Thomas Breen photo
49 Howe today, before planned teardown.
The owners of a Howe Street gas station plan to knock down the fuel pumps and mini-mart and build in their stead … wait for it …
… dozens of new market-rate apartments!
Forty four units, to be precise.
The proposed new six-story apartment complex would be located at 49 Howe St. at the corner of Crown Street, right behind the Tandoor Indian restaurant on Chapel Street.
Local architect Ken Boroson with designs for a proposed new apartment complex at the current gas station site.
Gas station landlord-turned-developer Murad “Mike” Charania and local architect Ken Boroson presented the latest Howe Street apartment project at Tuesday night’s Dwight Community Management Team meeting in the Amistad Middle School gym on Edgewood Avenue.
Dwight neighbors, seemingly exhausted by the recent rush of market rate residential developments planned for Howe Street and geared towards Yale students and hospital professionals, pushed Charania and Boroson to include affordable units in the project.
Two different developers already have plans to build upwards of 100 units of new market-rate apartments a block up the street.
“Is there any intention at all in providing some legitimate affordable housing” in this project? asked Dwight resident Dottie Green.
“It’s the intention to try to do it,” Boroson said. But, he stressed, this project is not replacing any existing affordable housing and it will not require the demolition of any buildings other than a gas station.
“This is not displacing people,” he said. “It’s displacing some cars.”
49 Howe developer Murad “Mike” Charania.
Boroson said the planned five-over-one, podium-style building will contain 28 one-bedroom apartments, six two-bedroom apartments, and 10 “micro-units.” The “micro-units” will be roughly 425 square feet each, the one-bedrooms 650 square feet each, and the two-bedrooms 1,100 square feet each.
“It’s designed as workforce housing,” he said. Its target market will be nurses, technicians, and other staff at the nearby St. Raphael’s Hospital and at Yale New Haven Hospital’s proposed new $838 million neuroscience research center.
The development will also have 21 on-site surface parking spaces, six bike racks, 3,000 square feet of amenity space, and a ground floor retail space.
Management team vice chair Curlena McDonald.
What made you want to convert the gas station into apartments? management team vice chair Curlena McDonald asked Charania.
“I’m losing money at the business,” Charania said. “This is a better plan. I will make it into a nice building.”
Charania, who co-owns the gas station through the holding company S&S Enterprises Inc. along with his business partner Sadiq Ali Chandrani, said he has no intentions of selling the parcel.
He said he has also never built a residential development, though Boroson said his local architecture firm has designed many residential complexes for both private landlords and the Housing Authority of New Haven, now known as Elm City Communities.
Dottie Green.
McDonald, Green, management team chair Florita Gillespie, and Patricia Wallace all pressed Charania and Boroson to seek out some public or private financing to allow for units that would rent for less than market rates.
Even though new housing built on a relatively vacant parcel does not immediately displace any low or middle-income tenants in the neighborhood, Wallace said, the development of solely market-rate apartments at that spot would be “to lose the opportunity to create more affordable housing in the neighborhood.”
The mayor, alders, and residents throughout the city are currently engaging in a robust conversation about how to create and preserve affordable housing in New Haven for a reason, Wallace said.
“We would wish to see a serious engagement” with that concern from the 49 Howe developers, she added, before the management team is asked to support the project.
Boroson cautioned that the state recently cut its “Just In Time” Fund subsidies, which provided interested developers with upwards of $1.5 million in grants in exchange for setting aside a certain number of affordable units in new market-rate apartment complexes.
The “micro-units” will serve to provide some lower rent options, he said. But beyond that, he said, banks will only provide the loans necessary to build this project if they believe there will be a return on their investment.
Are there any benefits to the community included in this project? one meeting attendee asked.
“Security,” he said. More eyes on the corner. And construction job opportunities.
Oliva Martson (center).
Local preservationist Olivia Martson, who is currently leading a neighborhood-wide effort to counter another developer’s proposed demolition of two vacant historic buildings further up the block, asked Boroson and Charania to hold a follow up meeting with neighbors to talk about the project’s details and about how it could best fit into the Dwight neighborhood.
“We want to work with you,” she said. “I think the design needs some work.”
Boroson and Charania agreed. They promised to meet next week with Martson and anyone else interested in talking about the project. They said they hope to submit a site plan application for the project to the City Plan department by mid-June, and are looking to get this project on the City Plan Commission’s agenda by July.
How likely are they to find retail to fill that ground floor? There are vacant retail spaces all over the city and the surrounding towns.