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Moving On, Moving Up
DeStefano charts the course of a mall-less future
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Business New Haven
3/19/2001
By: BNH
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Democrat John DeStefano Jr. this year faces a re-election campaign for his fourth term as New Haven's mayor. Following the demise of the Long Wharf mall project in late autumn, BNH spoke with him about how his thinking had evolved with regard to the future of downtown and New Haven Harbor.
Has your vision for a downtown that extends to a harbor anchored by a mall been replaced by a different downtown vision, or is the new vision still in the formative stages?
The dynamic of the three percent of land that makes up a third of the revenues and half of the jobs of the city remains the same: to focus on the competitive strengths of the downtown where we can succeed. That is in residential development, street-level retail, supporting the performing- and display-arts institutions, the launching of Market New Haven, the continuation and strengthening of the [Town Green] Special Services District, the support of [Yale] university growth, a focus on biomedical companies and clusters at 300 George Street and what will probably be 300 George Street, Part II - soon - and transportation connections at the rail station now under construction on State Street, the connection of the bridge, which will begin this summer, to Sargent Drive. So I think we remain relatively constant in that direction, we see it knit together with a mix of complementary uses that create activity and destination trips.
What's 300 George Street, Part II?
Three hundred George Street is filling up rapidly, and a new facility like 300 George that could host companies doesn't exist, and there will probably be a market for it shortly.
Would that likely be a new building or a conversion?
We certainly would be interested in the responses we get to the RFP [request for proposals] for the Malley's and Macy's sites.
What's the timetable on the RFP?
I believe the development administrator hopes to get it out in four or so weeks.
Is the RFP for either or both sites?
For one or for both. This is, as much as anything, a measure of the marketplace because we have been approached formally and informally by a number of developers, and we want to provide the opportunity for them to talk to us on a reasonably level playing field.
We thought the Malley's block was more or less on 'reserve' until someone could finally convince the Long Wharf [Theatre] board to move downtown.
If, as long as that site remains undeveloped - RFP or not - the Long Wharf board decides to move downtown, I would strongly support that decision. The relocation of Long Wharf to the Malley's site would be tremendously powerful.
What kinds of proposals would you most welcome for Macy's?
I think there are two choices that would be ideal. One is a large destination retail box. That's why we've spent a lot of time talking to ABC Carpet, and some time talking to IKEA. That is the kind of use that is very strong in terms of jobs, taxes and destination-generation - those are the criteria here. A second compelling use that, having seen the strength of demand for 300 George Street, we are getting a sense from the marketplace that [Macy's] is a suitable site for future biotech office/lab buildout.
What other development proposals are you looking at right now for other downtown parcels?
The compelling issues remain lower Chapel Street - for which we have an application into the state that we feel very strongly about and that we think the market would respond to. We are discussing with the DOT [state's Department of Transportation] about the State and Chapel Shartenberg site. The areas on the periphery of downtown- the area between the train station and the nine squares - we hope to begin buildout of replacement housing for Church Street South this year. That will begin to move us to clearing that site eventually, which we think is important. And at City Plan tonight [March 14] there's a proposal to build a parking garage and a new building as part of the Downtown South project at the [Yale] School of Nursing.
How about the harbor? Bridgeport just announced that it had five major development proposals for Steel Point, which makes me think there must be developers out there interested in our harbor, too.
Our focus on the harbor is in a couple of areas. We do not have a large cleared site on the harbor, nor do we have a commitment of state funds as does the Steel Point site. Irrespective of whether there's a tenant or not, they have made that, which has incentivized the number of proposers. Our focus right pertains to the east side of the harbor and along the Quinnipiac River corridor involving the private port operators and trying to redefine their boundaries and opportunities to grow, as well as a feeder-barge proposal that we've been working on with the state where we would encourage barge traffic between the New Jersey ports and the port of New Haven, bypassing I-95. These efforts, we think, would be significant economic generators as well as a traffic-mitigation effort. On the other side of the harbor we are preparing to file applications to accommodate the partial filling of some land between the Long Wharf pier and the Rusty Scupper to accommodate the [Yale] boathouse relocations and buildout of space there.
What about the Pirelli site?
I think that would be a terrific location for Curagen, but we'll have to see about that.
Has the notion of relocating Gateway Community College downtown been raised?
Gateway has expressed a desire to expand at Long Wharf. Secondly, moving Gateway downtown is less an issue for us [than it would be in other cities] because we have such a large residential population downtown. If you look at the Malley's and Macy's sites, we've got market [-rate], taxable uses for both sites - excepting the one maybe we should move, which is Long Wharf [Theatre], because in a lot of ways Long Wharf is a bigger complementer to the street-level retail and restaurants and the other cluster of arts organizations downtown.
Are we any closer to movement to settlement of the litigation with [Baltimore developer David] Cordish on Chapel Square Mall, because that's the third key block downtown that needs redevelopment?
I have little hope of reconciling anything out of court with Omni and Cordish on the option [to purchase the mall and the 900 Chapel office tower]. We've been trying to resolve this in a friendly fashion for two years and it just hasn't happened. The block needs to be redeveloped.
Why does the city want to change management at the Shubert?
The current board of directors is going to lose over $1 million this year. They've notified us that they cannot continue to sustain that level of loss. Their 18-year operating lease [the city owns the building] expires in November of this year. For some months we have been working with PFN, who's the city's financial advisor, [board chairman] Tony Scillia's been involved from the Shubert, the state's Department of Economic & Community Development, the chamber and Yale and the Board of Aldermen [have been] involved in these discussions, and we have been, frankly, other means to manage the Shubert. Fundamentally, we wanted to understand how it went from a profit two years ago to a dramatic loss this year. From there we'll proceed to a management decision. The city will basically sign an agreement with a non-profit corporation who will then contract with someone to manage the facility. That may be the current management, or maybe its [entertainment giant] SFX. The ability as a mom-and-pop to compete against Wal-Mart is kind of difficult.
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