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Appalled at the Mall
Barrie Ltd.'s Isaacs would like to put the boot to the Long Wharf retail behemoth
John Isaacs, 31, is co-proprietor (with his father) of Barrie Ltd. Bootery at York Street and Broadway in New Haven, a 65-year-old family business. In recent weeks he's become better known as point person for a group of downtown merchants and business people opposed to Mayor John DeStefano Jr.'s plan to build a $500 million retail mall at Long Wharf. BNH spoke with Isaacs on June 5.
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Business New Haven
6/14/99
By: BNH
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Tell me about the history of
Barrie Ltd.
Barrie Ltd. was started by my grandfather in 1934. At that time he had another store downtown on Church Street that was a Florsheim store serving the business community. Up in the Broadway area there were a number of men's clothing stores, but there was no dedicated shoe store. The idea Barrie Ltd. was to serve the elite Yale clientele and to be the best shoe store in town. We have a different environment today: The Yale student doesn't dress the way he did in the '30s. The Yale student is a mix of men and women now, and our [line] has changed to be more casual, more co-ed and less elite.
You've known about plans for this mall for three years. Why wait until now to actively oppose it?
I went to a couple of the public hearings back in April, and it became apparent that there were still a lot of processes that the mall plan had to go through for approval. Until I went to those hearings and realized that there was still a lot of controversy about this plan, I assumed that it was [a foregone conclusion].
Mayor DeStefano says a mall at Long Wharf won't displace downtown, it will simply grow downtown to the benefit of all. Why do you believe otherwise?
That really is the essence of this issue. That is an opinion: whether the mall will help to revitalize downtown, or whether the mall will end up competing with downtown, and thus be detrimental. When you look at what malls do to cities, the mayor is wrong. Only one time out of 20 [do malls benefit downtowns]. If he could [cite] some examples of where this has worked, where an enclosed structure with its own parking, within a mile of a downtown area with paid-for parking has done good things for that area...I can't think of any. But I can think of a bunch where it's done bad things.
Stamford...
Stamford. Waterbury. New London. You can even argue that this has already happened to New Haven with Milford [the Connecticut Post Mall] and Meriden [Square Mall]. You can argue that it's happened to Hartford, with [Manchester's] Buckland Hills [Mall] and Westfarms [Mall]. The mayor is simply wrong.
I'm sure not all the downtown retailers you've talked to agree with you. What do the mall supporters say?
There are a few who support the mall because they're planning on going into the mall; that's one reason to support the mall. There are others who are so Yale service-oriented that they don't think the mall is a big issue - some of the clothing stores, some of the copy shops. I did speak with a retailer on Temple Street who said he was supportive [of the mall] because he thought it would bring traffic downtown. Well, he's in a location that has no traffic now. He's in a location that has the most by some type of retail development. I think it would be better if they developed Temple Street and Chapel Square Mall further. But everybody who's in a reasonable retail location and is doing some kind of business is very concerned that if they lose even a small portion of their business to competition in the mall, and don't pick up enough gain from mall overflow - which doesn't normally happen [elsewhere] - then they're in trouble. And then the city is in trouble, because who's going to start a business in space where a business that was doing well went out of business?
Your Web site (www.ctcities.com) claims that $250 million in sales revenues will be diverted from downtown to the mall. Where does that number come from.
That number comes from the economic-impact study that was submitted to DECD [the state's Department of Economic & Community Development]. The study said that two-thirds of the business that the mall generated would be diverting from existing businesses. And [the same study] talked about the mall doing between $400 million and $500 million [in annual sales]. [That figure] was in the executive summary of the initial mall proposal. As they updated it, they took that out.
Chamber of commerce officials two weeks ago held a series of meeting to talk to merchants. What took place at those?
I went to one of those. They wanted to have a discussion about downtown whether or not the mall was built. In other words, 'The mall may come or the mall may not come; let's talk about our needs downtown.' Earlier there was a meeting with [downtown Alderwoman] Esther Armmand, who worded the question in a different way which was very offensive: She said, 'We want to discuss your issues as downtown merchants, but we don't want to discuss the mall. That really ticked people off, because the issue for downtown merchants right now is the mall. [At the chamber meetings, chamber Chairman Anthony Vallillo] got to the same discussion that Esther wanted to get to, but he [allowed that] maybe the mall is coming, and maybe it's not. Esther just said, 'The mall is coming, and that's that.' What [Vallillo] got out of the merchants was that we have problems with parking, and we need to make it easy, convenient and inexpensive for customers to park. We need to address perceptions in marketing the city in terms of safety; we need to do more to promote [downtown retail].
