Dixwell Plaza Revivers Pressed On Details

Dixwell neighbors, business owners, and community organizers pressed the local developers behind Dixwell Plaza’s planned $200 million overhaul to prioritize affordable housing and to minimize the displacement of existing retail, in a project that will be led in part by an architect who helped design Washington D.C.‘s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Those were some of the focal points of conversation Tuesday night during the second community meeting about the Connecticut Community Outreach and Revitalization Program’s (ConnCORP) planned redevelopment of Dixwell Plaza.

Roughly 70 people attended the two-hour meeting, which took place in the upstairs auditorium at the Elks Club at 87 Webster St. The gathering featured a presentation update by the project’s lead architect, HGA Design Principal Peter Cook.

The tenor of Tuesday’s meeting marked a bit of a shift from the enthusiastic public response in January when ConnCORP, a for-profit subsidiary of the Science Park-based nonprofit Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT), first announced that it plans to convert the 1960s-era shopping complex on Dixwell Avenue between Webster Street and Charles Street into a new performing arts center, banquet hall, grocery store, museum, office complex, daycare center, fitness center, retail storefronts, and 150-plus apartments and townhouses.

Attendees called on the developers throughout this second public meeting to make sure that whatever housing is ultimately built as part of the project is affordable for current residents of the primarily working-class, African-American neighborhood.

Several also pushed for the developers to prioritize filling in the planned new retail spaces with locally-owned small businesses, and to avoid replacing existing Dixwell merchants with more expensive retail that might prove dissonant with the neighborhood.

“I would like to suggest [that] ConnCORP find ways to incentivize making the housing development, the rental side of it, deeply affordable,” said local affordable housing advocate and community organizer Kerry Ellington. ​“Because to me, that would really leverage the goals of ConnCAT and ConnCORP in relation to ending poverty, creating opportunities. Because when we make the housing mixed rate in Dixwell, that means that a lot of Dixwell residents will be left out.”

ConnCAT Board President Carlton Highsmith, ConnCORP President and CEO Paul McCraven, ConnCAT President and CEO Erik Clemons, and local developer Yves-Georges Joseph II stressed that this particular Dixwell Plaza project is just one part of a larger vision ConnCORP has for creating jobs, boosting services, building wealth, encouraging homeownership, and injecting capital into the surrounding neighborhoods.

“How do we bring jobs?” Clemons asked. ​“How do we bring beauty, dignity, safety, early childcare, arts and culture, and housing to this neighborhood, which we think sorely needs it? How do we revitalize this incredible, iconic historic community? That’s what this is really about.”

“ConnCORP’s mission and their overall objective is to invest in Dixwell and Newhallville in multiple ways and in multiple sites and in multiple projects beyond this one,” Joseph added. ​“We likely won’t be able to answer every question on this piece of property. But their mission is bigger than just this piece of property.”

Elks East Rock Lodge #141 Exalted Ruler Gary Hogan (pictured) threw his support as well behind ConnCORP’s vision for the plaza and the neighborhood as he explained why his club ultimately decided to sell the building that has served as a Dixwell community anchor for the past five decades after its membership considerably shrank.

“It’s time for change,” he said. ​“If we don’t change, the Elks may not be in the position to sell the building. The plaza may not be in the position to be rebuilt. The people invested in the neighborhood may suddenly, like dry leaves on a breezy day, just fade off.”

“A Wow Factor”

Before the more critical Q&A section of the meeting, Cook (pictured) riffed on the “themes and variations” of the proposed Dixwell Plaza redevelopment as it currently stands.

“There are certain key words we want to always keep in mind as we design this project,” he said. “They are, probably in no particular order, dignity, economy, education, safety, utility, jobs, and, not the least of which, beauty. We want to create a place where people want to be.”

Cook said that additional guiding principles stand alongside those keywords as his team works through potential designs for a new Dixwell Plaza. Those include: expanding ConnCAT’s impact and allowing it to grow by moving its center of operations into the community it serves; creating a 24 – 7 ​“live, work, play” environment on Dixwell Avenue; engaging the community to build trust and buy in for the project; providing people with the skills and opportunities that allow for them to prosper; contributing to the financial stability of ConnCAT and the Dixwell neighborhood; and creating ​“an accessible community space with a wow factor.”

He then walked the group through four different potential configurations of the project’s various elements as laid out on the reimagined Dixwell Avenue blocks between Webster Street and Charles Street.

The first (pictured) would have the project’s ​“cultural zone” closer to Webster and its ​“residential zone” closer to Charles, with the two separated by an extension of Foote Street cutting east-west through the middle of the superblock.

This option would have the performing arts center and the museum flush against Webster near the corner of Dixwell. This would also have one level of below-grade parking. A seven-story ConnCAT headquarters and a connected, upper-story daycare center would stand behind that to the north. ​“And all of that is sitting on top of a grocery and a food hall,” he said.

To the north of Foote Street would be multi-family residential apartments sitting atop a fitness center. Then there would be groundfloor retail space facing Dixwell Avenue, right next to office space also fronting Dixwell and townhomes flush against Charles. ​“All of that is encasing an above grade parking deck, which is screened from the surrounding streets. The intent is to provide some kind of green space on the top.”

Anchoring the superblock, just south of Foote Street, would be a plaza with a gallery and cafe.

