🔒Winstanley, Yale projects transforming downtown New Haven

A reimagined New Haven landscape continues to take shape, with several projects by Yale University and prominent developers coming into focus.

Winstanley Enterprises is nearing the completion of the core shell of its 10-story tower at 101 College St., where a half-million square feet of new biotech space is on track for a completion date of August.

This $250 million life sciences building will be anchored by Arvinas, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, BioLabs and Yale University.

The building includes a 48,000-square-foot incubator to foster life sciences startup companies in Connecticut.

“Our first tenants are already under construction with anticipated opening dates of year-end,” said Carter Winstanley, principal of Winstanley Enterprises. “We are particularly excited about the recent construction start of BioLabs and Alexion.”

Upon completion, BioLabs will be the largest life science incubator in the state, according to Winstanley.

“The space will be fully-equipped and ready to accommodate many of the small tenants growing out of the Connecticut innovation cluster,” Winstanley said. “Alexion, located in Connecticut for over 30 years now, continues their expansion in the New Haven market.”

A prior Winstanley project, next door at 100 College St., is a 14-story tower now fully leased to Alexion and the Yale School of Medicine. It brought another 513,000 square feet of life sciences space to the city.

Both were the first two projects in the city’s Downtown Crossing project, which reclaimed 12 acres for redevelopment for the city’s life science industry. It bridges the Medical District, Union Station and New Haven’s Central Business District.

Yale’s changing landscape

Yale University is also revamping its footprint in downtown New Haven, with a number of projects underway, according to Provost Scott Strobel.

In late February, university officials announced plans for infrastructure investments at its School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS) and the lower Hillhouse Avenue area, which will see development over the next decade on Yale-owned property.

Projects include collaborative spaces for faculty and communal gathering areas alongside laboratory and instructional facilities.

“This momentous opportunity to re-envision and revitalize our dated infrastructure will help SEAS attract additional premier faculty while supporting existing faculty and students through state-of-the-art spaces and facilities,” said SEAS Dean Jeffrey Brock.

The SEAS projects will be carried out in phases over the next 10 to 15 years, with Yale taking “special care to retain the historic character of lower Hillhouse.”

The overall project will also serve Yale’s sustainability goals as buildings would be comprehensively renovated or demolished, and new structures built to Yale’s zero-carbon-ready standard.

Also underway are changes to Science Hill where the new Yale Science Building and 500-seat Marsh Lecture Hall are taking shape.

The renovation at Yale’s Kline Memorial Tower, scheduled to open this summer, will be a hub for computational, mathematical and statistical research, Yale officials said, with 186,000 square feet of open-concept programming space. Two new floors will be added to the top of the building, Strobel said.

The new space will house the departments of astronomy, mathematics, and statistics and data science, along with faculty and staff of the department of physics and the newly-formed Institute for Foundations of Data Science.

The new Physical Sciences and Engineering Building is set to be one of Yale’s largest facilities projects. Groundbreaking is set to take place this year.

Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, in the midst of a $200 million renovation that started in 2020, is set to open in 2024. Admission to the newly renovated museum will be free to the public.

According to Yale, the Peabody is set to have 15,000 square feet of new galleries across three floors when doors open again.

Visitors can expect a more “dynamic exhibit program, featuring a greater diversity of voices and perspectives,” according to Yale officials.

The renovated Peabody will also have new classrooms, a study gallery, student-curated exhibition space, a research studio, dedicated spaces for the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies and the Max Planck Yale Center for Biodiversity Movement & Global Change.

Yale is also creating a Humanities Quadrangle at 320 York St. that will include a 190-person lecture hall, a 90-person film screening room incorporating Gothic features including “historically reconstructed” stained-glass windows.

A new center for social sciences in the Hillhouse Avenue area will house 15 new faculty members.

The Osborn Memorial Laboratories are also under construction, as is the Yale Divinity School’s Living Village graduate housing project that will be both sustainable and regenerative, with a wide range of green features.

“Our focus in these efforts, including the recently announced plans for the School of Engineering & Applied Science on lower Hillhouse Avenue, is to maximize cutting-edge laboratory and convening space,” Strobel said. “Through this work, we look forward to supporting New Haven’s continued development into a hub for technology and innovation.”

Garrett Sheehan, president and CEO of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber is excited about Yale’s new projects.

“We believe the university's continued investment into New Haven will benefit the city and its residents and support our shared goal of continued economic development in New Haven,” Sheehan said.