APT Plan For Newhallville Still On Pause

A hundred Newhallville and southern Hamden community members celebrated news that the APT Foundation methadone clinic nonprofit is still open to selling its recently-purchased Dixwell Avenue building to a local children’s mental health nonprofit.

Residents of Newhallville as well as Hamden’s adjacent Newhall neighborhood gathered inside Albertus Magnus College’s student center on Thursday evening for a meeting about the fate of the former Elm City College Prep building at 794 Dixwell Ave.

The gathering marked a success after a year and a half of activism from Newhallville and Newhall residents, who formed a coalition called Newhallville-Hamden Strong and hosted numerous community meetings, rallies, and door-knocking initiatives in opposition to the APT Foundation. 

Thursday’s event served as both an informational meeting and an opportunity to enjoy plentiful catered food, support neighborhood businesses, and discuss a broad array of concerns with elected officials.

Jeanette Sykes, the chair of Newhallville-Hamden Strong’s steering committee, observed that through the neighborhood’s activism, ​“we started to live with each other. We started to grow with each other.” She later said that as residents mobilized, ​“we started to talk more” — to bring up concerns to elected officials and problem-solve with one another — with a new sense that change is possible.

A unifying concern of attendees was that the APT Foundation, a substance use-focused healthcare organization, had purchased 794 Dixwell Ave. in December 2021. APT had planned to use the former school building for a combination of administrative offices and outpatient medical services currently operating out of rental space at 1 Long Wharf — including methadone treatment for patients with substance use disorders. After persistent neighborhood pushback, however, the organization’s plans for that building are now on pause. 

Local behavioral health clinic Clifford Beers is now gearing up to purchase the Dixwell Avenue building, while APT is working on an alternative solution of building an entirely new home base in Long Wharf.

Clifford Beers held a series of ​“community listening sessions” on the matter last year in conjunction with First Calvary Baptist Church Rev. Boise Kimber. Executive Director Melanie Rossacci said on Thursday that Clifford Beers is still interested in purchasing the building, though the organization needs to raise enough money to do so. Programming will be determined based on community input, Rossacci said.

Mayor Justin Elicker delivered the news on Thursday that APT CEO Lynn Madden ​“is open to the concept of selling to Clifford Beers,” but asserted ​“it is important they they don’t sell it for a loss.” APT bought the building back in December 2021 for $2.45 million. (Madden didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Independent for this article.)

The plan hinges on APT’s ability to construct a new headquarters in Long Wharf, a neighborhood that the city plans to overhaul and revive into a family-oriented park, healthcare hub, and commercial district.

During the event, Newhallville Hamden Strong activists insisted as they have in the past that they support substance use treatment, but that they were concerned about the specifics of APT’s plan. 

Activists criticized APT’s track record at its Congress Avenue methadone clinic in the Hill, where neighbors have long complained of drug dealing and stray needles. They worried that a methadone clinic would exacerbate the drug trade in Newhallville, and render both methadone patients and neighbors vulnerable to a predatory industry. And they lambasted the nonprofit for a lack of community outreach to the majority-Black neighborhood.

As Elicker shared with Hill residents in February, APT is interested in relocating all of its operations — including the long-criticized methadone clinic at 495 Congress Ave — to a new building in Long Wharf where the dilapidated and soon-to-be-demolished former Gateway Community College building now stands.

That area is ideal because it is ​“distant from residential areas” and close to APT’s current offices at 1 Long Wharf, Elicker said. Because it will be a new building, ​“APT can design it in a way that is appropriate for treatment and in a way that doesn’t disrupt the neighborhood,” he added — including by adding an indoor waiting area and positioning the entrance in a monitored parking lot rather than on a public street.

The city is now awaiting action on the part of the state legislature to officially convey the crumbling ex-Gateway building from the state’s control to the city’s — after which an agreement with APT can move forward, Elicker said.

He stressed that the Dixwell Avenue site is ​“not an appropriate location” for a methadone clinic.

The mayor shared these updates to multiple rounds of applause from the crowd.

Hamdenite Portia Jenkins stood up to press Elicker on whether this plan will actually come to pass: ​“You can talk the talk, but are you gonna walk the walk?”

“I’m telling you 100 percent the truth, ma’am,” he said. He added that the city has limited power over the outcome. ​“APT owns the building … We cannot tell a business, ​‘You can’t purchase that site.’ We found out about it after APT bought the building.” Elicker urged Jenkins and attendees to focus on ​“what we can control.”

