As New Haven's Veterans Memorial Coliseum is readied for its final public performance - an implosion scheduled for next month - plans to redevelop the land it occupies are well advanced.

In February, the Board of Alderman approved funding to demolish the Coliseum and to tear down the former Macy's department store, which along with adjacent old Malley's department store site will become the new home of Gateway Community College.

The construction areas are part of the multimillion Gateway Downtown Redevelopment Project, aimed at revitalizing a long dormant part of the city center.

"This is sort of the last major piece of development for downtown," says New Haven interim economic development director Wendy Clark. "It's a lot of work but it's very exciting, seeing change coming to an area that has either been vacant or underutilized for a lot of years."

Scheduled for completion in 2010, the project is expected to transform what has been a "gritty entrance" to the city for years into an exciting "gateway to downtown," Clark adds, "attracting additional investment and breathing new life into the city."

The new Long Wharf Theatre will occupy a portion of the 4.5-acre block where the Coliseum now sits. A new garage slated for the site is for theater patrons and others. A new hotel and conference center also in the concept plan to replace the Coliseum (see accompanying story). And the Knights of Columbus is interested in expanding its world headquarters into an area including part of the Coliseum parcel.

Just how the acreage is divvied up depends on a number of factors, including the results of a forthcoming survey on the feasibility of the hotel/conference center.

There's a commercial component to the plan, envisioning as much as 54,000 square feet of "small, street-level retail shops on the street surrounding the hotel and conference center, and lining the park to provide patio cafÈ-style restaurants and shops on the Gateway campus" and next to Long Wharf Theatre.

Another part of the overall plan involves construction of as many as 280 mixed-income residential units along George Street, with 20 percent of them rented at 50 percent of market rate.

"Certainly a part of our goal is to produce some good investments that don't require the level of subsidy the Coliseum required," says Elizabeth Grossman, a consultant for the Gateway Downtown Development Project.

The Coliseum portion of the redevelopment project will result in substantial benefits, according to projections by city officials.
Construction of the new Long Wharf Theatre should inject $45 million into the regional economy, bring in 485 construction jobs and provide $66 million in direct and indirect economic impact, according to city-funded studies.

Long Wharf Theatre patrons are projected to spent approximately $7 million a year at downtown restaurants and retail shops.

Construction of a new hotel/conference center and additional residential and retail development could attract as many as 1,100 construction jobs and 450 new jobs, $400,000 in property tax from apartments and commercial space and $500,000 in city property tax revenues from the hotel.

Tony Bialecki, the city's deputy director of economic development, is making arrangements for all parties involved in the redevelopment effort to meet regularly "so they can get to know each other."

How much their conversations will affect the finished project remains to be seen.
Business New Haven examines the latest iterations of several of the disparate elements.

Long Wharf Theatre

The state has promised $30 million to construct the new theater. The Providence, R.I. firm of Gilbane & Co. will be the project manager, but beyond that there are few firm facts about the planned move.

"All is going to depend on the research we're about to do," says Long Wharf Managing Director Michael Stotts. The inquiry will focus on design requirements and programming.

"By relocating downtown, we become more central to the energy of the downtown community, including access to restaurants and clubs," Stotts says.

Bialecki says the new Long Wharf Theatre could encompass around an acre and a half on the east side of South Orange Street.

Stotts says 2008 is the target date for completing the move.

Hotel/Conference Center

The concept plan for the Gateway downtown development includes construction of a 300-room hotel with an adjoining hotel and parking facilities on the former Coliseum site.

Although the plan says "the market evidences a ripe opportunity for a hotel," city officials are going to be testing the veracity of that assertion with a new study (see accompanying story).

A hotel/conference center could take up to approximately three acres, including parking, according to Bialecki. Another option for the area is mixed use, a combination of residential, either rental or condos, with retail space. "We'd have some component of affordable housing," Bialecki notes.

Knights of Columbus

A three-acre area on the west side of Orange Street could be the site of a new Knights of Columbus building.

"The city is talking with K of C about possible expansion of office facilities onto a portion of the Coliseum space," says Bialecki. "We would prefer they do it in New Haven. They're one of our largest employers."

