Million-$$$ Condominium Explosion Continues

Colleges & Universities Yale University
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<p>Luxury condos eyed downtown </p>

<p>Andy Bromage, Register Staff</p>

<p>NEW HAVEN — A Hartford developer plans to build a 19-story residential high-rise on College and Crown streets that would bring hundreds of luxury condominiums and a row of retail shops to the heart of downtown in a $140 million development. </p>

<p>Robert A. Landino, of Centerplan Development in Hartford, said he wants to build a Manhattan-style luxury condo tower catering to college professors, working professionals and empty nesters seeking the thrill of urban living.</p>

<p>The so-called “Residences and Shops at College Square” would have 276 luxury condominiums on 17 floors above 50,000 square feet of retail on one or two stories, with two levels each of underground parking for residents and surface-level parking for shoppers. The complex would offer a gym, a public roof deck, a theater viewing room, 24-hour security and concierge service.</p>

<p>The privately financed development would sit between Crown and George streets, fronting College Street.</p>

<p>“Southern New England is finally on its feet, allowing projects like this to be viable,” Landino said. “It would be right in the middle of Yale, museums, the train line to New York City.”</p>

<p>The condos would be a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units, along with bilevel penthouse suites, 800 square feet to 2,900 square feet in size, selling for $400,000 to $1 million.</p>

<p>The property, three adjoining parcels comprising an acre owned by James and Joseph Salatto, now houses a squat row of storefronts at 188 and 196 College St., TK’s American Cafe, 285 George St., and surface parking. Landino said he has held contracts on all three parcels for about a year.</p>

<p>The condo tower would be built across College Street from where the city is building a new Cooperative Arts and Humanities high school. Landino said he is speaking with Cesar Pelli & Associates, the school’s architect, to ensure the two buildings complement one another architecturally.</p>

<p>Landino said he showed the development plan to business leaders and community groups at a July 17 presentation. He also has discussed the project with city planners and development officials, and with Bruce Alexander, Yale’s vice president for New Haven and state affairs and campus development.</p>

<p>City Development Administrator Kelly Murphy said College Square would be the first residential new construction downtown in years. Developers have built scores of apartments in renovated factories, utility buildings and a shopping mall, but new construction has been a rarity.</p>

<p>“This is one big project and one big investment and that says something about New Haven and downtown,” Murphy said.</p>

<p>Landino will seek approvals from the Board of Zoning Appeals in September and building permits over the next year, in advance of a fall 2007 groundbreaking, he said. Construction will take two years and finish in time for a 2009 occupancy, he said.</p>

<p>City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg said the property is zoned business district, meaning there are no restrictions on building height. The project may, however, require zoning relief for open space and floor area ratio requirements, she said.</p>

<p>Landino’s project would be one of several downtown condo developments to come online in the next few years. The city is marketing the 1.5-acre Shartenberg site on State and Chapel streets, and some portion of that could become condos, Murphy said.</p>

<p>In Ninth Square, St. Louis developer McCormack Baron Salazar has plans for 48 townhouses as part of a 128-unit housing development. And two local developers are converting the Johnson and Simons buildings on Church and Center streets into a dozen Manhattan-style loft condos, priced at $1 million apiece. Another project in the Ninth Square, with 300 condos, should start construction soon as well.</p>

<p>A New Haven native, Landino is a former state representative and selectman in Old Saybrook who briefly ran for Secretary of the State this year. He is former president of BL Cos. of Meriden, an architectural, engineering and environmental firm involved with development in New Haven’s Broadway District and Ninth Square. He left the firm last month, he said, but retained them for architectural and engineering work on the new project.</p>

<p>Landino’s father, Arthur Landino, was a city engineer under former Mayor Richard C. Lee and development administrator under former Mayor Frank Logue.</p>

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<p>a 19-storey high rise, one block from old campus, would probably be visible from all over central/old campus. the buildings in these areas are of course largely stone and brick quads with “human”-scaled heights of three and four storeys, punctuated by the occasional tower in the same material (harkness, sterling stacks, graduate studies). in light of these facts, i’m not sure a 19-storey metal-and-glass high rise would be a good thing for the on-campus panorama.</p>

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<p>Finally, you have actually backed up one of your ridiculous assertions. Good for new haven, and I disagree that it would be visible from all over campus, save Vanderbilt and Jonathan Edwards. Its not that high and it is much futher removed from the campus that you are thinking scottie.</p>

<p>edit: wait, do you actually have a link or is this a flame?</p>

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<p>good to hear, crimson, although i disagree that 19 storeys is “not that high” in a campus context. at 10 feet per story (probably a little generous, but the two lower levels could be much taller), the high rise would be 190 feet tall, only 26 feet shorter than harkness tower (216), the ever-visible marker of yale’s central campus.</p>

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<p>Will there be an “upscale martini bar” on the ground floor, TROLLSTER?</p>

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<p>Perhaps an upscale pizza parlor?</p>

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<p>The real story, of course, are the “scores of apartments in renovated factories, utility buildings and a shopping mall,” that go for $1000/month and are 100% full with long waiting lists. </p>

