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Happy New Year for Chapel Sq.?
Officials: Mall will reopen by January 1
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Business New Haven
9/29/2003
By: BNH
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The languishing Chapel Square Mall, which developers had planned to open at the end of August, may at last open its doors by January 1, according to city officials.
Deputy city economic development officer Tony Bialecki said developers "got a late start" on the Chapel Square Mall project because the previous tenants of the building stayed longer than expected. Now, he said, the apartments upstairs in the adjacent 900 Chapel Street building are completed and final demolition is underway in the retail space.
Town Green Special Services District executive director Scott Healy said the developers had landed four tenants for the mall, but he would not disclose who they are. He told the Yale Daily News that they represent both national and local retailers. In any event, representatives of the Baltimore firm Williams Jackson Ewing, the firm developing the mall, are not talking.
In published reports Bialecki said filling the entire mall would be a gradual process taking six to 18 months, due to the soft national retail climate. Anthony Rescigno, president of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, agreed that the economic environment is causing difficulties in finding tenants but praised local developers for not rushing to fill their spaces with sub-prime retailers. "I’d rather there’s a delay and we get some great tenants," he said.
Healy said the center-city retail district is strong — and growing stronger. He said a new Foot Locker store recently opened on lower Chapel Street — the first national tenant to make that move — and said all of the stores in that area "do very brisk business."
Downtown development isn’t just for profit-generating ventures. Bialecki announced that Casey Family Services, a child welfare agency, would be relocating its headquarters and 60 employees from Shelton to downtown New Haven.
The group’s new home at 127 Church Street will house the agency’s executive offices, multiple departments, and the new Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice, according to published reports.
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