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Just Wondering...
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Business New Haven
5/4/1999
By: BNH
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Because the game has changed, the rules must change accordingly.
On top of $50 million in federal highway funds New Haven has requested to reroute I-95, the city and developers of the proposed Marketplace at Long Wharf have asked Connecticut taxpayers for $60 million to advance the (now) $430 million project.
That's their prerogative, and now it's up to state legislators - and ultimately Gov. John G. Rowland - to assure that such a significant public investment is justified by the potential return.
Before this latest request our attitude toward the mall was, in essence: Good luck and God bless. If private developers such as New England Development and the Fusco Corp. were willing to pony up nine-figure sums to build a new retail development in the Elm City, that was mostly their business.
Now that their hands are reaching so deeply into the public purse, the rules must be different.
The million-plus-square-foot shoppers' paradise has been the centerpiece of Mayor John DeStefano Jr.'s vision for the Elm City of the future for more than two years. That vision is certainly impressive in scope, and deserves the most serious consideration by all those with an economic stake in the city's future.
The governor has supported the proposal in the face of criticism from communities with competing retail properties. He has added, however, that the state will direct its support to infrastructure. Of course, what else can he say in the face of reports that developers will have to pay up to $50 million to attract department-store tenants, an amount eerily similar to the state subsidy requested?
The plan still requires serious consideration but with that comes the need for serious scrutiny on the part of all responsible parties. That's why it's time for the city and developers to lay bear all the terms of this deal so that taxpayers can see what they are getting. Critics who charge the project's new needs were sprung at the end of the legislative session to forestall scrutiny have every right to make that charge in the abscence of timely or full disclosure. That disclosure should include:
• What specifically are the equity partners investing in the project, and what considerations will they reap in return?
• Precisely what will the $60 million in state funding pay for?
• What representations and guarantees, financial and otherwise, have been made to Nordstrom and Macy's department stores and any other firms in return for their commitment to build stores here? And what are their investments?
• As part of the $430 million total, it was reported that $95 million was assigned to “soft” costs. What are those costs?
• Do city officials plan to compel Macy's to repay the $5 million the city paid to keep the chain in New Haven in the early 1990s, less than a year before the retail giant pulled the plug on its store adjoining Chapel Square Mall?
• How will be determined the impact of such a mall on commuter traffic at the intersection of I-95 and I-91, and on the Q Bridge?
• What is the city's plan for the future of Chapel Square Mall, assuming it prevails in its legal wranglings with developer David Cordish and can itself determine the mall's fate?
• What market data demonstrates that this project will be successful with consumers? At last count, New Haven shoppers could choose from among malls in Milford, Trumbull, Waterbury, Meriden, Clinton, Westbrook, West Hartford and Stamford - all within an hour's drive of downtown New Haven.
It's time for the business community to demand full disclosure of the answers to these and other pertinent questions about the Long Wharf project before it passes judgment, yea or nay.
Eighty-one years ago another Democratic politician, Woodrow Wilson, spoke of “Open covenants, openly arrived at” as a central feature of his 14 points. Given the importance of the Long Wharf project to the future of the city and the region, all of us who are now asked to help pay for it deserve no less.
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