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A largely abandoned former factory district near the harbor may come alive with professional BMX races, kids’ basketball tournaments, and track meets if a $70 million dream under consideration by the city becomes a reality.
The dream goes by the name “Centric Sports & Cycling Center.”
A not-for-profit group has submitted a plan to build the 350,000-square-foot center on a pollution-remediated, city-owned lot at 100 River St., part of a blocks-long stretch of empty or razed factories where the Quinnipiac and Mill rivers converge on Fair Haven’s southern border.
The group — the not-for-profit Everybody Plays Foundation — is currently negotiating details of the plan with the Harp administration.
The center would include four venues under one roof, according to an initial submission to the city:
• A “world class 200-meter velodrome” — or oval bike-racing track — “with 2,500 permanent seats.”
• A “world class BMX track with bleacher seating for 2,500.”
• A “world class 200-meter running track with hydraulic banked turns [and] flex seating.”
• A “team sports hall with 6 – 8 basketball courts and soccer field [and] flex seating.”
The plan envisions a dozen “3‑day World Cycling League meets” a year, “up to 50 track and field meets,” amateur competitions, collegiate and high-school meets and practices, youth and adult leagues, basketball tournaments, camps and coaching programs inside the facility.
Mayor Toni Harp said she hopes to see the plan come true.
“If we can do this, it will absolutely turn that area around,” she said in an interview. “We will be one of the only indoor track operations in the state. We’ll be able to get regional games here.”
“This would be huge,” agreed Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo of the Livable City Initiative (LCI), the city agency handling the negotiations. “It would transform an area that’s been sitting for many years without any new infusion.”
The city has been working for years on a $20 million-plus revival plan for the Mill River District. Click here and here to read about some of that.
As part of that work, it had the former Hess oil site at 100 River cleaned up, then purchased it in 2012 after a deal fell through to move Colony Hardware there.That’s the land the foundation now proposes to buy to build the facility.
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Rick Mayer and Sue D’Aniello started the Everybody Rides Foundation (referred to alternately in the city proposal as the Everybody Plays Foundation) to promote cycling and sports and to pursue the “dream” of a grand indoor velodrome.
“Sue and I have been working on this thing for over four years now. It’s been a dream of mine over 20. To have the mayor behind this and Bill Dixon on board” is “very exciting,” said Mayer, who lives in Guilford and has worked in sustainable agriculture and with a small family foundation. D’Aniello ran D’Aniello’s Amity Bicycles shop with her husband.
“We can’t envision a better site than this. It’s a central location. You can see it from [I-]95. The neighborhood for 25 years has been in dire need of something,” Mayer said.
He said the group has raised an initial $50,000 to jump-start the project. It is currently negotiating a sales price for the land with LCI. After that, the proposal would go before the city’s economic development department for review, then the Board of Alders for approval, Neal-Sanjurjo said.
The proposal claims the center would bring in $10,195,892 in revenues its very first year from corporate sponsorships, ticket revenues, and unspecific foundation and government investments. It would spend $9,166,102. The proposal anticipated a spring 2017 groundbreaking and fall 2018 opening.
“We have consultants we’re working with to raise” up to $70 million, claimed Mayer. The proposal lists New Haven’s Svigals + Partners as the architect.
Click here to view the group’s website for the project.
A BOONDOGGLE!!!!!! A non-profit pays no tax, right??
Just what we need another large parking garage, more pollution, and rich white people get yet another playground that is if anyone shows up. That neighborhood isn't really a neighborhood yet and it's not a pleasant trip up Chapel St until you get to Cold Springs School and Phoenix Press. I doubt they and Fair Haven Furniture have been interviewed for their opinion. No mention of these mom and pops in the article above either. Currently the adjacent public park is an asset to the segregated Hispanic community where soccer and other sports are played and families can picnic. I like it, too. And there is a small encampment of homeless men further up the river off of River St. My attorney has photographed it many times. I gather they just get tossed in the end rather than housed.
Another big box that will take up space that could have provided housing, a clinic, social work offices, and a park that are desperately needed by the poor who can't afford to participate in this "dream". Poor and working class people cant even afford to enter the New Haven Historical Society which REQUIRES $2 each. They cant go to plays in town or the movies either. No vacations or trips anywhere.