nothin Worker-Owned Laundry Planned | New Haven Independent

Worker-Owned Laundry Planned

Paul Bass File Photo

Line for storm relief, before welfare office closed.

A building that for decades doled out welfare to Newhallville would be reborn as a laundry where workers build wealth, under a plan hatched by the city.

The plan concerns the empty two-story, 70,953 square-foot brick building right by the Farmington Canal Trail at 188 – 206 Bassett Street.

That building housed the state Department of Social Services area welfare office. It has sat empty since June 2013, when the welfare office moved to Fair Haven.

The Harp administration has negotiated with the building’s private owner, New York-based Time Equities, to buy it for $900,000. It has found the money — mostly from federal community block grant dollars, along with some city Economic Development Administration dollars — for the purchase.

The administration now needs approval from the Board of Alders to proceed with the purchase. It has submitted a formal communication for Monday night’s board meeting to get that approval process started.

The plan is to use a big chunk of the building’s 46,119 square feet of usable space for a commercial laundry, Mayor Toni Harp said on her latest appearance on WNHH FM’s Mayor Monday” program.

She said a nonprofit entity would own the company at first, with a plan to segue into a worker-owned operation. The jobs would begin at a living wage,” she said.

The idea is to promote wealth-generation” and independence for people in Newhallville, she said. She said she got the idea for the project during a trip to Cleveland, where she learned about a successful worker-owned laundry that services Cleveland Clinic and the area’s university hospital. The project is part of the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative.

We thought we could do something similar,” given that New Haven has the fourth or fifth largest (based on varying estimates) concentration of health care delivery systems in the country.

New Haven’s version would begin by pitching Yale-New Haven Hospital, which sends its laundry to services in New York and New Jersey, to use the Newhallville operation for some of that load. Harp said the operation would probably begin with 28 employees, with hopes of growing to 140 by pitching to other area hospitals and nursing homes.

Other plans for the Bassett Street building include a fitness facility for the community offering community wellness and healthy options for living, a satellite training facility for job training and placement services and potential office space,” according to the city’s submission to the Board of Alders. Harp said the city would also look to help spur the creation of a Newhallville-centered nonprofit development corporation in the space, similar to the Dwight neighborhood’s development corporation, which built the Stop & Shop plaza and Montessori school in its area. New Haven’s Newhallville, Dixwell, West Rock, Fair Haven, and Hill neighborhoods used to have similar corporations, but they’ve closed.

Markeshia Ricks Photo

LCI chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjo: We’re looking to revitalize Newhallville.

The Livable City Initiative (LCI), local government’s anti-blight and neighborhood development agency, is spearheading the project.

This is a long time in the making,” LCI Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo said Monday.

The building, constructed in 1960, is appraised at $2.9 million, according to land records. Neal-Sanjurjo said it took years to negotiate the sale price down to $900,000.

They were very committed to helping the city,” she said. This is right in the middle of Newhallville, one of the neighborhoods we’re trying to revitalize.” She said the details of the financing and structuring of the nonprofit-future-cooperative remain to be worked out.

Max B. Pastor, director of acquisitions and senior counsel for Time Equities, confirmed the city’s version of the negotiations, in an email to the Independent.

Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn said she fully supports the project.

I think it’s great. I think it gives the people in our neighborhood an opportunity for jobs, and then to help sustain us there,” she said.

Harp said on Mayor Monday” that she’d also like to borrow another Cleveland Evergreen idea for another, as yet-unidentified industrial building in town: starting a hydroponic facility to grown greens for local restaurants.

Click on the video below to watch the full episode of Mayor Monday” on WNHH FM:

WNHH’s Mayor Monday” is made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.

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