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Anti-Mall Forces Gain Recruits
Newton, minority
merchants join ranks of Long Wharf opponents
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Business New Haven
5/31/1999
By: BNH
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Houston, we have a problem.
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano's grand plan for a $500 million retail shopping mall at Long Wharf - widely regarded as a fait accompli, appears to have sprung a few leaks.
Slow to coalesce into a tangible force, opposition to the mall from downtown merchants, is now on the ascendant. And a DeStefano mayoral challenger has seized the issue as the centerpiece of his campaign to unseat the mayor this fall.
On May 28 Democratic challenger James D. Newton held a press conference flanked by two African-American aldermen and a half-dozen downtown merchants, including some faces new to the anti-mall effort. The event took place at Rock's World, an Orange Street boutique which sells hip-hop fashions to an urban clientèle.
The yet-unnamed merchants group led by John Isaacs, proprietor of Barrie Ltd. Booters at York and Broadway, had begun mainly with white merchants from along the Chapel/College/Broadway retail axis. Now it appears that minority merchants with stores along lower Chapel and Orange streets are taking up the cause as well.
Maverick Jacobs of Heavenly Designs said, “I don't think the mall will benefit small businesses at all. The mayor sent no one to talk to us about this. We could never afford the high rents at the mall and most of us would be forced out of business.”
At the event Newton announced he would lead “a crusade against the Fusco/DeStefano mall” which would include “African-American, Latino and small-business people from throughout the city.” He also called for a citywide non-binding referendum on the mall proposal.
“I challenge the mayor to debate this proposal,” said Newton. “There should be an open forum about this in every corner of our city. But the mayor is afraid of the truth.”
Asserting that the Long Wharf mall “will literally kill off downtown,” Alderman Ron Gattison of Newhallville expressed another concern: jobs for minority workers.
“My problem is that the building of this mall will be totally unionized, and 92 percent of union [construction] workers here are white. [Minority workers] are going to be excluded from these high-paying jobs.”
Edward Anderson of YNH Associates, a downtown real-estate firm, went further. “Ninety percent of the people of this city are opposed to giving city tax dollars to the Fusco family partnership [the New Haven-based Fusco Corp. is co-developer of the mall project with the Newton, Mass.-based New England Development]. This proposal stinks. Is the mayor working for the Fuscos or for the people of New Haven?”
To date DeStefano has avoided public debate of the mall proposal. But the time for that, according to mayoral spokesman Michael Kuczkowski, is still to come.
“We're going to have a full debate of the issue when it's brought before the Board of Aldermen [ June 1], and I'm certain that's the right forum,” says Kuczkowski. “I also think this call for a non-binding referendum on the mall is evidence that their aim is merely to make a lot of large public statements about this thing. They don't particularly seem to want answers.
“At this point we just clearly disagree.”
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