A ​“Tornado” Passes

David L. Holmes, a former city official who continued leaving his mark on a revived New Haven after leaving government, has died at the age of 67.

The weekend before last, Holmes died peacefully in his sleep in Delray Beach, Fla., ​“where he had moved from New Haven just last October,” a friend, Nancy Barnes, reported.

Holmes (pictured) was one of a group of ambitious young planners who brought a new approach to urban development to New Haven in the early 1980s under then-Mayor Biagio ​“Ben” DiLieto. In the wake of a period of urban decline, the team sought to build up a ​“24-hour” residential-and-arts-oriented downtown and a busier, office-oriented waterfront.

Unlike predecessors in New Haven’s ​“Model City” urban renewal period, they sought to rely more heavily on historic renovation and private developers than on demolition and on government builders.

Holmes served as the city’s director of downtown and harbor development from 1980 through 1984. In that capacity he oversaw the beginning of the revival of the downtown entertainment district, centered around a renovated Shubert theater and Joel Schiavone’s redevelopment of shops and apartments along Chapel Street; the rise of the Fusco Corporation-built office towers by the water; and the short-lived revival of the Chapel Square Mall with a $28.7 million investment by the Rouse Corporation.

In the process of drawing up those plans and helping to shepherd them through extensive public debates over the relationship between government and the private sector, Holmes was a caffeinated force of nature — outspoken, working non-stop at hyperspeed, passionate about his team’s vision. Hence the appellation ​“The White Tornado,” given to him in a 1983 New Haven Advocate feature story on ​“Ben’s Men,” the DiLieto team; he kept the article in his possession for the next 28 years.

After leaving city government in 1984, Holmes took a series of private-sector jobs that saw him continuing his urban redevelopment work. He was a central player in the late-‘80s, early ​‘90s revival of the Audubon Street arts district, with new apartments and storefronts and offices on the north side of the street and the Community Foundation/Arts Council building to the south.

In recent years he had been back in New Haven, helping Schiavone try to build up the neighborhood along the Quinnipiac River just east of the Grand Avenue bridge, while also managing his citywide real estate company.

Nancy Barnes sent in this additional information:

“Mr. Holmes left New Haven to become commissioner of planning and development for the city of Yonkers, N.Y., before adapting a former Air Force base to civilian re-use as the head of the Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corp. in Plattsburgh, N.Y. After serving as executive director of the Falls Church, Va., Economic Development Authority and as a senior associate with JBF Associates Inc. in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., he returned to New Haven in 2005 as director of the Schiavone Realty and Management Co. At the time of his death, he was the principal in the Holmes Development Group.

“A graduate of Rockford College in Rockford, Ill., he took additional study at Yale University and Southern Connecticut State University. He is survived by two children, Jessica Evans of San Mateo, California; and Michael of Seoul, Korea; two grandchildren Milo and Charlotte Evans; three siblings, two younger sisters (April and Jill) and a younger brother, Gary, all of Charlottesville, Va..

“A memorial service for him will take place here in New Haven on June 25.”