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Divine Providence-
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Business New Haven
9/22/1997
By: BNH
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New Haveners ponder big lessons from a medium-sized city in the tiniest state
A quarter-century ago, well meaning officials from dreary, hidebound Providence, R.I. would hop on a bus and travel to such urban meccas as Hartford, Springfield and Worcester in hopes of unlocking the secrets of urban revitalization.
These days, everyone's flocking to Providence to learn the very same thing.
On September 5, some 50 wide-eyed New Haveners entrained for what Rhode Islanders call (with increasing credulousness) the “Venice of New England” to learn a thing or two about how tired, mid-sized New England cities can reinvent themselves as gleaming tourist destinations.
What they saw and heard inspired many of them returning from the day-long excursion to hope and dream that the Elm City might do half as well.
The trip, sponsored by the Leadership Center of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, was billed as a “City-to-City Leadership Exchange on Economic Development.” But the “exchange” was in reality one-way commerce, with Providence civic leaders proudly strutting their stuff and wide-eyed New Haveners eager lapping it up.
What they saw:
A waterfront where before there was only concrete. Waterplace Park, a one-acre park framed by a stone amphitheater where music, art and dance festivals lure thousands to downtown. On Friday nights during warm-weather months an artist named Barnaby Evans stages his “Water Fire” installation in the newly uncovered (at a cost of $192 million) Providence River, during which some 40 floating bonfires illuminate the evening sky.
They saw a vital, bustling arts district downtown. Befitting a city recently voted the best place in the U.S. to be an artist (by Swing magazine), the city actively encourages artists to live and work in a downtown district smaller than one square mile but humming with activity from theater and dance companies, galleries and smart cafés. In a block once occupied by adult bookstores sits AS220, where artists can rent live-work studio loft space for $225 a month.
That's no accident: The Rhode Island legislature recently exempted artists, writers and composers living in downtown Providence from state income tax. Plus, the city offers an initial 90-percent property-tax abatement to developers who convert buildings into living and working space for artists.
They saw a spanking new Rhode Island Convention Center and its adjoining 363-room Westin Hotel. Open since December 1993, the convention center is on the periphery of Capital Center, the $1 billion transformation of 77 acres of parking lots, railroad tracks and public areas which to date is home to 500,000 square feet of office space, 200 hotel rooms and 225 luxury apartments.
Rising amid the Capital Center project is the 1.2 million-square-foot Providence Place Mall, a $359 million retail mecca which will open next year, anchored by Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor and Filene's. The mall will include a cinema complex with 24 - count 'em - screens.
What they heard:
Fireplug-sized, big-talking Mayor Vincent A. (Buddy) Cianci, who regaled New Haveners over lunch about the transformation his city has undergone since he first took office in 1974. (Cianci was forced into a six-year hiatus in 1984 following an incident involving a lit cigarette and the eyelid of his estranged wife's alleged lover, but that's a story for another day.)
Between quips, Cianci spoke of his city's bid to steal the New England Patriots from neighboring Massachusetts by erecting a 68,000-seat, $250 million stadium downtown. Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Almond said he hoped to wrap up negotiations with Patriots owner Robert Kraft by September 19, after BNH went to press.
They heard Providence-Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau Director Mark Cestari, who left an identical post in New Haven in the early '90s frustrated by fractiousness in the Elm City's business and political communities. Cestari encapsulated his destination-marketing successes, noting that tourism was Rhode Island's No. 2 industry (after health care) and would be No. 1 by 2000.
Cestari talked about the $209 million expansion of T.F. Green Airport in neighboring Warwick, and how he helped to lure low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines to Rhode Island, increasing boardings 90 percent in one year. He compared obstructionist attitudes to expansion in Warwick to obstructionist attitudes in East Haven and said, in effect, that the larger communities needed to impose their wills on smaller neighbors. (Of Tweed-New Haven Airport's new regional governance board, he later said privately, “It's nice that you have a committee” - but it takes a real commitment of dollars and public will to make the airport a going concern.)
To bolster the fortunes of downtown restaurants, a goal of sometime chef Cianci (who markets “Mayor's Own Marinara Sauce” with his omnipresent mug on the label, profits of which benefit a scholarship fund), Cestari created the “Mayors' Restaurant Challenge,” a much-hyped competition between Boston and Providence eateries that involved reciprocal visits by Cianci and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and garnered press coverage money can't buy.
Said Cestari: “Cities like ours can't be Santa Barbara or Anaheim. We're a high-value, high-cost destination and all our marketing has to reflect that.”
So impressive was the Providence performance that some members of the New Haven delegation were moved to murmer that, after all, the two cities weren't entirely comparable. After all, some said, Providence is the Ocean State's capital and only major city, while New Haven is often forced into the role of second fiddle to Hartford, the state's capital, Bridgeport, the state's largest city, and Stamford, its most prosperous.
On the other hand, Providence officials pointed out, the city receives no direct payments from Brown University, a la Yale's PILOT payments. However, Brown and the city's major hospitals play an active role in identifying and solving problems as they arise in this burgeoning “Venice of New England.”
Green, But Mean?
City's well-intentioned initiative creates ticketing and towing frenzy
Working to clean up its image with a “Clean & Green Campaign,” the city has stepped-up street sweeping and, at the same time, and what appears to be iron-fisted enforcement tactics to make residents comply.
