A new batch of $47 million in state money headed to New Haven will improve the lot of train riders as well as pedestrians and cyclists on car-crazy Whalley Avenue, among others in town.
That $47 million is the total of 10 separate allocations approved for city-related projects Friday at a meeting of the state Bond Commission, as detailed in press releases subsequently issued by the governor’s and mayor’s offices.
The big prize is a $15 million allotment for the “Let’s Go!” plan to transform century-old Union Station into a “a new multimodal hub” and “transit-oriented development site” (translation: a train-centered place where people also shop, eat, and live nearby) with upgrades for bike and pedestrian safety. After decades of fighting about Union Station’s future, the state and city have now come together on the vision. Click here to read about whole plan, and here for previous Independent coverage.
Meanwhile, a second $5.8 million approved Friday will go toward improving drainage on adjacent Union Avenue so it stops flooding all the time, a partial match for a $25 million federal grant for the same purpose.
Also Friday, the Bond Commission OK’d $6 million for the St. Luke’s affordable housing plan on Whalley Avenue along with $1 million to support making car-centric Whalley more walkable and bikable; $4.99 million to upgrade the Shubert Theatre’s plant; $4.6 million for pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly improvements in and around the Green; $3 million toward demolition of the former Long Wharf campus of Gateway Community College; $3.11 million to renovate and improve Albertus Magnus College’s Celentano Field; $2.3 million to expand the Shoreline Greenway Trail by 4.5 miles from New Haven to East Haven; $950,000 toward Tower One/Tower East senior housing renovations; and $250,000 to support “community-based planning” for the future of the Goffe Street Armory.
“It is gratifying,” State Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney of New Haven is quoted as saying in one of the releases.
“Transformative investments,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker is quoted as chiming in.
Gov. Ned Lamont noted that the Bond Commission, which he chairs, was able to leverage money from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support these projects.
These are all worthy projects, but I’m concerned that the future of theater is currently endangered. There was a recent article about how live theater as well as movie theaters are struggling with changed behaviors of theater goers post pandemic.
The Shubert theater may be putting lipstick on a dying entity.