Parking Authority Approves 3 Pacts, Paving Way To Redevelop Union Station

Parking commissioners unanimously signed off on three separate agreements designed to lay the groundwork for redeveloping Union Station.

They took those votes Monday night during the latest regular monthly meeting of the city’s parking authority. The virtual Park New Haven meeting took place online via Zoom and Facebook Live.

The parking authority commissioners approved three separate agreements regarding Union Station.

All three related to a proposed new city-state accord that maps out the management and potential redevelopment of the century-old transit hub over the next 55 years. Monday’s vote came less than a week after the Board of Alders Finance Committee advanced a suite of proposals related to that larger Union Station agreement, which should next receive a final vote from the local legislature in November.

The three items approved on Monday night by the parking authority included:

• An agreement between the parking authority and the city that would have the parking authority continue to manage the day-to-day operations of Union Station for an initial term of five years, with five-year-renewal options thereafter.

• An agreement between the parking authority and the parking consulting firm Desman Inc. for up to $225,000 worth of work on studying the environmental, geotechnical, traffic, and other pre-development conditions of the east and west surface parking lots on either side of Union Station. The city, state and parking authority hope to attract private developers to build those surface lots up into 600 new structured parking spaces and potentially new retail and commercial space, as well as a multi-modal transit hub. ​“It’s a fairly involved study,” Park New Haven Chief Engineer Jim Staniewicz said. ​“The CT DOT [Department of Transportation] has asked us to undertake this,” and its necessary investigatory work before any kind of redevelopment can actually begin.

• An agreement between the parking authority and the Regional Plan Association nonprofit for up to $65,000 worth of work conducting outreach to potential developers of those same east and west surface parking lots on either side of Union Station. ​“In addition to the predevelopment scope for the east and west lots, we’re also in need of engagement with the development community to figure out answers to a few questions we still have remaining,” Park New Haven Executive Director Doug Hausladen said on Monday. This agreement with the Regional Plan Association will have that planning group help host a roundtable with prospective developers, Hausladen said, to solicit feedback in advance of a proposed rezoning of the east and west lots to make them more conducive to redevelopment.

Parking authority Chair Norm Forrester asked Hausladen to go into a bit more detail on how the five-year Union Station operating agreement between the city and the parking authority differs from the current, longstanding arrangement that has had the parking authority manage the transit hub since the 1980s.

One of the largest differences, Hausladen said, is that the current agreement is among three parties: the city, the state, and the parking authority. The proposed new Union Station arrangement would have the state lease Union Station to the city for 35 years with two 10-year options to renew. And then, in a separate agreement, the city would sign on with the parking authority to have the latter operate the station for five years, with automatic five-year renewals after that.

Because the parking authority will not be a party to the main agreement between the city and the state, Hausladen said, the city will set up two ​“enterprise funds” for Union Station: one for capital, one for operations.

That means that any revenue generated from Union Station — through rental income, operating deposits, parking revenue, grants, etc…— will go directly into these city-managed funds. The city will then advance operating funds to the parking authority on a monthly basis based on the parking authority’s annual budget for the campus. The city will also advance capital funds to the parking authority based on that same approved budget.

Parking authority attorney Cliff Merin noted that the new Union Station agreement will include the State Street commuter station into the larger transit ​“campus” that the parking authority will be charged with operating.

The inclusion of the State Street station under the parking authority’s purview will cause a bump in the commercial general liability insurance policy covering the campus from $15 million to $25 million.