Determined to sweep what turned out to be a few leaves in the East Rock neighborhood, the city orchestrated a ticket-and-tow operation to get cars out of the way for sweepers on September 16. What residents found was an army of tow trucks swarming the neighborhood to whisk away cars that resorted to parking in the banned areas, presumably because they had nowhere else to park.
(Parking is tight in the neighborhood when residents can park on both sides of the street. And banning one side starting at 7 a.m., before most people take their cars to work, leaves half the space and exacerbates the situation. The cost: no car and $63 ($15 for the ticket, $48 for the tow.)
Says Alderman Gerald Garcia (D-9): “Traffic concerns are a real problem in the East Rock area. Constituents bring me issues all the time relating to congestion and wanting to be able to park safely by their homes and, from time to time, being ticketed unfairly.”
The city 's street-sweeping campaign currently runs on a five- to six-week rotation throughout the city, stressing downtown and main arterial routes coming into the city and associated side streets, says Jeff Pescosolido, chief of operations for the Department of Public Works street division.
To sweep, streets must be clear of parked cars. So the DPW sets up a schedule and notifies residents of the parking ban within 12 hours, usually 18, by posting signs on trees or by, in some neighborhoods, putting up permanent signs with a regular schedule, such as the first Tuesday of every month.
DPW then sends a schedule and a list of the streets to the Department of Traffic and Parking, which assigns one of its own parking enforcement officers or contacts the New Haven Police Department to meet the ten towing companies contracted with the city at the beginning of a sweeping route.
Having the routine down to a science, as the caravan follows the route, an officer tickets the illegally parked cars, then the tow trucks rotate taking cars away. Finally, the sweeping machines sweep.
When presented with the scenario on Orange Street on Tuesday, DPW's Ford and DTP's McGrath made no apologies. They gave residents more than the required 12-hour advance notice, they said, and the towed motorists didn't take heed.
The city realizes $3 from each car towed by the companies contracted with the city. According to McGrath, every year, by ordinance, the city contracts with up to ten tow companies. They are selected by the chief of police and, in return for this “privilege,” they pay the city $5,000 a year and $3 per every car towed. This year's companies are: A&A Towing & Repairs Inc., Catapano Bros. Inc., Columbus Towing Service, Forbes Ave. Shell, Fountain's Garage Inc. Towing, Lombard Motors, Tony's Long Wharf Service, Unger's Auto Body, Unlimited Auto Repair & Towing Service and York Service Station.
Ford says that she empathizes with people who have their cars towed, but adds: “We do everything we possibly can to make it easy for [citizens] and balance what people want. But we can't make everybody happy, we get complaints no matter what we do, and we have to sweep.” She says there are “too many variables” to schedule cleaning based on a neighborhood's constituency, such as student schedules and the sometimes conflicting needs of residential vs. commercial parking.
About the towing frenzy, McGrath says: “If it wasn't done, and everybody knew there wasn't a possibility of getting towed, it would collapse the program. If we didn't tow and an area wasn't swept, the city would get complaints from residents about the big dirty patch in front of their home. The policy is: When we go out to sweep, we sweep.”
When asked about trying to work with the administration to improve the system, Garcia says: “Will I raise this issue? I will be happy to.” Moreover says the alderman, “At present, the Department of Traffic and Parking and I are conducting an investigation to find out how to relieve the congestion long-term for all residents in the East Rock area.”
- Kevin Wheeler
To the Rescue
Developer Matthews acquires New Haven Manufacturing
Acquisitive developer Robert V. Matthews has added another notch to his already well-worn gunstock.
Over the past two years the CEO of the New Haven-based Matthews Ventures, has provided much of what little excitement there was to be had in the New Haven commercial real estate market. Now the flamboyant 39-year-old has stepped in to rescue a venerable New Haven manufacturer from Chapter 11 limbo and what he characterizes as near-certain doom.
The venerable New Haven Manufacturing Co. which has operated in the Elm City in one guise or another since 1850, declared bankruptcy this spring. Shortly after, Matthews paid an undisclosed sum to acquire a measure of the employee-owned firm's debt. On September 11, he acquired the firm and its 165,000-square-foot Westville facility outright.
Some 130 employees were pink-slipped on the day of the deal and rehired on the spot. Matthews also installed a new president and CEO, David McDonald, who previously ran the Britain-based Reflexite. Matthews said McDonald has spent the previous 60 days with members of the New Haven Manufacturing sales team, on the road meeting clients and learning about the strengths and weaknesses of the product line.
Said McDonald, “Our strategic direction has taken a 180-degree swing, and as a result we expect to hire 25 new employees within the next couple of months representing all facets of our company.”
Matthews he would spend $1.5 million in the coming year on capital improvements and plant refurbishments.
New Haven Manufacturing operations have been concentrated in three divisions. The Gar-Kenyon line designs and manufactures hydraulic valves and actuators for military and commercial aircraft. Amatom is a producer and distributor of electronic hardware-mechanical parts used in electronic assemblies as well as computer and instrumentation products. Stromberg is a major name in commercial time and attendance recording dating back to 1900.
Matthews said he was close to entering into a licensing agreement with an out-of-state software developer to bring the Stromberg technology “into the 21st century.”
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