Building Boom Continues, With Bumps

Covid-19 has barely slowed developers’ race to build market-rate apartments in town, but it has thrown the future of some hotel development into question — as shown by the two above photos.

The top photo was taken at 18 High St., the 132-unit building rising fast at the corner of High and Crown as part of the New Haven Towers campus.

Work crews (pictured) haven’t missed a beat since the pandemic struck in March. ​“Everyone’s giving it all they got,” and the project remains on schedule for a May 2021 opening, builder Sholom Andrusier told the Independent.

Meanwhile a hole in the ground has remained a hole in the ground since March at the corner of Elm and Orange Streets (second photo at top). Spinnaker Real Estate Partners tore down a 72-year-old Art Deco bank building and remaining portions of a concealed 164-year-old Gothic church there in January to make way for a new 132-room Hilton Garden Inn hotel, one of at least a half-dozen projects either underway or completed in recent years to fill a perceived lack of lodging options in town.

Spinnaker won’t know until at least the fall whether it will obtain the financing to resume the project, said CEO Clay Fowler. ​“It’s in a hold pattern. I think it’s a matter of the general feelings about hotels in the world.” Lenders have largely held back on backing hotel-building projects while they wait to see how the business and leisure travel industry — now close to stopped — recovers from the pandemic.

Meanwhile, two blocks north on Orange, Spinnaker is about to close on the financing to begin Phase 2 of the super-block-long apartment complex it has been building at Audubon and Orange and Grove, Spinnaker reported. The pandemic slowed that process down a bit, maybe two months, but did not turn off the financing spigot, he said. ​“We still don’t provide enough housing in America,” he observed. Similarly, Spinnaker is completing its site plan and preparing to meet with neighborhood groups about Phase One of the mixed-use development project it has inherited on the former Coliseum site at Orange and George and State and MLK. That phase, largely residential, is on track, according to Fowler.

His comments echoed those of other builders who had begun apartment projects in New Haven before the pandemic hit: A combination of supply chain tie-ups and communications delays cost them maybe a month or two. Contractors have had to find alternatives (some based here in the U.S.) to steel from China, for instance. And with home repairs booming, lumber is harder to find. But the work’s progressing, along with the financing.

For instance, Randy Salvatore’s crew is laying the foundation this week on a lot (above and below) at Tower Lane and Church Street South between the Tower One/Tower East senior assisted-living residences and St. Basil Greek Orthodox Church, for the next phase of apartments he’s been building in the ​“Downtown South/Hill North” zone between the train station and the Yale medical area.

Salvatore said he did need to obtain bridge financing to get that work started, but that the longer-term financing is pretty much in place for the 200-plus-apartment complex. It just took a couple of extra months to finalize. ​“The financing is still available … if you have a good track record” and relationships with banks, Salvatore said. ​“It just takes longer.”

While that’s true for residential construction, it’s not true for retail or for hotels, said Salvatore (who completed his new New Haven hotel a year before the pandemic struck). He did offer hope that companies making long-term decisions to move offices out of New York might open satellites in New Haven, though he said it’s too early to tell.

Similarly, work is going full tilt on the ​“Whit,” which is bringing 230 apartments to Olive Street between Water and Chapel Streets and then across the street (pictured) next to the Smoothie building …

… and a block (or less) away at the ​“87 Union” site, where Darren Seid’s company Epimoni is building 299 market-rate apartments across from the dog park at Union Street and Chapel.

On Tuesday his crew was putting wood panels on the second story of the concrete podium. ​“We believe we may hit our original target” for opening, said Seid (who declined to make that date public at this point). ​“Fortunately we locked in some contracts” and were able to swing with supply chain disruptions.

Nick Falker of Cambridge Realty Partners said his six-story, 44-unit 104 Howe St. building, where work has remained steady since the pandemic began, is on track to open in July 2021, just a month later than originally envisioned.

Work has been at a standstill at 201 Munson St., where ownership changes have stalled construction of an approved 400-unit complex. Developer Jeffrey Chung told the Independent Monday that he’s waiting to close on a pending financing deal that got delayed, then plans to ​“go full steam ahead.”

The Omni Hotel downtown has been a ghost town, amid fears that it will be among the locations the chain closes for good even after the pandemic subsides. But Otis Shepherd of Omni Hotels & Resorts informed the Independent by email Tuesday that the Temple Street location is scheduled to reopen Aug. 17. Omni received over $1 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program money to keep the business afloat.

But even if it reopens, the terms of that reopening might cause controversy, according to Connie Holt, secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 217, which represents the workers at the hotel. She issued the following statement: ​“Workers at the Omni New Haven have fought hard to win decent wages and benefits. Hotel management was quick to lay workers off and kick them off of their healthcare early in the pandemic. The union tried to negotiate a continuation of healthcare and wages, but Omni refused. Now, they’ve approached us with a proposal involving massive subcontracting and deep service cuts. What is Omni’s commitment to making sure workers survive this crisis and that New Haven has good jobs on the other side?”

Meanwhile, one budding hotel project is actually getting off the ground despite the industry headwinds. Or at least getting prepared. Crews have been working at the empty former Pirelli building next to IKEA on Long Wharf, doing abatement to prepare for work to begin on converting it to an up-to 165-room hotel. That could happen in as soon as 30 days, according to developer Bruce Becker. He said the financing commitment is in place. ​“We may be the only one breaking ground this year” on a hotel, he said. Given the hiatus in demand for rooms, ​“we’re not rushing,” but he still anticipates completing the project in 2021, he said.