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Rendering of redeveloped Dixwell Plaza, with outdoor public space.
Imagine jazz festivals at a new 350-seat theater on Dixwell Avenue. And a mural celebrating the neighborhood’s rich history of Black art. And a landscaped public plaza replete with sculptures and furniture and dance, poetry, and hip hop.
A local redevelopment team heard those hopes, dreams, and visions during a community meeting focused on the cultural potential of a transformed Dixwell Plaza.
ConnCORP is a for-profit subsidiary of the Science Park-based job training nonprofit Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology.
Two months ago, they won final approval from the City Plan Commission to undertake an estimated $200 million overhaul of the fraying mid-century shopping strip on Dixwell Avenue between Webster Street and Charles Street, across the street from the new Q House and adjacent to the Florence Virtue Homes. ConnCORP has spent the past few years buying up the various commercial condos and other buildings that make up that stretch of Dixwell Avenue.
As part of the planned two-phase redevelopment project, ConnCORP plans to knock down the existing buildings and construct in their stead a new seven-story, 184-unit apartment building, a 259-space underground parking garage, a food hall, a grocery store, a two-story office building, a one-acre public plaza facing Dixwell Avenue, a 350-seat performance arts center, 13 new three-bedroom townhouse units, and more. (Click here for a full overview of those plans.)
ConnCORP Chief Operating Officer Paul McCraven told the Independent by email Tuesday that the redevelopment team plans on breaking ground on phase one of the project by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
Asked for the next immediate steps for this project, he said that ConnCORP is currently working with an architectural team, engineers, and a construction manager to complete schematic design and construction drawings.
The meeting was hosted online via Zoom Tuesday night by the Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program (ConnCORP), The Narrative Project, and several top city staffers.
The meeting’s focus was on what kinds of arts and culture community members would like to see at a soon-to-be-reborn Dixwell Plaza.
“Where there is equitable arts and culture, where there is equitable public spaces and development, that is where community and economy can really thrive together,” city Director of Cultural Affairs Adriane Jefferson said at the start of the meeting.
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The ConnCORP redevelopment team on Tuesday.
Lead designers Peter Cook and Brit Erenler at Tuesday's meeting.
Tuesday night’s meeting, meanwhile, focused in particular on what kinds of art the redeveloped site should hold — and what kinds of cultural impact a new Dixwell Plaza could have on the surrounding neighborhood, and the city more broadly.
After some opening presentations by lead architects and designers Peter Cook and Brit Erenler, The Narrative Project President Mercy Quaye posed arts-focused questions to the virtual room — and then ConnCORP’s team, led by McCraven and CEO Erik Clemons, offered their reponses.
What type of art are you most interested in seeing at a reborn Dixwell Plaza? Quaye asked.
“I’m looking for uniqueness,” Miguel Pittman replied. “Something that’s new to my eyes and new to other people’s eyes.”
“I’d be very interested in seeing performing arts, whether it be stage and acting, or music or ballet,” added Brett Middleton. He encouraged ConnCORP to “give local artists here the opportunity to showcase their abilities.”
McCraven said that ConnCORP is currently looking at bringing in a “major jazz program” to the redeveloped site, in part to continue and celebrate Dixwell’s 20th-century history as a local jazz hub thanks to now-shuttered clubs like he Monterey.
What’s ConnCORP’s plan for the 350-seat performing arts center? asked Crystal Gooding.
For one, Clemons said, the redevelopers hope that venue contributes to the “revival of jazz in the Dixwell community.”
Secondly, he said, not everyone in Dixwell wants to go downtown or to Long Wharf to catch a show an existing theater. Some people in the neighborhood may feel like concerts and plays put on elsewhere in town don’t speak to their experiences or interests. “We will create a performing arts center so that folks in the community can see performances that are akin to their conditions, that are akin to their aspirations and inspirations,” he said.
McCraven added that the 350-seat theater could host “multiple types of art,” including dance, poetry, and “speakers.” “The whole idea is that it will be a cultural center to serve the community.”
Responding to the prompt to think and dream big, Karen DuBois-Walton said, “I envision street music and street artists and hip hop and jazz. I hope that it will be a space where people can come to observe and be entertained, but also to learn and take a lesson and be exposed to something new. … My dream is that it always exemplifies and reflects back to the community the African and African American roots to arts in the broadest sense of the word.”
Clemons agreed with that vision, and said ConnCORP endeavors to achieve just that.
This development is not just about building, he said. “It is about disrupting as well. … It is about disrupting the status quo. It is about disrupting the narrative that only certain places should have beauty and dignity…
“We are using art as a vehicle to inspire folks to action.”
It's hard to see this arts center as anything but a bottomless money pit constantly begging for taxpayer bailouts. After all, the Long Wharf Theater, which has had huge fundraising capacity, an international reputation, and an established, if dying, customer base, just threw-in the towel.