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Newsbriefs
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Business New Haven
9/8/1997
By: BNH
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New Deal for Steel Point?
'Destination attraction' may be in store for would-be casino site
BRIDGEPORT - A decision about what will be built at the Park City's Steel Point site should come within the next few weeks, according to UI Director of Economic Development Robert Mills.
Mills says four companies responded to requests for qualifications to develop such projects. Of those, three were asked to submit proposals which were received July 1.
“All three have experience in waterfront development in heavily urban areas,” Mills says, “which is important to this project because it's surrounded on three sides by water.”
It's the same 25-acre site just off Exit 28 of I-95 that was, at one time, touted as the ideal site for a casino development in southern Connecticut.
Members of the committee appointed to come up with a development plan visited other sites built by the three developers whose proposals are under consideration, according to Bridgeport Regional Business Council president Paul Timpanelli.
Mills says all three proposals include plans to develop the site as a “destination attraction” and include an entertainment component and retail/office uses. Two contain a residential component as well.
“All take advantage of the water and none include a casino,” says Mills, who adds, “This is not a 'back door' way of getting a casino in Bridgeport.”
According to Mills, a meeting between and among the developers, the seven committee members and Bridgeport Mayor Joseph I. Ganim is scheduled to discuss each of the proposals.
“Because it's a city/state/private development project things take longer to coordinate,” Mills says, “but we should have a decision by the end of September.”
- Linda G. Mele
More
Green for Brownfields
Federal initiative may aid urban industrial sites
To help redevelop thousands of abandoned or under-used industrial sites across the country, the Clinton administration has rolled out two new programs as part of its Brownfields National Partnership Action Agenda it announced in May.
The program, which outlines a comprehensive approach to assessing, remediating and redeveloping brownfields, is designed to facilitate brownfield redevelopment through the cooperation of 15 federal agencies with state and local governments as well as private investors.
The brownfield sites are important to economic development and revitalization in cities and distressed rural areas, but the cost to assess and restore them to productive use has been one of the biggest disincentives to restoring them.
In response, President Clinton signed the Taxpayer Relief Act on August 5 which, among other provisions, included the Brownfields Tax Incentive. The program makes it possible for taxpayers to deduct environmental cleanup costs during the same year in which they are incurred, rather than wait for capitalization. To be eligible for the deduction, properties must meet specific land use, geographic and contamination requirements, such as being in an empowerment zone or located in an area where 20 percent or more of the population lives below the poverty line.
In the past, dating back to 1994, the Internal Revenue Service had issued a ruling that allowed parties responsible for contaminating a site to deduct cleanup costs in the same year they were incurred. However, that ruling didn't apply to owners or prospective purchasers interested in redeveloping the land. The 1997 legislation eliminated those discrepancies and financial obstacles. It also made cities' jobs a bit easier. Says Randall Kamerbeek of the Meriden Office of Economic Development, “It gives us one more tool” to attract investors to redevelop brownfields.
More impressive than the new tax act and its brownfields redevelopment incentive is the fact that it was taken seriously and received funding. The appropriation of $1.5 billion in the recent budget is expected to leverage $6 billion in private investment, return an estimated 14,000 brownfields to productive use, create jobs and contribute to neighborhood revitalization.
The federal Department of Environmental Protection (EPA) in turn has announced the launching of a brownfields initiative in which ten communities nationwide will be designated “Brownfields Showcase Communities” and used as models to demonstrate the benefits of public and private sector collaboration to redevelop sites.
The initiative is a response to communities' request for more interaction among all levels of government and the public and private sectors to cleanup and reuse contaminated property.
Based on a two-phase selection process, a board comprising representatives of the 15 federal agencies with interests in brownfields redevelopment, will choose ten communities. The first phase invites all cities to submit a two-page statement of interest by September 19 explaining how brownfields redevelopment will help it meet its economic-development goals.
A month later, the board will select 30 to 40 of the most meritorious proposals and move on to the second and latter phase, which requires a more thorough application. Deadline for the second phase is November 25.
Because notices were sent out only as recently as August 26 from the office of U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works and a co-sponsor of the Brownfields Tax Incentives legislation, none of the major cities in the region had committed to applying at press time. Says Helen Rosenberg, a New Haven economic-development officer, “The city is seeking more details on the program before deciding [whether] to apply.”
