nothin 2018: Hotels Rising; Not At Coliseum Site | New Haven Independent

2018: Hotels Rising; Not At Coliseum Site

WSP

Design for rebuilt intersection at Coliseum site’s corner.

Paul Bass Photo

Former Webster bank building: Downtown’s next hotel?

Hundreds of new apartments might start rising this year just east of the State Street railroad tracks. Three blocks west, five separate development projects are either completed or underway on a single block of Crown Street. Three new downtown hotels are taking shape.

So who’s worried about that conspicuous unbuilt stretch of asphalt where the New Haven Coliseum once stood?

Matthew Nemerson’s not worried.

At least he said he’s not worried.

He’s still claiming that the long-delayed plan to construct a $400 million new urbanist mini-city might still come to pass at the former Coliseum site at George, State, and Orange streets and MLK Boulevard. He said the city’s working with the developer to get it started.

But whether or not that happens, so many multi-million-dollar developments are ready to roll on nearby blocks in several directions that New Haven needn’t worry, Nemerson, the Harp administration’s economic development administrator, said in an interview on WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven” program in which he previewed city building plans for 2018.

In fact, Nemerson said, if Hyatt Hotels suddenly signs a deal to build a new facility on the spot, the city might have to ask the project’s developer to wait two years to get started. That’s because the city is busily building a new road to connect Orange Street to South Orange over the vanishing Route 34 Connector mini-highway, and it needs some of that Coliseum site land for temporary traffic lanes. It’s also because the state will soon build a second garage on a current surface lot at Union Station, and New Haven will need the Coliseum site’s current surface parking during the two years that construction occurs.

There are so many great projects going forward,” Nemerson said, that he no longer even considers the Coliseum project a top priority, a key development site, at the moment.

What’s Up In 2018

BEINFIELD ARCHITECTURE PC

Prospective design for Audubon Square

Here’s what’s on the front burner instead, Nemerson said.

• South Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners has already submitted a permit application to demolish the vacant former Webster Bank building on Elm Street near Orange. Spinnaker plans to build a new 120-room hotel starting on the surface lot at the corner of Orange and Elm, with a new garage on the interior of the block. (The city insists on a 90-day waiting permit before allowing demolition so the public can comment on the wisdom of demolishing the allegedly historic bank building.)

• Spinnaker also expects to break ground this spring on Audubon Square, a 269-market-rate apartment complex on a surface lot at Audubon, Orange, Grove and State Streets.

• For years Spinnaker has been planning to build hundreds of new apartments on an old Comcast property at Olive and Chapel streets. A rival property owner, PMC Property Group, has delayed that project with lawsuits; Nemerson said he hopes to see that resolved this year. Meanwhile, similar legal efforts to prevent construction of a second apartment complex a block away have failed, and the builder — Adam America, which is buying the project from local developer Noel Petra — is ready to start this spring as well.

• Developer Randy Salvatore has begun work on an $8 million 108-room boutique” hotel at the corner of High and George Streets. It is one of five separate building projects transforming the once downscale block. A Chicago developer has purchased the Hotel Duncan and has begun taking out permits to renovate it into an upscale establishment.

• Salvatore has approvals and funding in place to begin building a second large apartment-retail project this spring in the Hill. He has permission to transform 11.4 largely vacant acres of land in the Hill into 140 apartments, 7,000 square feet of stores, 120,000 square feet of research space and 50,000 square feet of offices between Congress Avenue and Church Street South. (Read about there here.)

• A California developer won a needed zone change Tuesday night to begin constructing 385 market-rate apartments at an old factory site in Newhallville, while a few blocks away on Henry Street, a plan is moving forward to convert another abandoned factory building into 38,000 square feet of apartments, artists’ studios, gallery spaces, offices, an assembly hall and a cafe.

The Haven Halo”

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Nemerson: Everything’s looking up.

New Haven is benefiting from a halo effect” luring market-rate apartment builders to invest in communities outside metropolises worldwide, Nemerson said.

There are these huge cities almost like black holes, suck in all sort of energy, all sorts of people, all sorts of investment. They’re creating areas around them where rents are going up, where investment is going up.

Money is looking to buy market-rate rental projects around the world. New Haven is now seen as a safe place to invest.”