K of C spokesman Patrick S. Korten says discussions have centered on "purchasing the rest of the block we're on," primarily for a new office building for Knights employees.

The preliminary design is for an L-shaped building, with "perhaps three floors, with 40,000 square feet per floor," Korten says.

He doesn't rule out the possibility of "putting some retail on part of the first floor," and perhaps as much as 20,000 square feet.

"We're also talking to the city about putting in a parking lot for our people, Korten says. He adds that "There might be the possibility of utilizing parking space for some Long Wharf season ticket-holders."

Part of the K of C block includes redevelopment plans for improvements to the small park situated on the southeast corner of Church and George streets. Possibilities cited in the concept plan include "street-level retail with broad sidewalks for cafÈ restaurants and a public ice-skating rink."

Korten says the Knights would "like to be a good neighbor," but "wouldn't want the promenade mid-block.

"The area around us is not very pretty," he explains. "It would be nice to have a neighborhood around us that's certainly nicer and more attractive. We've been in New Haven for 124 years and we have deep roots here and a strong interest in maintaining a corporate presence that's worthy of the city, worthy of our history and our reputation."

City officials are working toward an agreement under which a new K of C building and its setting will be something "that adds some collateral investment with the rest of the neighborhood," says Gateway Downtown Development Project consultant Grossman.

Interim development director Clark hopes the discussions will pan out.

"We'd love for them to expand," she says. "The devil is in the details."

Korten has more immediate worries.

"Our main concern lately is to find out from the city precisely what the plans are for the demolition of the Coliseum."

Gateway Community College

Gateway President Dorsey Kendrick lights up when she talks about her new downtown campus, which will consolidate the Long Wharf and North Haven facilities and will cover the two blocks containing the old Macy's and Malley's department store sites, a nearly three-acre area.

The new college should be able to accommodate 11,000 students, and is being planned with room for expansion. As of now, Kendrick envisions a four-story building chockablock with new resources for students and the community.

"We are excited about the project," she says. "For the first time in a long time New Haven should be proud of truly being the gateway to the future of this community."

Kendrick is thrilled about plans for a "state of the art" laboratory devoted to anatomy, physiology and other biological sciences, a bigger computer lab, a community space able to accommodate three hundred people and provide "video conferencing capability" and a separate, more spacious small business center.

"We want to expand our learning center with ESL (English as a Second Language," Kendrick says. The new culinary arts space will include a banquet area and possibly a catering service. And there may be more chances for members of the public to buy student-prepared meals.

There also may be some bumps along the way.

Mayor John DeStefano Jr. has been urging state officials to replace the architectural firm it recently hired for the Gateway project, Perkins + Will of New York with New Haven-based architects Cesar Pelli & Associates, which came in a close second in the bidding process.

"Whether it's one architect or another, ultimately we're looking for a good design," says Gateway project consultant Grossman.

Coming Soon to a Downtown Near You

McCormick Baron Salazar, the developers of Ninth Square, have a development agreement with the city, worked out in the early 1990s, for several surface parking lots on George Street, near Orange Street. "It's at least two or three acres," says deputy economic development director Bialecki, who expects eventually to see "some sort of mixed use," for the area, combining retail and residential housing.

Clark concurs. "They're holding back at the moment, but in the long term they'll be looking to do something there," she says.



Signs of Change

Four outsized, brightly colored banners will shortly adorn the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and Macy's/Malley's redevelopment sites.

They're intended as eye-catching harbingers of the future.

"We want to get people excited about what's going on, and not just see abandoned buildings," explains Tony Bialecki, the city's deputy director of economic development.

The red, orange, green, gold and yellow vinyl banners, bearing graphics proclaiming "Downtown Gateway Development Project" and emblazoned with the Market New Haven logo ("New Haven: It All Happens Here") will be affixed to Jersey barriers linked to construction fencing. The Macy's and Malley's banners contain photos of Gateway students; the other two incorporate Long Wharf Theatre production photos.

The largest banner, four feet tall and 284 feet long, is earmarked for the Macy's site. The others, each eight feet by 163 feet, will go on the old Malley's lot, on the rear of the Coliseum site (facing the Knights of Columbus Museum) and on the Frontage Road side of the Coliseum, facing the Route 34 connector.

The banners should be up by the end of this month.