Alders Approve 1‑Yr Lease For Health Dept. Before Move

The city’s Health Department will remain in its rented Meadow Street headquarters for another year before moving to a renovated publicly owned space on Chapel Street, thanks to a new lease approved by the Board of Alders.

Local legislators took that vote Monday night during the latest regular full Board of Alders meeting, which was held in person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The alders voted unanimously to approve a new one-year commercial lease between the city and Gateway Partners LLC for the Health Department’s current offices and public health clinic at 54 Meadow St. for Fiscal Year 2022 – 23 (FY23), which runs from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.

That now-approved lease adds up to a total of $440,262 in base rent and pro-rata, marking an 8 percent increase from what the city paid last fiscal year. The Health Department currently leases the entire first floor and ninth floor, or roughly 17,380 square feet, at the Meadow Street office building.

During Monday night’s meeting, Westville Alder and Finance Committee Chair Adam Marchand urged his colleagues to support the new one-year lease by explaining that this is likely the last year that the Health Department will be based out of 54 Meadow St.

“This one-year lease will give the city more time to make ready the facility on Chapel Street purchased from the Connecticut Department of Transportation,” he said. ​“The administration plans to move the New Haven Health Department headquarters and clinic into that renovated space in the next fiscal year. In the meantime, this lease will enable this current space to continue to host the Health Department.”

That Chapel Street facility referenced by Marchand is the two-story, 58,481 square-foot warehouse, garage and office building at 424 Chapel St. The city purchased that property from the state DOT last year for $2.1 million. At the time, city officials said that they plan to move the Health Department and snow plow and street-sweeper maintenance operations to that site on the eastern edge of Wooster Square.

At a recent Board of Alders Finance Committee meeting, city Budget Director Mike Gormany told the committee alders that that ​“supply chain issues” have slowed down the renovations of 424 Chapel. Thus the request for one more year-long lease at 54 Meadow St. before the Health Department officially moves over to the publicly owned property.

During that meeting, East Rock Alder Anna Festa asked about the 8 percent rent hike. Is that comparable to what other commercial buildings in the area have seen?

“We have a public health clinic” at 54 Meadow St., Gormany responded. ​“That’s not something we can move out in a couple of weeks,” and therefore adds to the cost of the lease.

Given that the current lease has expired, Newhallville/Prospect Hill/Dixwell Alder Steve Winter asked, ​“are we currently on a month to month” lease at 54 Meadow St.?

Yes, Gormany replied. He said there was a ​“miscommunication between my office and the Health Department” about getting this new annual lease renewed in time. While the city is currently paying the landlord under the terms of the previous agreement, the city will have to pay the new higher negotiated lease terms retroactive to July 1 and going forward for the rest of the fiscal year.

“The Health Department has been there for many years,” Gormany said about 54 Meadow St. But, come next fiscal year, it should be moved to 424 Chapel.