Decorating vacant storefronts and boosting new housing is the focus of government efforts to revitalize downtown New Haven as the city continues to recover from the pandemic, city officials said at a news conference on recovery Wednesday.
“One of the trends during the pandemic — and we think it may continue — is that we lost a number of the chain stores,” said Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli, referring to a spate of closings on streets around the New Haven Green.
Halal Guys cleared out of its Chapel Street location on Tuesday, following the departure of Starbucks at the corner of Church and Chapel last fall.
“It will take a little bit of time to rebuild all of them,” Piscitelli said of vacancy-pocked areas. Office workers have been slow to return to the downtown, delaying recovery in the areas around the Green, he said.
Storefront vacancies surged in the Chapel Street, Audubon and Ninth square neighborhoods, with the Chapel Street Special Services District reporting nearly 25 percent vacancy in April, according to a city report. Even so, New Haven saw 13 fewer vacancies across the city month over month.
“We think it’s very important to keep growing on the residential side to bolster another base of activity to support those storefronts, particularly right in the central business district,” Piscitelli said.
And that residential side is growing: As evidenced by the construction all around downtown, building permits soared in fiscal 2020 to $22 million from $15.6 million in the same period the year before.
Unemployment numbers also continued to improve in May, with 4,800 people reported to be out of work in New Haven, compared to 5,750 in April.
When it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, New Haven is the top city in the state in its portion of citizens fully vaccinated, at 55.3%, Health Director Maritza Bond said. Another 23,000 residents need to get shots to achieve herd immunity, or 70% of the population vaccinated, she added.
“We are working really hard on that effort,”” Bond said, describing new pop-up clinics to be set up around the city in the coming weeks.
Liese Klein can be reached at lklein@newhavenbiz.com.
