Mayor DeStefano unveiled a vision of a filled-in downtown as the key to New Haven’s economic growth in the next decade. When he said “downtown,” he wasn’t talking about just the Nine Squares.
“We need to grow our idea of what the downtown is,” said Mayor Destefano Wednesday night, silhouetted against a projected map of New Haven in the dimly lit library of Career High on Legion Avenue. The mayor’s PowerPoint presentation was the the first of four community meetings being held to discuss New Haven’s urban development plans for the next ten years. Speaking to a gathering of about 30 people, including several aldermen, the mayor explained that the city’s plans target key areas of New Haven where he see the potential for investments that will pay off in the form of increased jobs, tax revenue and quality of life.
The areas chosen for “downtown” development stretch from Long Wharf to the Route 34 corridor near the West River.
The mayor said that the plans will develop almost 16 million new square feet, bring in almost $83 million in taxes and payments in lieu of taxes, and produce “in the order of 20,000 jobs.” This would be accomplished through an “urban infill strategy” that builds over parking lots, vacant lots and highway right of ways. This strategy would increase density in the city, especially in central New Haven.
A Different Downtown
The mayor’s projections would expand “downtown” New Haven beyond the just central nine square blocks around the Green. The plans center around an overhaul of the Route 34 highway and the area between the Yale Medical School and the university. They also target the Long Wharf area and the Route 34 corridor. This corridor is the former site of the Oak Street neighborhood, an area which has been dormant since the ’60s when bulldozers leveled entire blocks to make way for a highway extension that was never built.
Although these are not all regions of the city that are traditionally considered to be part of New Haven’s downtown, the mayor encouraged citizens last night to “think of the downtown differently.” The mayor is eager to expand the downtown because, he said, investments there result in disproportionate returns. DeStefano rattled off a number of statistics to prove it. “The downtown area accounts for one twentieth of the city’s land area, but it is the source of one fourth of our tax dollars and one third of our jobs.”
A particularly ambitious aspect of the city’s plans is redesigning of the Route 34 mini-highway appended to the I-95/I-91 interchange. The mayor hopes to turn this area into an “urban boulevard” with mixed use buildings, including bio medical units.
DeStefano said that this move would have the added benefit of joining what are now separate neighborhoods. The restructuring of the Route 34 highway would include the creation of throughways for Orange and Temple Streets, which would connect the Hill neighborhood to downtown.
At the other end of Route 34, the empty corridor that the mayor referred to as “Route 34 West,” the city plans to build a mix of office, retail, commercial, bio-science, and residential units. Development in this area is intended also to “knit together” the Hill, Dwight, and West River neighborhoods, said DeStefano. He explained that density will be higher at the east end of this area and scaled down towards the west, as the buildings become more residential.
The mayor laid out similar ideas for Long Wharf, the area between the Yale medical school and the train station, and the area just north of 34 around Orange Street, which is the future site of Gateway Community College.
Kelly Murphy, the city’s economic development administrator, said that the mayor’s presentation Wednesday night represents a new vision “for the city as a whole.”
It’s not just about individual areas, she said, “but how they all connect together. This is a way to start looking at things differently.”
Going to Bat
The mayor explained that economic growth will not come from a single huge project, like a stadium or a conference center. It will be the result of many individual projects of different sizes. He explained the plan with a mixed sports metaphor. “You can try to do economic development with the 90-yard pass, you know, the home run, but it’s not going to work. The way economic development gets done is with lots of singles.”
Asked what he thought would be a realistic time-frame for these projects, DeStefano responded that while growth would be the result of “an interaction of opportunity and our plans,” he expects to make use of increased federal spending in the next year as a result of the economic downturn. “The economy is not doing well,” said DeStefano, “The federal government is going to want to do something about that.” The mayor said that he is expecting to see Congress and the president pass an economic stimulus package.
Although DeStefano said he expects criticism that the city is focusing too much on the downtown area, there was no opposition to his plan voiced during the question and answer period following his talk.
Fred Maretz (pictured), longtime resident of New Haven, said that he is “absolutely thrilled” by all the changes that he has seen in the city since the mayor has been in office.
“People are always worried that there is a disproportionate attention given to the downtown,” said DeStefano. What they don’t understand, he continued, is that “although it’s a small part of the land, it’s big source of our jobs and taxes.”
DeStefano said that although his plans seemed well-received by the 30 people in the library, that there are another 125,000 people in New Haven he needs to talk to about it.
New Haveners can hear more about the mayor’s plans and give feedback at one of the three remaining community meetings. They will take place on Feb 13 in the Celentano School library, on Feb 27 in the Edgewood School library and on Mar 18 in the Martinez School library.
Thank you NHI, for posting the upcoming dates. I really appreciate that you include that information in your articles - promoting civic engagement among your readers!