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Putting It All Together
A downtown 'arts district' would profoundly reshape New Haven's city center
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Business New Haven
8/21/2000
By: Michael C. Bingham
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Centralizing New Haven's principal cultural offerings in a discrete downtown entertainment district would boost arts organizations' fortunes, generate additional economic activity downtown and cement New Haven's reputation as a regional capital for arts and entertainment.
That's the conclusion of a state-funded "Greater New Haven Arts & Entertainment Facilities Study" prepared by Theatre Projects Consultants Inc. (TPC) of Fairfield for the city of New Haven.
To make that district a reality, the study estimates a total of $450 million in expenditures over 20 years. That figure includes construction, operating and ancillary expenses.
Who would pay for that stunning investment remains undefined, although it would surely involve marshalling private and public resources. In part, at least, the study asserts that "increases in arts-related spending attributable to the [arts district] concept will support the study's recommendations."
At present, the study says, New Haven arts institutions directly and indirectly generate more than $150 million annually into the economy of the city and region.
To sustain and enhance that figure, the TPC study asserts that "Continued government and foundation support for this important cluster is vital for the economic health of the region."
A structural bias of the study is its concentration on six "focus institutions" - half of which (Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the Connecticut Tennis Center and the Palace Performing Arts Center) are not arts institutions at all, but bricks-and-mortar facilities that host a broad array of events.
As producers or presenters of original or imported arts programming, the remaining three - Long Wharf Theatre, the Shubert Performing Arts Center and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra - better fit the description of "arts institutions."
The proposed arts and entertainment district would encompass the two College Street theaters, the three major Yale arts facilities (the Yale Art Gallery, Center for British Art and Repertory Theatre) on Chapel Street and the Coliseum, among existing facilities.
But the new plan envisions much more.
At the heart of an enhanced arts and entertainment district would be a new "state-of-the-art" 2,300-seat multi-purpose performance facility on the site of either the former Macy's or Malley's department stores. Such a facility would:
• Permit the Shubert Performing Arts Center organization to book bigger Broadway-style touring shows - e.g., Miss Saigon - than the current College Street venue can accommodate;
• Replace aging, uncomfortable Woolsey Hall as performance home of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and, it is hoped, reinvigorate what was once a premiere cultural attraction;
•o Usurp mid-level concert and other entertainment offerings now found at the Palace Performing Arts Center. At the same time, the Palace itself would be downsized from 2,000 to 500 seats to accommodate "community and small performing organizations."
The Shubert theater itself, meanwhile, would get a $6 million facelift including renovation and/or replacement of the stage deck, upgrading the orchestra pit and reconfiguring the lobby area. The study envisions that the Shubert organization itself would metamorphose into a producing entity and be reincarnated as a "pre-Broadway" theater.
For years city officials have worked behind the scenes to sell Long Wharf Theatre directors on the benefits of relocating downtown - to date, without success. Now, according to the TPC study, comes the juiciest carrot yet: a brand-new $45 million facility on the Macy's or Malley's site. Like the present LWT, the new structure would house a 500-plus-seat main stage and smaller performance space along the lines of the current Stage II.
The unlovely Veterans Memorial Coliseum has been the poor stepchild of Elm City arts facilities for at least two decades. Nevertheless, the South Orange Street pleasure dome generates more visitors annually - for pop concerts, trade shows and, sometimes, sports (by the time you read this, SMG, which manages the Coliseum, may have announced that it had lured the Continental Basketball Association's Connecticut Pride franchise from the Hartford Armory) - than any other cultural site, by far.
For that reason, TPC has recommended swift completion of the improvements begun in 1997 by the city to help cement the deal with the hockey team that would become the Beast of New Haven (oops), and beyond that to "explore all opportunities to enhance patron amenities the guest experience" while also improving presentation/production facilities - something SMG management would more than welcome. The aim, says the TPC study, is to ensure that the Coliseum remain "an important participant in New Haven's renaissance."
One TPC recommendation that is bound to generate discussion is the notion to transform Chapel Square Mall into a "visual arts and restaurant row (food court type) facility" to attract visitors. The community arts space, the study suggests, could be managed by the Creative Arts Workshop and help "transform the mall into a cultural anchor."
One obvious hurdle is the fact that the mall is at the center of years-old litigation between the city and Baltimore developer David Cordish, who claims that city officials violated an agreement to sell the retail facility to him as part of the deal that brought the Omni hotel into being.
The other is the fate of the score or so of merchants who presently populate the mall - whose loss would not only decimate the number of downtown retailers, but also leave many of their urban customers with precious few shopping choices. Since many of those customers live in nearby housing projects such as Church Street South and may have limited access to transportation, the Chapel Square question remains fraught with not only legal, but also sociological, complications.
Less complicated is TPC's recommendation to create a production facility for the performing, visual and media arts, perhaps in the Court Street/Wooster Street vicinity east of the railroad tracks. Such a facility, which would "house the services and light industries that support both the business and technical components of the arts," would dovetail neatly with City Hall plans to create mixed-used artist housing and studio space in Ninth Square, especially lower Crown Street.
It all sounds great - pipe dreams always do. At this stage, the key questions are: 1) Where would the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to make all this a reality come from; and 2) does the TPC vision represent the optimum mid-term outcome not only for the New Haven-area arts community - but for the future of downtown itself?
Arts Council of Greater New Haven Executive Director Frances T. (Bitsie) Clark emphasizes that the TPC study is only the first step on a long road to reshaping downtown New Haven.
However, she acknowledges that siting the community's principal arts facilities within walking distance of one another is a desirable goal.
"Everyone is anxious for the downtown to be extremely lively," she says. It's not essential to have all these facilities near each other, but the more kinds of things you can get together," the better.
For instance, says Clark, "If you could get artist housing in the Ninth Square, it is two blocks from the train station, and we have high-speed [rail] coming in. The minute you have that down there, just imagine how exciting it would be to have a gallery there, too. You already have great facilities in [nightspots] Café Nine and the Gotham Citi Café. To be able to walk to a theater, walk to a gallery, walk to Café Nine, walk someplace else for live music - that would be fantastic."
The next step, according to former United Illuminating Co. chairman Richard Grossi, who chaired the committee overseeing the study, will be a September 14 meeting to "determine which things we want to focus on." At this point, he says, "I can't tell you exactly which ones will enter that second phase."
In any event, we'll know soon enough.
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