New Haven Groundbreaking for $5,000 Per Month Apartments; Condon Argues for Doubling Size of Downtown

By Mark Abraham via Design New Haven.

Great coverage in today's New Haven Independent on the city's official groundbreaking ceremony for the 360 State development. Shovels have been in the ground for over a month, so the ceremony was largely ceremonial, but the importance of the event was not understated:

The symbolic shovelers heralded a future vision for downtown. It’s a downtown populated by medical and university-connected renters who rely on their feet and mass transit rather than cars, buy organic groceries downstairs from their $1,000-to-$5,000-a-month apartments, and help save the planet by living in a green building. “People are paying that in today’s market,” Becker said. “There’s no vacancy at all for the better buildings here downtown,” such as the Eli on Church Street.

The Hartford Courant recently published an opinion piece about the development by the Senior Editor of New Urban News, criticizing its impact on the neighborhood, its massing and pedestrian-friendliness. The importance of walkable, bikeable, and transit friendly streets has been growing nationally, as travel mode undergoes a dramatic shift away from private automobiles. New media sites such as streetsblog.net, a large national blog network created to dovetail with the work of the Transportation for America Campaign, give a sense of this phenomenon.

Although DNH believes that the urbanistic impact of decisions such as where the building's use/program, massing, windows, stair towers and entrances were placed may take years to fully assess (and are combined with the positive stimulus of 1,000 new residents in a pedestrian-rich city core), downtown designers are generally hopeful that the apparent pedestrian safety problems can be alleviated well in advance of the project. For example, the impact of the three major curb cuts at State Street can be reduced through attractive paving, improved sightlines and intensive traffic calming, including bollards if necessary.

Also, the 360 State development promises ample indoor bicycle parking for every apartment - a huge step in the right direction. Yet there are no bicycle lanes or bike boulevards in the area, despite the fact that the streets on all four sides of the new tower are heavily-used crosstown bicycle routes, and even identified by the City of New Haven as such on its official bicycle map. How will the doctors streaming out of 360 State on their bicycles get to the medical district? A greater attention to this form of transportation is needed if the community wishes to provide realistic low-cost transportation alternatives to its citizens, which should be a no-brainer in a town where the vast majority of daily trips are a couple miles or less and where almost half of residents already walk, carpool, bike or take mass transit to work.

Finally, the goal of eliminating pedestrian injuries in the area can only be achieved if speeds are reduced, particularly along State Street. There are currently no signs of plans for significant traffic calming in the area, such as a tabled intersection or speed humps at State and Chapel Streets. Although there are rumors about a complete redevelopment and narrowing of State Street, which could ultimately address those concerns, such plans may be quite distant.

Click here for the developer's new website, 360statestreet.com, where they are already beginning a leasing list. Here's the developer's description:

Something is happening in New Haven, and you can see it on the sidewalks. There’s a new vitality. The suburban exodus is over; Connecticut residents are answering the call of the city. Today, people don’t want to depend on their cars. They want to walk to a show, to wander out and find a new favorite restaurant, maybe even to walk to work. There’s a new appreciatiosn of city life—and New Haven is leading the renaissance. The city is a destination, and the dynamic downtown lives up to its motto: “It All Happens Here.”

It’s happening at 360 State. The eco-friendly residence, two blocks from Yale and the New Haven Green, will house a diverse rental community from graduate students, to professionals, to empty nesters. New Haven is home to a cultural smorgasbord of museums, theaters, galleries, shops, and clubs; all within walking distance of forty Zagat-rated restaurants. Nestled in an academic mecca, 360 State abuts historic Ninth Square, a thriving arts district, home to studios, architecture and design firms.

In related news on the increasing calls for a more walkable, high-density downtown, the Hartford Courant's Tom Condon has published a column arguing for the boulevardization of the Route 34 connector, as well as the removal of an even more destructive highway in Downtown Hartford. Condon, a longtime champion of smart growth, calls for doubling the size of Downtown New Haven. His column echoes similar calls from community coalitions, the board of the New Haven Register, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, and others:

The city is well along in a plan to downscale the highway and turn it into an urban boulevard. This will allow the city to reconnect the street grid that predated the highway. This will make about 12 acres available for development, doubling the size of downtown, DeStefano said in an interview last week. By replacing the highway, once known as the Oak Street Connector, now the Richard C. Lee Connector, officials will get space for walkable residential and commercial development and will connect downtown to the Yale Medical School, the railroad station and eventually the Long Wharf commercial area. It will improve connections with the Hill neighborhood, as well..... Doubling the size of downtown just makes sense. As it would in Hartford. The disastrous placement of I-84 through the city orphaned the northern part of downtown; it now looks like an archaeological site.

Comments

[curtis johnson realty]

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