Those are real issues.
Yes, regardless of what happens with the mall. But if you put it into the mall context, and you look at the fact that the city funding is paying for free parking for customers at the mall - and yet the city is not willing to address in a creative and pro-active way the parking issues downtown - now the city is [creating] unfair competition.
You've been to Hartford several times to make your case to legislators. Who have you talked to, and what have you heard back from them?
Three weeks ago we didn't get to talk to anybody. We delivered materials to New Haven-area legislators. [On June 3] I went up with [former Republican mayoral candidate and radio gadfly] Kevin Skiest and we delivered copies of the petitions with more than 1,000 names on them to all the legislators. Then we hooked up with [Westfield Corp. lobbying firm] Sullivan & Leshane and they gave us a list of legislators they felt were on the fence. We spoke with a handful. Over two days we spoke with about ten of them. There are a few who wanted to know where the mall was going to be [sited] in relation to downtown.
They didn't even know that?
So we drew a simple map, and when they realized that there were two significant barriers between the mall and downtown - Route 34 and the railroad tracks - they said, 'Well, it's pretty obvious we shouldn't be voting for this.' The other attitude we encountered was, 'Well, we approved the funding for these three projects [Adriaen's Landing in Hartford, Bridgeport's Harbour Place and the Long Wharf mall] to support the cities because this is what the cities told us they wanted.' Then the question becomes, 'Does the city really want it, because the mayor's not willing to [put it to a] referendum vote?' The third attitude was that in general they think malls are a bad idea, they've seen malls hurt their own towns, but they're waiting to see what the deal is, what's in it for their town, or how much their town could be hurt by the politics [of the matter]. That's the message that should really infuriate the public.
Mayor DeStefano portrays your group as pawns of the Westfield Corp. What's the truth?
We started this initiative because I got really irritated seeing what was going on a public hearings [about the mall]. From the beginning [Westfield] was not involved. However, when Westfield began to talk about $50 million for downtown, we have become connected. We talk to one another and share ideas. We do have the same goal, although for different reasons. But my ideas and my writings are mine, and they have not provided me with any money at all. In fact, we have no money at all. I've invested a few hundred dollars of my own, but that's it.
In some of your press announcements you've used the word 'intimidation' to explains why some merchants sympathetic to your cause have remained silent. Who has intimidated whom, and how?
It's not an individual intimidating a business. What it has been is Fred Maretz [of the city's Office of Business Development] going around to businesses and explaining why the mall is a good thing for New Haven because there is going to be overflow. People by nature are fearful of going against authority - especially older merchants who are from a different era than I'm from. An older generation grew up with a different understanding of what government is supposed to be. Their attitude is, 'Government's going to do what it's going to do, and if you fight it you're going to get burned.'
Yale is represented on the board of and contributes to your own merchants association, the York-Broadway Merchants Association. What stance have they adopted?
They as a university have chosen to support the mayor, and therefore our association, because it is significantly funded by the university, cannot be used to support what I'm doing.
How was that communicated to you, and who communicated it?
John Daigle [University Properties]. Originally I asked John Daigle, 'Don't you think Yale ought to be fighting this?' They said, 'We need the cooperation of the city for the projects we want to do, and we're going to remain neutral on this.' Fine. Then, at the second public hearing, this guy named Matt Jacobs, who works in John Daigle's office, got up and said that, on behalf of Yale University and as the second- or third-largest taxpayer in the city, they supported this initiative to build the mall. That infuriated me, because I was just told a week prior that they were remaining neutral. I understand their not wanting to disagree with the city, but I still think this is bad for them overall.
They're a major commercial landlord.
They're in the business of buying property, and the property they buy, they never sell. And if property values go down because of the mall, they'll be able to buy more property.
Do you think you have a chance to win this thing?
If you had asked me that at the beginning when we had zero points on the board, I would have said no. Now that I understand the number of processes they still have to go through - possible rescinding of funding at the state level with the next week, approval by DOT, approval by DECD...I think [the latter two] really recognize that this is not a good thing.
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