Newman Architects
Last look? This design will change, perhaps along with architect.
Paul Bass Photo
Spinnaker’s Fowler: To the rescue?
One of the city’s busiest developers has signed on as a partner to restart the stalled plan to build a new urbanist mini-city on the gravesite of the old New Haven Coliseum.
The developer, South Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate, has agreed to partner with the project’s struggling original builder, Montreal-based LiveWorkLearn Play (LWLP).
“We think New Haven continues to be a rising community. We want to be part of it. That’s the essence of our commitment. We’re there for the long term,” Spinnaker CEO Clay Fowler said in an interview Monday.
“The Coliseum seemed to be a progression of that. It is obviously a keynote site in town. We’re really excited to be involved in it.”
As Spinnaker and other developers have been on a tear building new housing in town the past five years, the Coliseum project has been mired in bureaucratic quicksand. The city signed a deal with LWLP in 2013 to build a $400 million mix of apartments, open spaces, stores, offices, and a hotel on the 5.5‑acre block, bordered by MLK Boulevard and Orange, State, and George Streets. But LWLP never got started. The site’s still a surface parking lot. LWLP blamed the city for delays; the city blamed it for failing to secure the financing. A stalemate ensued; the Harp administration gave LWLP a deadline to find a new buyer or partner with bucks and expertise.
Meanwhile, developers began building hundreds upon hundreds of new apartments within blocks of the site in three directions. Spinnaker was one of those developers. It is fast building a new complex called Audubon Square at Grove, Orange, State, and Audubon streets; and has secured the approvals to get started at an apartment complex at the old Comcast site at Chapel and Orange and to build a boutique hotel at the old Webster Bank property at Orange and Elm. CEO Fowler estimates his company has committed to building a quarter-billion dollars worth of projects so far.
Now add the biggest project to date— if it gets built.
Fowler declined to detail the terms of Spinnaker’s partnership with LWLP. It’s unclear if LWLP will eventually get paid to walk away or whether it will play a continuing role.
“We are going to be very very active in the partnership. We will use LiveWorkLearnPlay’s talents as appropriate,” Fowler said. “We are reconfiguring the partnership. We will all be players in that.”
LWLP principal Max Reim did not respond Monday afternoon to requests for comment.
Fowler also said his team is revisiting the details of the plan itself and is unsure at this point of the final pricetag.
It will stick to basic outlines of the development and land disposition agreement (DLDA) signed with the city, Fowler said. (Click here to read the document.) But it may get tweaked.
Spinnaker is committed to keeping the promise of including a public area in the plan, Fowler said.
No-Tell: Hotel?
Paul Bass Photo
LWLP’s Reim: Future role unclear.
Mayor Toni Harp said one potential sticking point is the plan for a four-and-a-half-star hotel on the site.
The state (which is funding public improvements) and the city have insisted from the start that a hotel anchor the project. Harp said the new development team has broached the suggestion of omitting the hotel now.
That may prove a sticking point.
Harp noted that originally the LWLP team had supposedly found a hotel but couldn’t find the money to complete the project. Now the team found a partner but is “questioning the need for a hotel,” Harp said in response to a listener’s question during her latest appearance on WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday” program. The argument is that since the Coliseum deal was signed in 2013, numerous boutique hotel projects (including Spinnaker’s) have begun or are in the works around town.
Removing the hotel portion of the plan would ease the path for the Coliseum project. That’s because members of the Board of Alders majority backed by the UNITE HERE union — which represents both Yale workers and hotel workers — have sought to block new hotel projects that don’t include neutrality agreements paving the way for labor representation. The word has gone out to the industry that new hotels in New Haven need to include union representation; that drives up the potential cost and can dissuade potential builders.
“If there’s going to be a hotel [on the Coliseum site], it’s going to be a union hotel,” Harp said Monday. On the previous week’s “Mayor Monday” program, she argued that such an expectation ensures that new jobs that come into New Haven pay enough for workers to live on; she suggested exploring tax phase-ins similar to those offered for new construction projects to help hotel builders afford to pay union wages.
Harp said she still leans toward including a hotel in the Coliseum site plan. New Haven is in need of more conference and banquet facilities found in larger hotels, she said.
Spinnaker’s Fowler said the boutique hotel his company is building at the Webster site will include some conference space. But he agreed that that doesn’t add up to the level the city is seeking. “A conference-capable hotel is a different ball of wax,” Fowler said. “It’s one thing to have a few thousand square feet. It’s another to have 20,000 square feet.” He said his company “is still evaluating the hotel possibilities” in the Coliseum site plan. “We’re absolutely committed to studying the hotel and understanding its feasibility.”
Harp said also under discussion is whether the new Coliseum development team would switch architects. Herb Newman’s firm is the current architect.
Click on the above video for the full episode of WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday,” which also included discussion of Tweed-New Haven Airport’s future, affordable housing proposals, state campaigns politics, and the Newhallville safe-neighborhood “Byrne” grant.
This episode of “Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.
The hotel plan has to be dropped, because a unionized hotel facing so much non-union competition will lose money. But the unions won't allow a non-union hotel. And no hotel owner is going to volunteer to lose money.
The only solution would be a massive state subsidy to the hotel. But the state has no money.
Time to move on and let the site develop in some natural way. We can demand some open space. Let's get going before the next recession hits the lot stays empty for another decade.