Thomas Breen photo
City officials, developers, and local business boosters embarked on an “investment tour” of the Ninth Square Thursday to showcase a host of new and planned projects designed to revitalize the southeastern corner of downtown.
The tour, hosted by the Town Green Special Services District and city Acting Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli, kicked off in Pitkin Plaza just after 11 a.m.
Making seven different stops at surface parking lots that will soon be market-rate housing on Chapel Street and Crown Street, renovated affordable housing on Orange Street, and a planned new axe-throwing entertainment venue, the tour highlighted a burst of investment in new residential and commercial projects slated to transform a a neighborhood that has struggled recently with crime and vacant storefronts.
“When you roll up the amount of investment happening in our strong innovative district in the Ninth Square,” Piscitelli told a group of two dozen public sector, private sector, and media attendees, “it’s over 700 new residential units in the near term, and over $150 million to $200 million in new investment. And that’s paired with a really strong base of jobs, innovation, and people living in the district today.”
“I think you’re going to be surprised,” Mayor Toni Harp (pictured above) added, “by what has been very quietly happening in this part of our city.”
The first stop on the tour was a surface parking lot at 842 – 848 Chapel St., the former home of the Kresge department store building.
Chris Vigilante (pictured above), the chief operating officer of the Northside Development Company, presented his and his partner Paul Denz’s plans to build a 120-unit, 120,000 square-foot market-rate apartment complex, which will contain 94 studios, 54 one-bedroom apartments, and 18 two-bedroom apartments. His company is also slated to build a 46-unit, 50,000 square-foot market-rate apartment building atop a vacant lot at the corner of Orange Street and Chapel Street. The two projects will contain roughly 6,000 square-feet of retail, as well as a two-level parking garage.
“We believe it’s going to be a very transformative project,” he said. In total, the two developments should create 50 permanent jobs in retail and building maintenance, as well as many more for construction. The city’s tax base, he said, should increase by $700,000 per year once the taxes are fully phased in on the two projects.
Up next, Piscitelli said, the city has to finish ironing out the details of a Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) with Northside, which will then have to be approved by the Board of Alders.
The next stop was 770 Chapel St., where Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana (pictured) introduced the audience to the latest innovative business that plans to move into the ground floor of a building already occupied by Make Haven and SeeClickFix.
That new company is Pine & Iron, an axe throwing company that will allow customers to sip beer, chat with friends and co-workers, and hurl dulled axes at wooden targets.
Think of it as a mix of darts and bowling for the 21st century, Fontana said. “The people who will be living in Paul Denz’s and Chris Vigilante’s buildings will be coming here looking for fun.” Pine & Iron has already received necessary approvals from the Board of Zoning Appeals, and is on next week’s City Plan Commission agenda for site plan review.
At the corner of Chapel Street and State Street, Town Green Special Services District’s Win Davis and Elizabeth Bickley spoke about their plans to redesign the busy intersection to serve as a more pedestrian and bike-friendly connection between downtown and Wooster Square.
Bickley said Town Green has already held a few community planning meetings, and will host several more to discuss what exactly a redesigned intersection should look like. For now, Davis and Bickley said, the special services district has contracted with the design firm Atelier Cue and plans to install lights, artwork, and new planters on the bridge connecting State Street and Olive Street. A final proposed design scheme for the intersection will be presented at Town Green’s Night Market on Oct. 4, Bickley said.
Walking down State Street, the group stopped at the corner of Crown, looking east at State Street — Fair Street public parking lot and, beyond that, Wooster Square.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn (pictured) said that, building off of an initial study that the city hired the research firm Util to conduct several years ago, the city is moving ahead with plans to implement a “road diet” that would reduce the number of lanes on that stretch of State Street and make room for potential mixed-use development.
State Street has always been a heavily trafficked part of the city, Zinn said, but, historically, there have been developments on both sides of the road, not just on the Crown Street side.
The city is looking to create a narrower street that doesn’t have a median, safer crossing for pedestrians and bikes, and traffic signal improvements that makes coming into and out of downtown smoother for automobiles.
We “really want to make this a center rather than a side of downtown,” Zinn said. Currently, the city has engaged a traffic consultant to help investigate how best to design a reconfigured intersection that would be best for pedestrians, cyclists, and cars.
Looping back down George Street past the Hertz rental car station and towards the corner of Orange Street, the Fieber Group’s Gregory Fieber and Spinnaker Vice President Frank Caico (pictured) talked about their new plans to rebuild the old Coliseum site, which has sat vacant for over a decade.
Caico and Fieber declined to commit to any details about the planned new development, saying that their companies are still in the early stages of developing a master plan and design. They said they will be presenting the project to various community management teams in September before submitting formal plans to the city.
According to a recent sit-down with reporters and public officials at City Hall, Spinnaker CEO Clay Fowler said the first phase of the current plan will include 16,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space (including co-working space aimed at companies that can grow onsite), 25,000 square feet of open space, and 200 rental apartments, 80 percent of them market rate (from the “high teens” to “high 20s” or upper range of $2,000 a month).
“This will represent our fourth major investment” in New Haven, Caico said. “Which I think speaks for itself.”
Up Orange Street at the corner of Crown Street, Beacon Communities Kristie Rizzo (pictured, center) spoke about the Boston-based property management company’s recent purchase of the 335-unit, mixed-use Residences at Ninth Square complex. Fifty-six percent of those units will remain affordable, and the remaining 44 percent percent will remain market-rate.
Rizzo said that Beacon recently signed a lease with a new “interactive arts” company to fill the old Euphoria hair salon space on Orange Street, and is in the final stages of negotiations over three other leases of currently vacant storefronts.
The final stop on the tour was at the corner of Church Street and Crown Street, where Hurley Group President David Goldblum (pictured) presented his company’s recent residential conversion of the century-old building at 39 Church St into The Washington, a market-rate complex of 15 one-bedroom apartments and three one-bedroom apartments. “We like to think of this as the most beautiful historic renovation in New Haven,” he said.
Click here to watch Davis, Piscitelli, and Harp kick off the Ninth Square walking tour in Pitkin Plaza.
You'd never think this stuff was happening if you only read the comment section of the New Haven Independent. You'd hear about New Haven being "ruined," going down in a spiral, dying, etc.
Thank you to NHI for telling both sides - not only the city's challenges, but also its triumphs and hopes. Mayor Harp is right -- people will be surprised, if they look closely at just how much is being done.