is certainly not a situation like in Boston, Chicago, or Toronto where people are buying swaths of cheap housing, knocking them down and building townhouses and gentrifying entire neighborhoods and kicking out long time residents. This simply is not happening here.

Pedro Soto,

The College/Crown site in fact held existing small businesses. They were kicked out for the initial development plan, which subsequently failed, and it then became a vacant lot. Then Landino came along and took such a courageous "risk" to develop the site. We should be thankful for such bold leadership, no matter how many corners were cut with the design and construction. I'm sure people who are willing to spend $3,000/month won't notice.

@Hew, et al,

Why must the default assumption of everyone on the outside looking in at development be that the developer is greedy? Clearly the unanticipated archaeological activities that were accommodated on this site must have all been part of this tycoon's megalomaniacal scheme to extract more profit!

Is the student who invested in their education greedy because their standard of living rises? Is the elderly person who invested in their health at a young age greedy because they outlive you?

Honestly these assertions of greed are so manifestly jealous they ought to typed in green.

Sycophantic rantings about the benevolence of developers and the presumption that they act altruistically - without a primary interest of <b>profit</b> should be viewed skeptically, if not ignored entirely. It is highly likely that those who would make such defensive comments are either "sleeping with" developers like Landino, or are just grossly misinformed about what makes a good city.

Meta, reasonable people can disagree as to the aesthetics of this and other projects. But there is no legal basis for a design review board for properties outside of local historic districts or village districts. Were the city to create a board absent statutory authority, the developer could tell the city to pound sand. I staffed the relevant committee at the state legislature (Planning and Developmemt) for many years. The sponsor of the village district law (Rep. Jeff Davis) comtemplated it being used in urban settings such as Westville Village. But no one ever proposed giving municipalities broad design review powers.

HewNaven-
The building that was demolished held two storefronts at the time of closure, and I still miss TK's!

The previous owner put zero money into that building, and the tenants that were still there we not very happy to be there (with the exception of the People's Collective which tried to stop the demolition of the building)

I'm not saying anything about Mr. Landino being courageous, in fact, you are the only one putting that straw man up to knock it down. He's a business person, full stop.

He paid a king's ransom for the lot in 2007, far more than had he waited a year or two after the economy collapse, but that's business. The initial plan was for a 19 story condominium tower, and clearly New Haven simply does not support that at this time.

Robn, I've got to look for those dryer vents the next time I go by the building! Maybe they will be covered with a screen?

Adelaide, you're right that this development will do little to address the real need for affordable housing. No one, including the developer, said that it would. However, the tenants will pay substantial property taxes through their rents (the rule of thumb is that 20%-25% of rent goes to taxes). At the same time, they will probably place very little demand on city services. For example, I suspect that relatively few tenants will have school-age kids.

For anyone interested..... The latest episode of "Design Czar" summarizes the issue of "cost vs. design" and focuses on the development at College/Crown. Appropriately, the title is <i>Lick and Stick</i>

https://soundcloud.com/new-haven-independent/design-czar-lick-stick

Pedro Soto,

You make an excellent point about the resilience of artists and activist groups compared to business men. The former will always thrive, even in a neglected building that no one else wants, like the former building on this site. Business men, on the other hand, will only come around when there is an opportunity for profit. They will never produce anthing in a bad economy. That is precisely why Landino chose to wait on this development. He waited until the market changed and the development looked more like a profitable endeavor. He doesn't need to be congratulated for that. He had the resources to wait. That's all he did. Meanwhile, the block was empty.

The parcels of New Haven, and every other city in America, represent a gaming board to developers. If the opportunity for a good bet is there, they will put their money down. If there is no opportunity for profit, they do not care. Don't be fooled so easily!