On BBQ & Remediation & Violence

Though Thursday’s gathering centered on a source of concern for many community members, it also brought opportunities for joy and connection.

Inside the gleaming, light-filled Albertus gathering space, university officials welcomed community members to use the facilities in the future and join educational and prayer-related events.

Top That Barbecue nourished the group with crowd-pleasing barbecue catering.

Preschool principal and community management team chair Kim Harris convened a host of local businesses and nonprofits to table, including Designs by Melba, a business helmed by jewelry maker Melba Crowley, and fitness/wellness organization The Green Peacock, helmed by Chaila Gilliams.

With Mayor Elicker present, as well as Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett, Hamden legislative council members, and police leadership from both towns, attendees had an opportunity to raise a variety of concerns and questions to city leaders.

Garrett offered updates on her administration’s upcoming projects in Newhall — including a proposed ​“community campus” at the site of the long-vacant former Hamden Middle School, which has deteriorated after the discovery of contaminated soil.

At that announcement, Newhallville resident Claudine Wilkins-Chambers raised her hand. ​“How safe is the soil?” she asked. ​“Because I’m nervous about that.”

“It has been remediated,” Garrett said. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) will be supervising the demolition and rebuilding process, Garrett said, and ​“we will be taking every environmental precaution.”

Wilkins-Chambers explained that she was concerned because many Newhall residents have ​“died of some form of cancer.” She added, ​“I lost my nephew,” who died at 10 years old. 

In 2004, the soil in parts of Southern Hamden was found to have been contaminated with lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and arsenic, decades after the Olin Corporation used the area as a dumping ground for waste from the Winchester Repeating Arms Factory.

Garrett acknowledged that anecdotal reports of cancer could have been linked to the contamination. ​“We have this history in the Newhall area of Olin contaminating the area,” Garrett said. ​“It is our obligation to fix the errors of the past.”

She said that the state’s environmental monitoring agency deems the top four feet of soil in the area — the portion of soil that was replaced during the remediation process — to be safe. Families who live in Southern Hamden should avoid digging deep into the soil, however. Garrett noted that the town can provide funding for homeowners who need to dig deeper than four feet for essential improvements to do so in a safe and environmentally sound way.

Newhall resident Jahmal Henderson raised a separate question. ​“What’s your plans for Goodrich and the Shelton area?” he asked.

“We just had an unfortunate issue with a young man losing his life,” Henderson said, referring to the deadly shooting of 16-year-old Hillhouse student Marc Mulongo, who had just returned home from playing basketball with friends.

Henderson called for a stronger police presence in the area, as well as more lighting along the nearby stretch of the Farmington Canal Trail.

“We have increased patrols in the area,” Garrett responded. 

She attributed recent incidents of violence to distress from the ramifications of the pandemic. ​“Kids are really suffering right now and dealing with a lot of emotional problems.”

Later, Elicker took a moment to acknowledge Mulongo’s life. ​“It’s been a tough week,” he said, tears beginning to form in his eyes. Having met with Mulongo’s mom and her boyfriend, ​“I’ve just been kind of carrying that around. I just keep seeing this picture his mom shared with me of this kid eating French Fries. He was just a kid.”

Elicker added, ​“we are committed to doing everything” possible to prevent similar incidents. 

“The detectives are working really hard,” added city Police Chief Karl Jacobson later. ​“We got some real good leads.”

Francisco Zempoalteca attended the meeting with his mom and his sister who live together on Winchester Avenue. The family wasn’t aware of the APT Foundation’s potential move to Dixwell Avenue, Zempoalteca said; they simply wanted to hear what officials had to say.

Zempoalteca came in part to bring attention to a package store near his home of seven years — a store that has been at the center of rowdiness and occasional violence, he said. 

“I wouldn’t want to see nobody’s business go under,” Zempoalteca said. But ​“it can be crazy at times.” He said there are always discarded bottles lying around. ​“I’ve seen shots. I’ve seen somebody get killed.”

More broadly, Zempoalteca said he wanted elected officials ​“to care for certain communities as if it’s their families.”

At the end of the meeting, as other attendees gathered to-go boxes of food and hugged one another goodbye, the family met Chief Jacobson and had a chance to convey their concerns.