<p>People are fed up with suburban boredom (and danger - automobiles are 100-200 times more dangerous than any other threat to a young person, unless that person is involved with drugs or illegal activity), and are moving back to major cities in droves.</p>

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<p>i assume you believe new haven to be such a “major city,” despite not having an international airport or a single major league sports franchise, so here is some counter-evidence to your claim:</p>

<p>new haven’s 1950 population: 164,443</p>

<p>new haven’s 1990 population: 130,474</p>

<p>new haven’s 2000 population: 123,626</p>

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<p>please, for the love of god, do not engage the ■■■■■. he’s going to delve into the horrors of crossing the streets of princeton if you don’t quit it.</p>

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<p>New Haven is roughly the size of the city where I hailed from before college. That’s not a good sign. </p>

<p>So sure, New Haven is developing somewhat. Big deal. Yale students still get mugged. HPS students do not. Simple as that.</p>

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<p>Link:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nhregister.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=16990879&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=517515&rfi=8[/url]”>http://www.nhregister.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=16990879&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=517515&rfi=8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>actually zephyr, harvard students do get mugged, and probably as often as yale students. Its the trade off for being in a city, though obviously there is more of an upside in cambridge than new haven.</p>

<p>and thanks cosar for the link.</p>

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<p>Actually according to the Harvard police (stalcommpol.org), Harvard is much more dangerous.</p>

<p>New Haven’s population is actually much larger than 125,000 - the small population figures you are citing are from the “Town” boundaries of New Haven, which, because New Haven is one of the oldest cities in the country, were established in the 1700s long before the advent of large cities in the U.S. The reason population has declined since 1960 is the same reason the population of lower Manhattan has declined - because people have much smaller families these days (especially in a place like New Haven or Manhattan, where the percentage of young singles is higher than that of any other area in their home State), and because some land has been redeveloped from housing to high-density office space.</p>

<p>The real boundaries of New Haven encompass surrounding “towns” and hold over 500,000 people. A good way to measure the real size of cities is to look at the population density in their central (downtown) area. New Haven has a much denser downtown population than places like Denver, Seattle, Baltimore, etc. </p>

<p>Another good way - in fact, the ONLY way - to measure actual population is to use the U.S. Census Bureau figures on metropolitan areas. The census directly explains that you can’t compare cities using their traditional (1700s) boundaries because they vary so much - some cities have city lines just outside the center, while others, like Wichita or Albuquerque, have city lines that lie dozens of miles from the center, and therefore contain 10+ times the square milage of a city like New Haven, which is only 17 square miles in area. By the metro area measure as well, New Haven is a very large city - it’s actually part of a New Haven “NECMA” metropolitan area holding over 2,000,000 residents, and is also a part of the New York City “CMSA” metropolitan area, which holds 22,000,000 residents.</p>

<p>Incidentally, New Haven is also the wealthiest metropolitan area in the country, after San Francisco. Probably explains the million-dollar condos being built everywhere. I’ve been to all the well-known college towns (Athens, Auburn, Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, Westwood, Madison, Ann Arbor, Austin, Northampton, Bloomington, etc.), and New Haven is easily one of the 10 best college towns in the country right now, but I think that will rapidly change over the next 5 years, making the city too gentrified/expensive to qualify as one of the top 10.</p>

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<p>Actually, among “big cities” Boston/Cambridge is ranked #1 as America’s best college town. Among "medium sized cities) New Haven ranks 9th, just ahead of Provo, Utah.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html[/url]”>http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Sure, I think that ranking is a little out of date now. Also, not everyone agrees on what makes a great college town. Being NEAR the center of a large city, like Columbia (Harlem), Harvard (Harvard Square), or Southern Connecticut State (Westville) are, tends to totally kill campus life and therefore I would submit those areas have horrible college towns. Being AT the center, however, like NYU (Greenwich Village), BU (Kenmore), UMich (downtown Ann Arbor) or Yale (downtown New Haven), is a totally different story.</p>

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<p>Your insights are as amusing as ever! I especially treasure the stuff about New Haven’s great wealth … errr I mean the “New Haven Metropolitan area” … excuse me! And here we were confused about things we’d read about the low standard of living and other dismal demographics in the <em>City of New Haven</em> (where Yale hangs its hat, the last time I checked!)</p>

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<p>Actually, considering the data on demographics (such as the amount of disposable income within a 15-minute drive of the center of New Haven, the billions of dollars in biotechnology venture capital flowing into the city, the thousands of luxury apartments that have been built there in the past 5 years, the fact that Yale is now the most selective university in the United States, etc.), it looks like you’re confused – not the developer who is building $140 million of high-rise condominiums.</p>

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<p>Lol !</p>

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<p>You remain as outrageously over the top as ever! </p>

<p>How do you continue spouting this nonsense with a straight face?</p>

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<p>does anyone else think that Byerly=PosterX? I mean, they just simultaneously popped up out of nowhere on this thread and others.</p>