In a market economy, the supply-demand curve favors equilibrium. When demand for a product or service surges, supply diminishes. So market forces react to replenish the supply. So it is in New Haven with research and laboratory space. As the number of new technology and bioscience enterprises appearing on the scene accelerated over the past […]
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In a market economy, the supply-demand curve favors equilibrium. When demand for a product or service surges, supply diminishes. So market forces react to replenish the supply.
So it is in New Haven with research and laboratory space. As the number of new technology and bioscience enterprises appearing on the scene accelerated over the past decade — many but not all of them products of research originated at Yale — formerly plentiful startup space in onetime industrial properties such as Science Park (the former Winchester Repeating Arms factory) and District New Haven (a former CT Transit bus depot) filled to capacity.
So, the market makes more.
That was the calculus of Carter Winstanley, who over the past year has been planning a major new downtown development at an address that doesn’t today exist: 101 College Street, where the Concord, Mass.-based Winstanley Enterprises proposes to build 500,000 square feet of laboratory and life-sciences incubation space.
The official launch of the project, first revealed by New Haven BIZ Jan. 29, is expected to follow upon completion of a development agreement between the city, the developer and the state, which owns the land on which the new building would be constructed. That agreement was still in negotiation in late February, according to people involved in the project.
The 101 College Street project would house approximately 100,000 square feet of incubator space for life-sciences enterprises that have advanced beyond the bare-bones (one or two employees) startup stage and have begun to hire workers who need more laboratory and office space to grow their companies. Much of the remainder of the space would house conventional office and meeting space.
The site is opposite one of Winstanley’s other major New Haven developments: the 513,000-square-foot Class A life-sciences building completed for Alexion Pharmaceuticals in 2015 at 100 College St. Like that structure, the proposed 101 College would also be constructed atop the existing Rt. 34 connector.
“We’ve been working with Carter Winstanley since the middle of last year under a memorandum of understanding,” said Michael Piscitelli, the city’s economic development administrator. “This is an opportunity to coordinate and see if we can pull a project together in [conjunction with existing] Downtown Crossing project.”
Once a development agreement is finalized between Winstanley and the city, the project will require approval from the Board of Alders and the state Department of Economic & Community Development.
Dawn Hocevar, president and CEO at BioCT, the New Haven-based not-for-profit charged with growing the state’s bioscience industry, called the College Street proposal, along with the October acquisition of 115 Munson Street by Winchester Partners, “the most promising projects to date” for addressing the lab space problem.
“They are very needed and would be very beneficial to our growing industry space needs,” Hocevar said.