In short, New Haven is becoming the next Stamford. With soul. And skipping over Bridgeport.

There is a bit of a halo effect that’s going all the way up through Yonkers into White Plains and New Rochelle. It’s beginning to hit us as well,” Nemerson observed. One of the things that probably advantages us right now is the fact that Bridgeport has not really turned the corner yet and is not developing as the next place in line for the New York area. We are getting the benefit of that.

The fact that we have a university and a major hospital here makes us more advantageous. We have a gap between Stamford and ourselves where there isn’t a lot of development. Even though we’re 72 miles from New York, we’re acting more like we’re 50, 45 miles away. We’re seeing the rents go up. We’re seeing a lot more people commuting in the morning into Stamford, into New York.”

People moving into the many other market-rate apartments built in recent years include young professionals who are willing to commute 40 miles to the right job, and want to live in an interesting city, Nemerson observed. Some of the tenants are couples who have jobs in opposite directions.

Not Ready For 2018

Newman Architects

Design for the Coliseum site project, if it ever gets built.

Despite the halo, some projects remain in limbo.

Like the rebuilding of Church Street South once it’s demolished (which is expected to occur this year).

Like the future of the Ninth Square development, whose owners, McCormack Baron and Related Properties, are bailing out. The Connecticut Housing Finance Administration (CHFA) is reviewing bids from potential buyers. The development includes 335 rental apartments in several buildings, which also comprise 50,000 square feet of commercial spaces and two parking garages distributed along Orange Street from Center to George.The successful buyer will inherit about $50 million in debt to CHFA as well as estimated $15 million to $20 million in deferred maintenance, like rebuilding kitchens and bathrooms. And the city is insisting that any buyer maintain a rent cap on 55 percent of the apartments deemed affordable” in return for a requested extension of an expired tax abatement on the development, keeping the annual tax bill at around $500,000 to $600,000 a year rather than the $1.2 million owed under a full assessment, Nemerson said. (CHFA is currently assessing responses received for adequacy, financial viability and continued affordability” and shares the city’s concerns regarding affordability,” said agency spokesperson Lisa Kidder.

And then of course there’s the big elephant in the district: That long-delayed plan, struck in 2013, to have a Montreal developer called Live Work Learn Play (LWLP) build 1,000 mixed-income apartments, 30 to 40 new businesses, a four-and-a-half-star hotel with 160 – 190 rooms, 30,000 square feet of stores, and a public square on the site of the old New Haven Coliseum at Orange, George, and State Streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The Harp administration inherited that deal from its predecessor. The deal with the DeStefano administration included a provision allegedly allowing the builder to take his time — up to 14 years — to get started on the project. Deadline after deadline for submitting new drawings or signing a hotel deal have passed; there’s still no sign of work beginning.

In the WNHH interview, Nemerson sought to put a positive spin on the continued stasis.

There Is Truth”

Paul Bass Photo

Developer Reim, at center in photo, with state development deputy Tim Sullivan and builder Lynn Fusco at a 2015 “progress” announcement.

Following is an excerpt form the radio interview with Nemerson, concerning the Coliseum site plan. (Developer Max Reim did not return a call seeking comment.):

WNHH: So is 2018 the year when you’re going to tell the truth and just say, it’s dead?”

Nemerson: That’s a funny question. We have probably a dozen projects that are going forward in New Haven.

We have been talking with Max [Reim, LWLP’s principal]. Max has a deal with Hyatt. We’re still very interested in having a Hyatt hotel in town. Max has the relationship with Hyatt right now. He is coming back to us in the next couple of weeks, months with what his needs are. He has always said there is going to be a gap with any hotel project. He is going to need some subsidy. He is going to tell us what that is.

There are so many great projects going forward.

And this is a huge one that’s not …

We have hundreds and hundreds of [apartment] units that are going up along Olive Street. We’re going to finally get projects going there between Union Avenue and Olive Street. That is going to transform the edge of Wooster Square.

You’re avoiding the question. Are you going to tell the truth this year about Live Work Learn Play?

There’s no truth.

There is truth. There’s not a shovel in the ground. There’s no state money. It’s years since this thing was supposed to be built. And there’s no sense that we’re going to get to square one.

