Happened on Dover Street lately? Believe it or not, this is Quinnipiac Terrace. The new Q Terrace, just weeks away from opening its doors.
Q Terrace, a public housing project by the Quinnipiac River, used to look like this: rundown, monotonous, depressing. Most of the buildings that looked like this were torn down. Over the past 11 months, a developer hired by the housing authority, Trinity Financial, built 81 new apartments in two-to-three-story wood-framed homes, with outsides painted variously beige, blue, green, red. That’s phase one of the $20 million project. These remaining boarded-up remnants of the old Q Terrace come down in phase two.
The project was undertaken under the federal HOPE VI program. HOPE VI gives cities money to tear down failed old squooshed-together, dense, drab apartment warehouses for the poorest families. The program replaces the old projects with mixed-income and roomier, brighter, single-house-style communities with attractive streetlights, greenspace and community centers. The most dramatic example of this approach in New Haven was the replacement of the old Elm Haven projects in Dixwell with the Monterey Homes; an example of an old-style disaster waiting to be reborn is the Brookside projects in West Rock, for which the housing authority has repeatedly failed to secure HOPE VI money.
The developer will be ready to turn over the finished first phase of apartments within two weeks, according to Charlie Wild (pictured), assistant superintendent on the project for Dimeo Construction. Wild said families should be moving in next month. “Tomorrow and Thursday the green grass goes down,” he said. “Then it’ll really change.”
I have driven by the new housing at Q Terrace and what a dramatic change! I like the big, bold architectural forms; the bright colors and the up-story porches where residents can get a dramatic view of the river. This is the best designed public housing in a long time! Kudos to the Housing Authority and this new developer, Trinity Financial.