A Genuine Real Live Neighbor Shows Up

As the road show for the new Downtown Crossing program hit the Hill for a neighborhood meeting, one person who actually lives there had a question: The project sounds great for the city’s tax and employment base, but what’s in it for us?

The question came from Dawn Gibson-Brehon. She and her husband were among the only visible faces from the Hill out of 50 people who showed up at the Courtland Wilson Branch Library Wednesday night to hear officials and a developer describe plans for the $140 million 10-story office building and dramatic roadway changes planned for the stretch of the Route 34 Connector that divides the neighborhood from downtown.

The officials began rolling out the road show Monday night (read about that here) in anticipation of the upcoming release of the first proposed development agreement to get the project going — and to fill in part of a mini-highway that New Haven has long felt held back the city. The project would create an estimated 2,000 construction jobs, then 600 to 900 permanent jobs, according to planners.

Gibson-Brehon questioned the project’s potential to create a space Hill neighbors might actually use — apart from potential employment.

“They talked about retail,” Gibson-Brehon said after the meeting. ​“And I was thinking this might be a place I can shop, maybe buy some groceries, or go to a restaurant.”

Instead, what she saw was a plan for a building at 100 College St. that would be home to biotech companies and house — at best — a cafe or small convenience store.

And she saw an intimidating sea of zooming traffic.

“I’m really not going to leave my house and walk across four lanes of traffic and through a barrier of trees, just to go and have a latte in a courtyard outside of a building that doesn’t employ or likely may not employ a bunch of Hill residents,” she said. ​“I’d like to support my community, but I’m just seeing a disconnect in how Hill residents can take advantage of this space for their own needs.”

Proponents touted the Downtown Crossing for helping turn the urban renewal-era Route 34 Connector turned from a ​“highway to nowhere” to retail, residential and business complexes bound by ​“urban boulevards.” Project members have touted it as a way to reconnect the Hill neighborhood, which encompasses Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale Medical School, with downtown New Haven.

“It’s just a huge, gaping hole right now,” said Downtown Crossing developer Carter Winstanley in response to Gibson-Brehon’s question. ​“It’s windy, cold and all concrete. We want to soften the space, add some landscaping — make it a place of refuge in a heavy urban area.”

Having a mini-highway running through the middle of the city presents a physical and psychological boundary between neighborhoods, WInstanley (pictured) said. He and city officials said they hope Downtown Crossing might go a ways in easing that boundary — and knitting the community back together.

Gibson-Brehon said a full-service grocery store in one of the spaces would be one way to get Hill neighbors into the area.

“We have little bodegas in the neighborhood, which are great,” she said. But she still has to drive to get to a full-on grocery.

Officials said the project will include extra-wide sidewalks and crossing areas to make it easy to cross the street.

Winstanley stressed that larger retail stores are still possibilities for the project.

“It’s not just our little two retail bays [at 100 College St.] that will be there to service a whole neighborhood,” he said. ​“There will be plenty of other opportunities in Downtown Crossing to fill in those needs.”

City economic development chief Kelly Murphy echoed Winstanley. She said the tenants in his building at 100 College won’t necessarily be ​“destination” retail — they’ll be supportive retail, like a coffee shop or little convenience store.

“But destination retail is a possibility for other sites along the corridor,” she said. The city is hoping to attract anything from grocery to residential, even a hotel, on adjoining blocks as the city plans to fill in other chunks of the highway.

Local architect Ben Northrup questioned the plan’s design in terms of neighborhood friendliness.

“I don’t think Hill residents are going to feel comfortable walking around here,” he said. ​“It looks like it will have more of the sense of a private space.” He’s been pushing for more bike and pedestrian-friendly cross streets at MLK Boulevard and South Frontage Road.

“Golden Ghetto”?

West River resident Ann Greene agreed.

“My experience in other cities with things like this, especially when they’re juxtaposed next to older or less well kept up spaces, is that people tend to think it simply belongs to ​‘someone else,’” she said. ​“And they don’t cross the divide.”

She said she’s concerned that people in already segregated Hill and West River neighborhoods will perceive the area as meant for hospital and Downtown Crossing employees only.

“So there’s the danger or potential for what I’ll call a ​‘Golden Ghetto,’” she said. ​“That’s what happens when social barriers aren’t broken down.”

People might think of the project as a potential site for jobs, she said. But not as an extension of the neighborhood. So she said she hopes to see the city take into account what neighborhood residents think and need.

“I think some great expertise can come out of people who know those neighborhoods intimately and are here to stay for better or for worse,” she said.

That’s what’s most important, Gibson-Brehon agreed. ​“I think they need to keep holding meeting like this,” she said. ​“And their goal should be a hard goal of getting at least 50 percent of the chairs in these meetings filled by Hill residents.”

There was was strong general support for the impending Downtown Crossing project at the meeting, if not for the details. But as a former alderwoman pointed out, many of the attendees were familiar faces: people who’ve been involved in the critique and discussion of the project since its inception.

“I’m 100 percent in favor of this — most important thing that’s ever happened in New Haven,” said the former alderwoman, Frances ​“Bitsie” Clark. ​“But the downside is we’re sitting in meeting in middle of the Hill — and where are the residents of the Hill?”

“There are nine African-Americans in this room — I know, I counted them!” she said.

She said she’d expected to hear lively debate concerning the neighborhood at Wednesday’s meeting.

“Discourse is the only thing that will really make this work.” If you’re just preaching to the choir, the project will fail, she said. ​“We’ve only got a piece of this community behind this, and it’s not going to work.”