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The Best of Times,
the Worst of Times
What would you like first: the good news, or the bad news?
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Business New Haven
7/13/1998
By: Linda Mele
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No one can say it's not an exciting time to be alive and living in New Haven, Connecticut.
During a single week in June:
• The Elm City was named one of the country's top ten “All-America Cities” from a field of more than 120 nationwide;
• The administration of Mayor John DeStefano Jr. became embroiled in a scandal involving loans made through the Livable City Initiative, a morass which shook the administration of a seemingly unassailable chief executive to its core; and
• Gov. John G. Rowland announced a $100 million bailout of Science Park and the surrounding Newhallville neighborhood.
Not exactly your basic slow news week.
On balance, however, most of the news regarding the overall state of New Haven over the past 12 months has been positive.
For one thing, lawlessness continues to trend downward. According to preliminary reports, overall crime in the city in 1997 decreased by seven percent from 1996, with nearly 300 fewer violent crimes reported.
Commercial projects throughout the city, which will add to the grand list and generate jobs, continue apace:
• Shaw's Supermarket, the first national chain to build a supermarket in the city, opened July 1 on Whalley Avenue;
• A Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse opened earlier this year in the Super K mart Plaza on Route 80;
• A complete renovation of the Shubert Performing Arts Center was completed last year;
• A Grand Chalet Hotel on Long Wharf (the former Howard Johnson's Motor Inn) opened a 152-room facility in March;
• A passel of new restaurants opened in the Ninth Square district;
• The 306-room Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale on Temple Street (the former Park Plaza Hotel) finally opened amid a continuing controversy about an agreement with the developers to move downtown bus stops, and an embarrassing labor dispute;
• The 130-plus-year-old Yale Co-Op moved to new quarters in the Chapel Square Mall, while Barnes & Noble renovated the old Co-Op space on Whalley Avenue and became Yale University's official bookstore.
• Renovations at 80 Temple Street, 152 Temple Street, 300 George Street, the former Jewish Community Center on Chapel Street, Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the Temple Street Garage continue; and
• Demolition of the former Edw. W. Malley Co. building on Church Street was completed.
A number of other public and private projects, however, have been delayed, still languish in various stages of development or await funding, including:
• The proposed FBI headquarters in the Arena Block;
• A proposed multiplex cinema for the former Macy's building;
• A 250,000-square-foot Williams Specialty Steel Plant in the old Cedar Hill railroad switching yards (a project now in need of a new site);
• Several million dollars worth of streetscape, curb, sidewalk and landscaping improvements throughout the city; and
• The creation of a public plaza at 156-158 Temple Street to link the Temple Street corridor to the College Street entertainment and theater district.
In addition, DeStefano's plan for a $431 million mega-mall on Long Wharf and coordinating road projects that would widen the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge and reconfigure I-95 at Long Wharf are still in the developmental stages.
While some other new businesses have relocated to New Haven (FoodTech International, Onofrio Brothers) and still others have articulated expansion plans (Harty Press, Associated Packaging, Medwaste Management Inc.), a number of other businesses have closed, including the 52-year-old Robby Len Swim Fashions, more than a dozen restaurants and small businesses like Buck-A-Book at the once-thriving corner of Church and Chapel streets. The latter never even celebrated its first anniversary.
The city turned operation of Tweed-New Haven Airport over to a 14-member Tweed-New Haven Airport Authority on July 1. The authority's charge is to increase passenger traffic, attract additional carriers and make the airport financially viable.
That initiative remains embroiled in controversy, however, because the town of East Haven refused to endorse the lease between the authority and the city. Although lawyers for the authority say East Haven's approval is not necessary, East Haven's lawyers say yes, it is - and the whole deal will probably end up in court.
Special events like the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and the men's and new women's Pilot Pen International Tennis Tournaments have and will continue to attract thousands of visitors to the Elm City, but the city lost a signal attraction in June when the harbor cruise ship Liberty Belle sailed out of New Haven Harbor for the last time to its new home in Maine.
Economic indicators are mixed. According to the state's Department of Economic & Community Development, median home sales prices declined by a whopping 36.4 percent between 1988 and 1996 (one of the highest declines in the state). More recently, the city's population decline bottomed out, and in fact increased by 0.19 percent from 1995 to 1996. Between June 1996 and June 1997, the city lost 1,410 jobs. And while there was not a single recorded new housing start in 1997, there have been 41 to date already this year.
In some cases, it seems like the city is taking one step forward and two steps back, but it did come out of the economically disastrous 1980s and has made significant inroads in the area of economic development.
New Haven stakeholders can only hope that the progress will outlive the problems, and the city will truly live up to its designation as an All-America City.
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