Yale’s Bruce Alexander issued a public pledge to “do better” after a downtowner launched a public campaign to pressure him into fixing up an abandoned storefront.
The exchange took place on the neighborhood watchdog site SeeClickFix, where downtowner Ed Anderson wrote a public message to Alexander in a Jan. 25 post. Alexander is Yale’s vice president for New Haven and state affairs and campus development.
Anderson pointed to a vacant storefront at 986 Chapel St. in downtown New Haven, next to Richter’s bar. The storefront (pictured) has been vacant for over 10 years. At the dawn of the district’s 1980s renaissance, it was the location of Joel Schiavone’s New Haven Restaurant, which featured live music in addition to lunch and dinner. It later housed a local improvisational troupe.
“C’mon Bruce, you’re a real estate whiz,” Anderson wrote. “I know you and Yale can do better, — especially given the fact that this is such a great location. Renovate the hideous storefront into something respectable, and then I bet you’ll find a good tenant in a hurry.”
Other civic-minded New Haveners weighed in with other ideas. Such as: How about using the storefront as an incubator for businesses until Yale finds an appropriate retail tenant?
After someone in his office pointed out the discussion, Alexander posted the below reply Wednesday, explaining the challenges of finding a tenant at the spot and pledging to do better:
Dear Mr. Anderson,
While I had not seen this until someone in the office pointed it out, I agree with your comments. University Properties has done an excellent job with many leasing challenges, but we have not at all done well with this one. 976 Chapel could have been leased but not to any use that the location deserves. Putting a low-quality tenant in my experience is often worse than a vacant storefront because it drags down the whole block and makes attracting the better tenants all that more difficult. We have showed that space to literally scores of excellent tenants and have come close but never were able to close a deal. Rent is not the issue; rather it is the lack of sufficient projected sales volumes. At 986 Chapel we have sketches of several alternative storefronts we are prepared to build for a quality tenant (to allow them to choose), and perhaps in retrospect we should have just built one out instead of giving prospective tenants that flexibility. It is not lost on us that these are important spaces, and the staff of University Properties had already made a New Year’s resolution to do better in 2010.
Seems like Yale only cares about Properties adjacent to campus. They chased out roomba and adulas and they still sit empty today.