A New Bruce Sweeps Clean
Yale appoints a seventh officer to lead its urban initiatives
When President Richard C. Levin took over the reins at Yale four years ago, he vowed to end a tradition of apathy and take a more activist role in New Haven's well-being. As he told Business New Haven in January when the university was chosen as our 1997 Corporate Citizen of the Year: “Because we are New Haven's largest employer and its most visible corporate citizen, we bear important social responsibilities. We encourage students to serve their communities; it is only fitting that we should serve ours.”
And he kept his promise. Through his leadership and the work of Yale's vice president and secretary Linda Lorimer the university has made much progress in four years. Since Yale's New Haven Initiative took shape, the city has benefited from, among many others, a “Buy in New Haven” program to encourage spending within the city, worth $9.2 million in 1995; the “Yale Homebuyer Program” to financially assist Yale employees who buy homes in the city, amounting to $5.76 million from the university and $30 million in home purchases; the purchase and renovation of the former Jewish Community Center on Chapel Street to house its school and department of art; and various programs and partnerships between departments and local students.
To maintain the momentum, Levin last month announced the appointment of Bruce Alexander as vice president and director of New Haven and state affairs. Noting the significance of the occasion, Levin said that “Yale doesn't create positions lightly.” It had only three officers for more than 200 years and six in the past 15.
In relative terms, it took almost as long to convince Alexander to step out of retirement and take this new position at Yale - 20 months.
Since retiring, Alexander has commuted to New Haven several times monthly as a volunteer to help Yale's Office of New Haven Affairs with downtown revitalization projects, including the development of the Broadway retail area.
Referring to his frequent visits to Yale, Alexander said he didn't realize that he was “unwittingly exposing [himself] to the considerable recruiting talents of President Levin and Linda Lorimer.”
He went on to say that retiring from retirement was indicative of the measure of respect he has for Levin and the recognition that no one can be effective acting alone.
He should know. Before retiring in January 1996, Alexander had spent the last 20 years of his tenure at the Rouse Corp. building a reputation as a national leader in urban revitalization, developing all Rouse's retail and mixed-use properties throughout the U.S. His projects include Baltimore's Harborplace, the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, the Riverwalk in New Orleans and Portland's Pioneer Place.
Levin said Alexander was chosen not only for his expertise in urban revitalization but also his understanding of Yale and New Haven. Alexander is one of Yale's own, as are his two sons, and has been one of Yale's leading volunteers since graduating in 1965.
Alexander won't assume his new role with the university until May 1998 because he has community commitments to complete. However, as Levin said, the announcement “reinforces [the] administration's commitment to the economic and human development of the city and region.”
Characteristic of the good cheer surrounding Alexander's appointment, as the ceremony was coming to a close, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. took the podium to praise Alexander and talk about the Yale-New Haven partnership. He looked at the full auditorium and said: “I see [a lot] of my agency directors here. I'm not one to count, but I wish I had as good a turnout at my staff meetings.”
A Department Store for Chapel Sq.
Flying from Broadway, Co-op comes downtown to roost
Broadway's loss is Chapel Square's gain. On August 28, the Yale Co-op opened for business at its new location on the New Haven Green at the corner of Temple and Chapel streets.
The store is still a work in progress, with stairwells and departments under construction, but what was completed by opening day looked fine and, more importantly, didn't seem to interfere with shopper traffic.
The deal to get the Co-op into the former Conran's storefront raised a number of challenges, the two biggest being financing and time. Matthew Nemerson, president of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, said negotiations commenced only eight months ago, while actual construction began just ten weeks before the opening.
The chamber worked closely with New Haven's Office of Business Development, led by Salvatore J. Brancati, to craft partnerships with legislators and banks to line up the $1.5 million loan to Chapel Square of New Haven Inc. to help the Co-op relocate.
Chapel Square Downtown New Haven is owned and operated by Chapel Square of New Haven Inc., a subsidiary of the Foundation of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.
A consortium of banks, including the Bank of Boston/Connecticut, First Union Bank, New Haven Savings Bank and the Bank of New Haven helped put together what F. Patrick McFadden Jr., president of the Bank of New Haven, characterized as “complex funding.”
The city and federal governments also anted up. Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said that the city invested $250,000 in the consortium from a federal program to be used for store renovations, and used similar funding to guarantee $250,000 of the consortium's debt.
City leaders say that the relocation of the Co-op to the Green is a “vital retail component” in the revitalization of downtown. Moreover, retaining the Co-op means taxes for the city and 100 jobs saved.
The only sour note in an otherwise upbeat ribbon-cutting ceremony was a disgruntled citizen who passed behind the crowd as DeStefano was speaking and said in an angry but low voice: “Ya'll gonna move our bus stops. [Expletive] you.”
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