Markeshia Ricks Photo
Yale attorney Joseph Hammer displays the moat.
The Board of Zoning appeals gave Yale University the green light on variances it needs to execute plans for a new $150 million student center and performance center named after an Old Blue hedge funder.
Board members voted unanimously Tuesday night during its regular monthly meeting in the Hall of Records at 200 Orange St. to give Yale variances on its property at 109 and 121 Wall St., which will permit a front yard of 1.5 feet where 5 feet is required.
Thanks to a $150 million gift from hedge funder and Yale alumnus Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group (estimated net worth: 10.3 billion), the university is expanding the first floor of its Commons dining hall by 1,700 square feet in the “moat area” by Grove Street and adding to higher floors to create a new regional arts performance center along with a campus-wide student center.
The area will be enclosed and 5,400 square feet added to the second floor. The plans also include adding student meeting and acting rooms, a student lounge and cafe, a multi-purpose room, and a “restoration of the Dome Room to its original function,” according to documentation the university has submitted to the city.
The straightforward approval Tuesday belied a messy, drawn-out battle with city alders over Yale’s big new development projects in town, including a biology tower. A threat by Yale to screw up city’s finances at the end of the fiscal year led to a deal that allowed the Schwarzman Center to proceed with regulatory approvals without having first to submit to a new review by alders of an overall campus wide parking plan.
Documentation submitted by Yale to the city projects that the new center will not alter parking demand on surrounding streets.
Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, “has become one of the largest private real estate owners in the U.S., with office buildings, luxury hotels and tens of thousands of rental homes on its books. It is also one of the largest hedge fund operators, with more than $69.1 billion in AUM” (assets under management), according to the web site Investopedia. Schwarzman, who’s 69, has an $10.3 billion net worth, according to Forbes.
Any plans to renovate Woolsey Hall while they are at it? Its interior is, to put it kindly, dingy and grimy. There's water damage in the ceiling and around the windows, and there's no air-conditioning. I was a Yale grad student in the 70s, and it didn't look exactly brand-shiny-newly-painted even then, and as far as I can tell it hasn't been touched in the 40+ years since I first sat in it.