Childcare Center On Tap

First it was going to be a parking lot. Then, affordable housing. Now a new plan has emerged for an empty lot in Dixwell — to become a Science Park daycare center.

The proposal concerns 309 Ashmun St., an open space near Science Park. The plan calls for a $1 transfer of the property from the city to the Science Park Development Corporation (SPDC), which intends to create a daycare facility for people working at Science Park plus neighborhood families.

The center is expected to have room for 100 kids. At least 15 percent of the spaces would be reserved for children who live in the neighborhood.

The proposal will come before the Board of Aldermen for a first reading on Monday. The Board of Aldermen’s Community Development Committee signed off on the idea at its Tuesday night meeting on Dec. 15. Aldermen are expected to vote on the matter Jan. 4.

Contacted by phone on Friday, SPDC board chairman David Silverstone recounted the recent history of 309 Ashmun St.:

The $1 deal with the city would mark the completion of a full circle for the property, which belonged to SPDC until five years ago. That’s when the company gave the land to the city. The gift was made with the condition that the city use the land to build housing. Although the city built Monterey Place up to the outer edge of the lot, it never made use of the property itself.

Over the last couple of years, SPDC has given the city a number of deadlines and extensions, allowing it more time to build housing on the lot. Over that same time period, the national housing crisis erupted, and the city moved away from building homes and towards rehabilitating existing properties.

Finally, the city decided to give up on the building goal entirely and give the land back to SPDC, which has a plan for the site and the means to develop it.

Creating a daycare center at the location will require permission of the City Plan Commission. Science Park is part of a Planned Development District created some 20 years ago. Under the PDD, 309 Ashmun St. was originally tapped to be a parking lot.

Since the completion of a new garage across from the parcel, parking is no longer necessary at the site, Silverstone said. Daycare is.

Assuming the Board of Aldermen and the City Plan Commission approve of the plan, and environmental inspectors give it their seal of approval, construction could begin as soon as the spring, Silverstone said. He estimated that construction would take one year.

He said the cost of the project is yet to be determined. ​“It’s not going to be cheap,” he said. The building will be about 11,000 square feet, and a ​“good facility.”

A daycare center would be a good way for Science Park to ​“relate to Dixwell and Newhallville areas,” Silverstone said.

Chrissy Bonanno, deputy chief of the city’s economic development department, described the daycare project as a good ​“transition” from high-tech Science Park to the residential neighborhoods around it.

Watley Objects

For at least one neighborhood activist, the daycare plan is problematic. Angela Watley, a 2009 mayoral candidate who lives next door to 309 Ashmun, said the lot should have been made available to other developers.

“I just couldn’t understand why it wasn’t open to other developers that might have wanted to put low-income homes there,” she said.

Watley said that her neighborhood was not adequately informed about the deal.

She attended the Dec. 15 committee meeting on the property only because she happened to notice a little sign on the fence surrounding the lot.

Wately also argued that reserving 15 percent of daycare slots for the neighborhood is insufficient. With all the families in need of childcare in Dixwell and Newhallville, 15 slots out of a 100 is ​“just a slap in the face,” she said.

Silverstone later said that the 15 percent mark is a minimum, and that the daycare will try to have more than that available to the neighborhood. Saving spots for local families is not a legal requirement, he said. The number of slots available to the neighborhood is ​“a function of the economy,” Silverstone said. He has to balance the needs of the community with the amenities of employees at Science Park, he said.

As for opening the land up to other developers, Silverstone said that doesn’t make sense, given the history of the parcel. ​“The part that that misses is that Science Park gave this to the city for a dollar for housing. This is not like the city owned this piece of land for hundreds of years,” he said. The city had it only for a little while, and only because SPDC donated it. ​“It’s got to come back to us.”

“It wasn’t ours to make available [to other developers] because of restrictions on it,” Bonanno said.

The city will hold onto a small parcel of land connected to the lot with the intention of creating housing there when the market improves, she said. Right now, it simply doesn’t make sense to build more housing because banks aren’t giving many mortgages, Bonanno said.

Silverstone said that SPDC is committed to creating a daycare center at the location. If for some reason that turns out to be impossible, the corporation would pursue creating some other kind of ​“youth-oriented facility,” he said.