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August 16, 2019

Nine Squares, no (more) waiting

PHOTOS | NEW HAVEN BIZ Northside COO Chris Vigilante describes his company’s development projects on lower Chapel.
By Michael C. Bingham

A principal beneficiary of the city’s Downtown Crossing redevelopment project, which last month entered its second phase with groundbreaking of the Orange Street crossing over the Rt. 34 Connector, will be the Ninth Square neighborhood.

The blocks bound by Church, Chapel, State and George streets were orphaned and isolated from the city center by the predations of “urban renewal” in the 1960s. For years after that, the streetscape was dominated by brick-clad factory warehouse buildings until given new life by redevelopment.

On Thursday the city showed off the latest portents of progress, hosting a “walking tour” for media members and others to showcase the evolving neighborhood that city economic-development officials consider a key element of the redevelopment matrix that is Downtown Crossing.

Co-hosted by the Town Green Special Services District, the tour featured eight stops at which city officials, developers and sundry other “stakeholders” offered brief overviews of the residential and commercial components of the project, along with context of how each particular element fits into the overall Downtown Crossing scheme.

The tour convened at Pitkin Plaza on Orange Street, where Mayor Toni N. Harp and acting city economic-development administrator Michael Piscitelli welcomed the throng and described the rejuvenation of a once-forgotten downtown district.

“I am thrilled to see the revitalization of this historically significant New Haven neighborhood coming together as part of a larger redevelopment plan that will make New Haven a more sustainable, livable city in the future,” Harp said.

Piscitelli added that the redevelopment projects in the aggregate reflect some $150 million-$200 million in new investment in Ninth Square.

The excursion’s first stop was at the corner of Chapel and Orange, where Northside Development plans a 170,000-square-foot mixed-use development. Northside Chief Operating Officer Chris Vigilante explained that the lower Chapel Street project — which includes 166 residential rental units, street-level retail and a two-level parking garage — potentially “stitches the Ninth Square neighborhood back together and serves as a gateway [from downtown] to Wooster Square.” It also promises to augment city property-tax rolls by as much as $700,000.

Axe me no questions

The second stop was 770 Chapel Street, a former department store (and even, for a short time, the temporary City Hall during the mid-1970s rehab of the real thing, Henry Austin’s 1861 Victorian Gothic edifice) that more recently has housed SeeClickFix and makerspace MakeHaven. Soon the structure will house a new and different species of endeavor: Pine & Iron Axe Throwing, which sounds like, well, what it is. Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana described what is planned for the space as “a combination of darts and bowling for the 21st century.”

For many years the byword of downtown development was that bigger is better. But the redevelopment of State Street will actually narrow the thoroughfare and eliminate the existing median strip. The idea is to make it easier for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the busy street and thereby enhance downtown’s connection to nearby Wooster Square.

The next stop on the tour was 275 South Orange Street, the former site of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the long-planned project to link Ninth Square to downtown and the Hill neighborhood. Frank Caico is vice president of South Norwalk’s Spinnaker Real Estate Partners, which was recently tapped to replace Montreal’s LiveLearnWorkPlay as project developer, explained that the Coliseum project represents Spinnaker’s fourth and largest development project in the Elm City.

Caico and Gregory Fieber of Spinnaker partner the Fieber Group, explained that a master plan for the Coliseum site project is in its earliest stages, with meetings with community groups planned for September before formal proposals are submitted to the city.

Kristie Rizzo is regional vice president of Boston-based Beacon Communities, which recently acquired the 335-unit Residences at Ninth Square. The residential/retail complex at Orange and Crown streets, which includes both subsidized and market rate rental units, is currently undergoing a $14 million rehab.

 

Beacon Communities’ Kristie Rizzo outside the Residences at Ninth Square, which the Boston firm recently acquired.

 

Rizzo said her company had also signed a lease with a yet-unidentified tenant that plans to turn the storefront at 57 Orange Street into an “interactive art space.”

At the final stop on the excursion, David Goldblum, president of the Hurley Group, showed off his company’s $3.25 million commercial conversion of the Washington building at 39 Church Street. The historic structure, which Goldblum described as a portal from downtown to the Ninth Square neighborhood, now houses 18 apartments and four retail spaces.

 

Hurley Group President David Goldblum (left, with city Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana) outside the Washington building at 39 Crown — ‘the most beautiful historic renovation in New Haven.’

 

“We like to think of this as the most beautiful historic renovation in New Haven,” Goldblum said.

  

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