That’s not true at all, Paul

You’re telling me it’s not raining when there’s a thunderstorm above my head. You go to the old Coliseum site: There’s nothing there. Nothing’s happening.

Parking! There’s parking there.

Which is your example of the worst use of prime space downtown.

Not at all. That is the best use of that space.

Then you’ve changed your mind. Audubon had surface parking for decades [at Orange and Grove]. You were very excited about a great new development going on it, Audubon Square. So you’re saying that [surface parking] was a good use?

That is a bad use — commercial parking. That’s all used for the phone company.

So the new Nemerson Doctrine is that prime real estate downtown should be surface parking, but public parking, not commercial parking

I no longer consider the Coliseum site right now as prime space. We have such success in the College, Crown, and George Street corridor, that moving the housing now to Wooster Square, getting that bridge between the railroad tracks and Wooster Square is so important.

That huge parking that you describe [at Audubon and Orange], getting that developed is going to bring so much vitality to Audubon Street. Places where we have investment in retail.

I’m agreeing with your bigger point, Matthew. When you look at the two projects on Olive Street when you look at Audubon Square, there’s a lot of building going on. Crown Street has five projects! But I guess what’s bugging me is I feel you’re not being honest about one little point. It’s not like two huge downtown blocks are supposed to be surface parking. We never wanted that. So yes, you’re saying great projects are happening right around it, that we’re not going to be so sad if two blocks are held hostage because some guy had a 13-year agreement that you inherited on prime space. But why are you pretending that you don’t want to see two blocks built up and added to the tax rolls? 

Of course we do. But remember that the big issue, which was very complicated …

… was moving the hotel and not having to move the utilities.

That was one of the issues, Paul. But I think as your listeners may remember, we were in a long complicated conversation with the governor and the state about getting the money to build one of three crossings [above the old Route 34 Connector]. The very good idea about bridging over the highway.

One of the crossings was the Orange Street crossing. There was a little nuance that was thrown into the mix back in 2014. That was that the governor understandably said, If you want that money, that $21.5 million, I need to see proof that the hotel is ready to go.” But we said, We can’t get the hotel ready to go until we have the money for the crossing.” That was a very important part of the hotel project. We have been talking to Hyatt about that all the time.

What happened this summer was that the governor sort of said, I understand we got this a bit out of order. I’m going to give you the $21.5 million. Build the Orange Street crossing. Then we’ll come back and revisit the hotel.”

So we have been working feverishly all fall. Not that we haven’t been working on the Coliseum site. We have been working on the highway. We have been working with the state — it’s a complicated intersection — to have a new road across a highway right there, back into the train station. Which also is part of an even bigger, more important project: The Church Street South project.

So there are a lot of things going on. And I know this is sort of pedantic. We are still working with the state on building the garage at the train station. When that garage at the train station goes in, we’re going to lose all the surface parking at train station for a period of two years. So it turns out that one of the things that we just can’t lose at the same time, because these things got backed up, is we can’t lose all the surface parking at the train station and lose all the surface parking two blocks away.

So if Live Work Learn Play and Hyatt Hotels says, now we’re ready to build,” you’re going to say, wait two years?”

I might have to.

Really? You’re really going to say wait two years” after a five-year delay in a $400 million project?

We are working with them. Here’s the order of things. Sequencing is very, very important in these $300 million projects. We have to get the highway crossing done. That’s going to require some of the lanes onto the Coliseum site. We’re going to be rebuilding that entire intersection. It’s going to start this spring. That’s going to be very exciting.

So the Coliseum project is going to begin.

No it’s not. The Orange Street extension is going to begin.

That’s part of the Coliseum project.

But you’re telling me that even under the best scenario, it’s going to be at least another two years before we build anything on that block. You’re saying that’s fine because we’re building so much else around it?

We have been talking with Max. And Max has a deal with Hyatt. We are still very interested in having a major Hyatt hotel in town. Max has got the relationship with Hyatt right now. He is coming back to us in the next couple weeks, month, or whatever, with what his needs are. He has always said there is going to be a gap in any hotel project. He is going to need some subsidy. He is going to tell us what that is.

Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full episode of WNHH FM’s Dateline New Haven” with city economic development chief Matthew Nemerson.

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