Paul Bass, Aliyya Swaby Photos
205-7 Orange; builders Jacob and Joseph Feldman (inset).
New Haven’s legal aid agency is moving up, as is a block of downtown that has proved resistant to the economic boom remaking surrounding blocks.
The agency, New Haven Legal Assistance Association, plans to move this fall from its current under-11,000-square-foot location at the corner of Court and State Streets into a new 18,000 square-foot space this fall at 205 – 7 Orange St., across from the 200 Orange municipal office building.
New York-based real-estate developers Jacob and Joseph Feldman — among the forces behind New Haven’s current market-rate apartment construction boom — purchased the 205 – 7 Orange building in January for $1.075 million, according to land records. The space most recently housed a social service agency called the Connection, which has moved to 900 Chapel St.
Joseph Feldman told the Independent his company will spend months retrofitting the entire building for NHLAA, dropping ceilings and putting in sheetrock and HVAC systems.
“It made sense to move them in,” he said. “It’s a win-win.”
File Photo
NHLAA’s Alexis Smith.
“We’re really excited” about the move, NHLAA Executive Director Alexis Smith said. Smith said the agency has far outgrown its current space at 105 Court St. It expanded its immigration practice, including adding a fellow to the staff, and created a new community development practice, hiring attorney Liam Brennan (formerly a federal prosecutor) and community organizer Caitlin Maloney. The agency also plans to hire another family law attorney.
Paul Bass Photo
The Feldmans also own 105 Court/ 426 State (pictured above), which houses the Legal Beagle restaurant and Adolf Viennese Couturier-Furs. Joseph Feldman said his company plans to convert the upstairs NHLAA space into new apartments.
The blocks near the State-Court-Orange-Elm block that houses both buildings have been undergoing growth. The 360 State St. luxury apartment tower is half a block away. In the other direction, one developer is planning a new hotel or apartments at the former Webster Bank site at 80 Elm, while across the street the owner of The Union upscale apartment building is planning to build another hotel on an adjacent parking lot.
But the State-Court-Orange-Elm block has struggled to thrive. A recent addition, the Peruvian Cviche 181, has closed. Sweet Mary’s bakery on Court Street has closed, at least for a month (according to a sign in the window). Numerous other empty storefront on Court Street have windows blocked with blank paper.
Across the street on the block on Elm, the Feldmans have been planning for years to construct a new apartment building on the site of the former Harold’s formal wear store. The plans stalled as they sought to sell the property. Now, Joseph Feldman said, his company has revived plans for the project — with a redesign in the works to add more apartments. The original approved plan was for 46 apartments. Then New Haven amended its zoning code to allow builders to construct bigger residential projects, with smaller (and therefore more) apartments, in business zones. (Click here to read about that.) “We’re back to the drawing board to see the potential we have,” Feldman said.
2016 version of the Harold’s project design.
“Getting a little more vibrancy on that side of town would be great,” City Plan Director Michael Piscitelli said of the various plans afoot for that final underdeveloped stretch of downtown.
Story after story has indicated that New Haven's restrictive zoning ordinance has stymied many a beneficial development by limiting the developer's ability to make a profit, get investors or mortgages and kills their ideas. When the city gives desired relief through the Board of Zoning Appeals, often somewhat illegally in the case of variances, it gets sued and would either lose the case or the developer gives up. If no good public purpose can be found for parts of the code it is time to reexamine the 1928/1963 code. Remember, the Zoning Ordinance is not the 10 commandments. Long deceased Alders enacted it and the living can reenact it. Our new City Plan director is a certified city planner. I expect great things from him. If we make amendments and new less restrictive codes do not work out to our satisfaction, we can always amend again. It is not that hard.