🔒For downtown New Haven, the past is prologue

The city of New Haven is turning back the clock on its downtown. And that’s a good thing.

In July the city’s Downtown Crossing redevelopment project entered its second phase with groundbreaking of the Orange Street crossing over the Rt. 34 Connector, intended to reconnect the city’s central business district with South Orange Street, Union Station and the Hill neighborhood. When Oak Street was sacrificed to the urban renewal imperative of the 1950s and ‘60s, the districts were separated by the construction of the infamous “highway to nowhere.”

When Phase 2 is completed (scheduled for 2021), the new grade-level, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly Orange Street crossing is designed to repair that half-century-old wound.

Another downtown district facing a hoped-for brighter future is the Ninth Square neighborhood. Formerly dominated by brick-clad factory warehouse buildings, the blocks bound by Church, Chapel, State and George streets were orphaned and isolated from the city center by urban renewal in the 1960s.

But like the reconnection of Orange Street, the reclamation of Ninth Square is a major piece of the downtown-redevelopment matrix. In mid-August 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 key elements to the success of 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 project.

All told, the redevelopment projects reflect some $150 million-$200 million in new investment in Ninth Square.

The tour’s first stop was at Chapel and Orange, where Northside Development plans a 170,000-square-foot mixed-use development. Northside’s Chris Vigilante explained that the project — which includes 166 residential rental units, street-level retail and a parking garage — potentially “stitches the Ninth Square neighborhood back together and serves as a gateway [from downtown] to Wooster Square.”

For 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 to make it easier for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the busy street and enhance downtown’s connection to nearby Wooster Square.

A key element of Downtown Crossing is the redevelopment of the block that once housed Veterans Memorial Coliseum, connecting downtown to Ninth Square and the Hill neighborhood. South Norwalk’s Spinnaker Real Estate Partners was recently tapped to replace Montreal’s LiveLearnWorkPlay as project developer and is in the early stages of drafting a master plan for the multi-phase, mixed-use project.

Boston-based Beacon Communities 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.

At the final stop on the excursion, David Goldblum, president of the Hurley Group, showed off his company’s $3.25 million conversion of the Washington building at 39 Church Street. The historic structure, described as a portal from downtown to the Ninth Square neighborhood, now houses 18 apartments and four retail spaces. “We like to think of this as the most beautiful historic renovation in New Haven,” Goldblum said.

“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,” Mayor Toni N. Harp said.