A second variation (pictured) would position the multi-family residential apartments south to Webster Street and pushed the ConnCAT building flush against Dixwell Avenue. The various cultural components would then also be moved closer to the neighborhood’s main drag.

The third and fourth variations (pictured) would have the multi-family residential pulled to the western side of the superblock, a ​“low-rise” version of the ConnCAT building alongside Dixwell, and the gallery and museum and banquet hall at grade with the performing arts center above it.

“There’s no way to get everything right the first time,” Cook said. Thus the need for multiple design options. And for consistently seeking community feedback.

“What’s Considered Affordable?”

When the ConnCORP team opened Tuesday’s meeting up to questions, attendees jumped in — not necessarily with critiques or comments on the proposed layouts, but rather on how and for whom those buildings will be put to use.

“Is it rental property or is it homeownership?” asked Dawn Wright (pictured). ​“And what is the AMI [Area Median Income] for it? Is it going to be based on Dixwell Avenue? Is it going to be based on the City of New Haven? Is it going to be based on New Haven County? Because those numbers change drastically.”

McCraven said he did not have an answer about which AMI the proposed new rental apartments would be targeted for. He said that the developers are aiming for ​“mixed income” apartments.

He added that ConnCORP intends to make 30 of the planned new townhouses available for homeownership. And it intends to subsidize half of those townhouses so that they can be purchased at ​“affordable” prices.

“What’s considered affordable?” Wright followed up.

McCraven said ConnCORP is aiming to have those 15 subsidized townhouses available to be purchased at around $150,000 each. He said each of those will likely cost on average around $200,000 to build.

“The idea is those would be sold at a loss,” Joseph said.

Local Small Businesses Welcome?

Deniqua Washington (pictured) asked if ConnCORP plans to fill the proposed new retail spaces with local small businesses or if it hopes instead to attract national and international brands like those that occupy most of the nearby Broadway commercial district.

“As far as folks who are actually homegrown,” she said, ​“being able to have a business space like this in the middle of where they live, that could be beneficial for raising up small business owners.”

“Retail as you know is very tough right now,” McCraven said. A lot of groundfloor retail storefronts in downtowns throughout America are currently sitting empty because of macro-economic commercial trends towards online retail, he said.

With that said, McCraven continued, part of ConnCORP’s marketing plan will be to reach out to local small businesses to see if they can fill the new Dixwell Plaza spaces with a mix of small and large stores. He added that the planned office building will likely have coworking space available to local entrepreneurs who are not necessarily ready for renting out a whole storefront.

What about businesses that currently operate out of the existing Dixwell Plaza? asked Prakeen Doodala and Ram Venkat (pictured). Will ConnCORP give them any kind of priority treatment in terms of filling out the retail spaces in the new plaza?

Doodala and Venkat said they have run the Community Health Pharmacy at 210 Dixwell Ave. in Dixwell Plaza for the past three years. They said the pharmacy itself has been in that location for well over a decade, and currently provides medications to 800 clients.

“That would be a lot of inconvenience if there is no position for us,” Doodala said. He noted that the design plans presented earlier in the evening incorporate the pharmacy’s building into ConnCORP’s overall plans. But he had not heard anything from ConnCORP or from his building’s owner, Christ Chapel New Testament, about what might happen to their small business.

“We haven’t acquired that [building] yet,” McCraven confirmed. Highsmith said that that is one of only three addresses on the western side of Dixwell between Webster and Charles that ConnCORP has not yet purchased or signed a contract with the intent of purchasing.

“This is going to be in phases,” McCraven added about the planned contstruction and redevelopment.

Joseph said ConnCORP would like to be in the ground in terms of construction sometime in mid-2021, and that the complete build out should take upwards of 24 months.

McCraven promised to talk with the Christ Chapel New Testament church and the pharmacy owners about the future of the pharmacy in Dixwell Plaza. ​“We are committed to relocate people within the plaza to the extent that we can,” he said.

Is it true that ConnCORP has received a large donation from the downtown grocery store Elm City Market? asked Lillie Chambers (pictured). Does ConnCORP intend on bringing Elm City Market or some similarly upscale grocery store into the new plaza?

ConnCORP has not received any money from Elm City Market, Clemons replied.

“Whatever market comes, it will be at the correct price point for the community,” he added.

“Mixed Income” Vs. ​“Deeply Affordable”

Ellington (pictured) described the project as ​“exciting,” and then pressed the group to emulate the local affordable housing developer Beulah Land Development Corporation in building out ​“deeply affordable” rental units at the new plaza.

She said that ​“mixed income” all too often means ​“market rate,” and that those levels of rents are too high for the community that currently lives in Dixwell and Newhallville.

“How can we guarantee, much like Beulah’s doing, making it 80 percent deeply affordable and maybe having limited market rate units in it versus a mixed income development, which to me sounds like something overwhelmingly market-rate?”

Clemons said that nearly every aspect of the project that is focused on ​“community needs and benefits” costs a lot of money and does not produce ​“cash flow.”

“We’ve got to find ways to afford to deliver those amenities to the community while at the same time be sustainable. Housing would be a piece of that sustainablity vehicle.”

He praised Beulah for focusing on affordable housing development — and pointed out that the planned new Dixwell Plaza will be so much more than housing, incorporating retail, arts and culture, office space, job training programs through ConnCAT, restaurants, etc…

“This is a project with housing,” he said. ​“This is not a housing project.”