Melissa Bailey File Photo
(Updated) A plan to renovate the long-abandoned Winchester factory cleared a final hurdle, with new promises of affordable housing and permanent jobs for neighbors.
The Board of Aldermen voted unanimously on Tuesday evening to approve a measure that will allow for the development of the former Winchester Repeating Arms Company at Winchester Avenue and Munson Street. The old factory (pictured) will be converted into a mixed-use building of offices, apartments, and retail spaces. Its first tenant is New Haven’s own high-tech darling Higher One.
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
Developer Carter Winstanley (pictured) is undertaking the project along with the Science Park Development Corporation and the Forest City Enterprises development company.
Tuesday evening’s vote came at the end of a series of sometimes contentious public hearings on the plan. The proposal met with blowback at a meeting of the City Plan Commission in July. Community leaders spoke out against a perceived lack of neighborhood input and employment opportunities associated with the project.
Aldermen took those factors into consideration when the Board of Aldermen’s Legislation Committee heard the proposal later in July. They expressed reservations about traffic, jobs, and local input, but passed the item onto the full board anyway.
When it came up for a final vote on Tuesday evening, the proposal was accompanied by a couple of new letters addressing the issues of jobs and housing. Those letters came from Carolyn Kone, the attorney for the developers. They promise efforts to find permanent jobs for local residents and set aside affordable housing in the new development. The proposal was also revised to allow bars only with special permission.
Aldermen praised those changes on Tuesday evening. “I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that through this process we have a better outcome,” said Newhallville Alderman Charles Blango.
Edgewood Alderman Marcus Paca stood “in strong support” of the plan. “It shows New Haven is on the rebound,” he said. The city is still building and expanding, he said.
Aldermen voted unanimously to pass the proposal.
“It’s great,” said David Silverstone, head of the board at the Science Park Development Corporation, after the vote. He said he was very pleased to have unanimous aldermanic support.
He said he was also pleased to “work hard on the jobs issue.” That work resulted in attorney Kone’s letter to the Board of Aldermen, in which she lays out a commitment to reach out to the surrounding community to publicize job openings at Higher One and to assists applicants in applying for those jobs or obtaining the necessary qualifications. That work will be done by the Science Park Development Center’s Job Center.
Kone also wrote that the developers have committed to making construction jobs available to New Haven residents and minorities.
Silverstone mentioned that developers will also be cooperating with the Contractor’s Alliance—newly installed nearby the factory—to find local construction workers and develop a “pipeline” between employers in the development and residents of Dixwell/Newhallville looking for jobs.
A second letter from Kone states that 20 percent of residential units at the new development will be set aside for people whose income is less that 50 percent of the area median income.
Silverstone said he didn’t know if failure to meet the conditions laid out in the letters would result in penalties of any kind.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Silverstone said. The project still needs some final regulatory approval, including a site plan approval, he said. Final contracts have to be signed with prospective tenants and construction companies.
Work will begin late December or early January, Silverstone said. The entire project will take 12 months and cost “north of $40 million,” he said.
In a Wednesday morning press conference at the shuttered factory, Mayor John DeStefano celebrated the Tuesday night’s approval with local aldermen and representatives of the developers. Contacted later by phone, DeStefano said several things struck him about the moment.
First, the change in building use from factory to financial services mirrors the change in New Haven’s economy. “We still make things, just different things.”
Second, the revitalization of the factory marks a reconnection of Newhallville with the city. When he became mayor, a large section of Winchester Avenue was close, because of safety concerns, DeStefano said.
“I just think that getting the building back into active use will be a huge benefit to the community,” DeStefano said.
I think it'd be more desirable if the project was to convert nearly all of the salvageable space at Winchester to commercial office, light manufacturing and assembly space with perhaps a small residential component. Instead of trying to make a large part of the Winchester complex residential, that effort should be redirected towards the Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods. There is enormous potential for development in the southern blocks of Newhallville where, in the early 1990s, the foreclosure crisis lead to mass demolition of buildings and subsequent decay of others, which has continue to the present.
The existing housing stock in the two adjacent neighborhoods is infinitely better than anything that could be developed inside the factory complex. The vacant lots in these neighborhoods also create immense opportunity for newer, higher quality homes in the model of Orange Street in East Rock or southern Howard Ave in the Hill. The existing housing is certainly great, well constructed and decently designed but it may not be adequate for business owners that we may hope to attract to the neighborhood, which is why new construction would be an important part.
Large apartment building housing is very rigid and unchanging, which can lead to problems of losing residents as their demands change and their families grow. The building stock in Newhallville, however, is made up of one of the most adaptive building types in the world, perhaps only behind the San Fransisco townhouse. These houses have the potential of retaining diverse populations and changing to accommodate demographic shifts to a degree that is unimaginable in an apartment or condo building setting. For instance, a 2.5 story house with a 9 foot high basement, has the capability of being a very large single family house, a fairly large owner occupied house with a basement and/or first floor rental apartment, a land lord-owned 2 to 4 apartment house, or a apartment house with a ground floor office or retail space AND each of these buildings can typically occupy only 40-60% of the building lot, which leaves lots of room for a usable backyard for kids, gardens, patios, sheds, building additions, or private agricultural space. The density of the neighborhood is not too great that privacy and space are sacrificed, but it is great enough to support stores that can provide low-skill service jobs to the existing population since the companies most likely to go into the Winchester factory will be hiring high-skill professionals with perhaps a few exceptions that can probably only be attracted through incentives.
If New Haven ever hopes to attract the middle class back, we need to focus development on adaptive building types that can provide for young people, couples, growing families and elderly populations. We cannot remain dependent on Yale development, which ironically often results in the destruction of the very things we need to invest in, nor can we rely on big development projects like 360 State, which in the long term do a terrible job at retaining residents and attract diverse groups of people. The key to New Haven's future vitality will be in how we provide for the average citizen, and how we support neighborhoods of diversity in terms of income, age and background.