🔒When students aren’t in town, business is down

When thousands of college students come to live and study in New Haven each semester, they bring with them an economic boost to the city.

They eat at local restaurants and buy clothes and goods at retailers.

Then the coronavirus hit in March, and students at institutions such as Yale University, Southern Connecticut State University, Gateway Community College, Albertus Magnus College and the University of New Haven switched primarily to online learning.

The absence of not only students, but professors and staff, has had a significant impact on business traffic, according to city merchants and restaurateurs.

Daisey Scott, assistant manager at Garden Catering in downtown New Haven, has seen the difference firsthand.

The restaurant serves an array of food, from chicken nuggets to wraps and grain bowls, both to walk-in customers and through catering.

Scott estimates approximately 40 to 50 percent of the restaurant’s customers are typically college students.

“The schools are a big part of our business, and since they’ve been gone, we aren’t making the money we usually make,” Scott said. “It’s more Yale, but Gateway too. Hopefully as the schools open up, we’ll get more business. We normally do a lot of catering for Yale and for events on the Green, so we hope it comes back around soon.”

Sunny Patel, manager of College Convenience on College Street, says downtown has been “very empty” without college students.

Patel estimates about 50 percent of his customers typically are Yale students or workers.

“Once the students were gone, we lost the business,” Patel says. “My hope is that when the students come back, so will the business.”

New normal

According to a June Federal Reserve Bank of Boston report, between 5% and 10% of jobs in New Haven County are tied to the higher-education industry, showing just how significant an economic driver colleges are here.

That number doesn’t include the thousands of students the schools also enroll. Yale alone has more than 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students, while SCSU has around 10,000 pupils.

“The departure of students when campuses closed early in the spring semester has had a major impact on the volume of goods and services consumed in New England’s college towns,” the report said. “Higher education permeates many aspects of the communities beyond direct employment, wages, and student-driven consumption; it extends to conferences, athletic events, and more.”

Sam Burton, owner of Grey Matter Books on York Street, said of all the local colleges, he mostly gets customers from Yale.

He estimated business was down 80 to 90 percent in the spring due to the virus, and his shop was doing online sales only for a time before fully reopening in June. Since then, if he gets half of his normal business, it’s a good day, he said.

“Business has been a fraction of what it ordinarily would be, and it will be good to get closer to normal,” Burton said. “Summers are slower anyway, but things have been pretty glacial.”

Jeremy Cobden, co-owner of Campus Customs in New Haven, sells Yale memorabilia such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and board games.

According to Cobden, they lost business from students leaving early, and from not having summer courses or events.

“Any business in the area is probably seeing a 60 to 80 percent reduction,” Cobden said. “With more students coming back in the fall, it will help, but I don’t see anything getting back completely to normal until the end of the year.”

Campus Customs in New Haven, which sells Yale memorabilia such as clothing, is among the city's businesses that have seen a drop in customers.

Indeed even as students return to the city this fall there likely won’t be as many pupils as usual. The American Council on Education predicts U.S. college enrollment will be down 15% this school year due to the pandemic.

Even still, Cobden is optimistic “the city will start to flourish again.”

His store had about 10 people browsing on a weekday in August, and Cobden said people are feeling eager to get out after being cooped up for so long.

“It’s not totally dead, and we have been doing online sales, and people have ordered merchandise for gift packets for online meetings,” Cobden said.

Slowly getting back to normal

Area colleges primarily have hybrid in-person and online learning planned for the coming months.

On July 1, Yale University’s leadership announced it would bring graduate and professional school students and a portion of the undergraduate population back to campus for the fall semester. The plan is for most Yale College courses to be taught remotely. Graduate and professional schools will offer different combinations of in-person and remote teaching.

Lauren Zucker, Yale University’s associate vice president for New Haven affairs and university properties, said most, if not all, local restaurants and retailers feel the impact of the pandemic on their business.

Zucker said the school is working closely with many downtown merchants to help them, such as by providing rent abatement and deferrals for tenants in Yale-owned buildings and coordinating special promotions to attract customers.

Patrick Dilger, director of integrated communications and marketing for SCSU, said it is offering a mix of on-ground, online and hybrid classes this fall.

SCSU students traditionally have used shuttle services to patronize downtown New Haven establishments, and regularly visit cafes and restaurants in the Westville neighborhood near campus, he said.

Albertus Magnus College is planning a hybrid model of face-to-face and online classes for the fall, and the University of New Haven in West Haven had also advised students that some courses would be offered in hybrid or flex formats to adhere to social distancing requirements.

Evelyn Gard, associate dean of public affairs at Gateway Community College, said some students returned this summer, with labs for nursing programs and manufacturing training, for example. For the fall semester, Gateway is offering different options with the aim of reducing student on-campus capacity to 50 percent, such as offering courses online. Some classes are hybrid, with different people coming to campus on different days.

Before COVID-19, when school was in regular session, Gateway’s students often frequented city restaurants with quicker dining options, while staff often opted for eating at the city’s sit-down eateries, according to Gard.

“I am sure our absence has been felt,” Gard said. “It has been tough for the businesses, but I think the community will rally.”

Michael Piscitelli, New Haven’s interim economic development administrator, shared Gard’s optimism about the future. However, he urged the community to patronize local establishments to help them get through the crisis.

“The city's economic foundation remains very strong due, in part, to the meaningful work and innovation going on at both Yale University and in our innovation sector,” Piscitelli said. “That said, the absence of students and ongoing travel restrictions are impacting many local businesses, which is why we are strongly encouraging buy-local efforts and extra support for our business community until the pandemic is behind us."

More people working from home has also negatively impacted city businesses, said Garrett Sheehan, president and CEO of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, but some college students returning to campus this fall will help.

“It’s not going to be business as usual, but it’s more potential economic activity,” Sheehan said. “New Haven is open for business and if we can all continue to do our part to stop the spread of the virus, that’s going to help businesses survive this.”