New Haven, Tall Building, Zip Car Rentals, Train Station, Sigh …

Some cities get the whole idea of residential development. New Haven is one of them. From the Courant:

By mid-2010, some folks might even be ready to drop $6,000 a month for a view of the New Haven Green — or so Fairfield developer Bruce Becker hopes.

That’s about what it will cost to live in one of 12 three-bedroom penthouses atop 360 State Street, the $180 million, 500-unit rental apartment tower Becker is building at Chapel and State streets.

With a tentative opening date of August 2010, the tower will be New Haven’s second-tallest structure and, by some estimates, the state’s largest residential building.

A penthouse in Hartford 21, the capital city’s premier luxury apartment tower, also costs about $6,000 a month.

“There are waiting lists at all the buildings of similar quality” in New Haven, Becker said Monday after he, his investors and public officials gathered at the site for a groundbreaking.

Construction workers actually began excavating a foundation for the 31-story tower in early October. Most units will be studio and one-bedroom apartments, starting at an estimated $1,500 a month.

Becker is counting on Yale University graduate students, faculty and employees to fill the 450 market-rate units, as well as suburban empty-nesters and single commuters to Stamford. The project also includes 50 below-market units.

The 700,000-square-foot project stands across from a train station, one block east of the green and a few blocks from New Haven’s celebrated Wooster Square pizzerias.

The project will include four levels of elevated parking with 500 spaces, topped by a terrace with a swimming pool. Becker said the garage would include a Zipcar car rental station.

A major unanswered question is which grocer will be recruited as the main retail tenant. Becker said Monday that an unnamed “independent grocer” is in the lead now and “may actually be the best choice.”

“However,” he said, “we still want to be able to consider proposals from Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. But we don’t yet feel we’re in a position to get their full attention. … The current climate for retail is a little soft. We think we’re going to be in a stronger position a year from now.”

City officials, meanwhile, continue to negotiate a development agreement for the former site of Veterans Memorial Coliseum with Hartford 21 owner Northland Investment Corp.

Initial plans for that project, two blocks south of the Becker site, also call for a 30-story residential tower. The site would also be the home for a new Long Wharf Theatre.

Oh and a grocery store as an anchor tenant. Le sigh.

source: Courant, $6,000-A-Month Penthouses Planned For New Haven Tower, By ERIC GERSHON, December 2, 2008

  • hohoho

    Hey, we’ve got the Park Avenue condos on the Green. If you lean real far out your window, you can see what’s left of the Norwalk Green historic area. And we’ll soon have a brand new Budget 8-like building on the Green if the Inn has its’ way. Plus, we’ve got Stew Leonard’s…why on earth would we want something that would compete with that precious assett. New Haven’s got nothin’ on Norwalk….

  • anonymous

    Too bad all the big redevelopment projects are dead. Bet all the property owners who were crying about their property rights wish they had taken those deals from the developers now that their properties are worth next to nothing!

  • Old Timer

    If you know where there is commercial property for “next to nothing”, I know a guy with some cash who is looking for a really good deal.

  • Anonymous

    So doesn’t Moccia Old Timer. :)

  • Barnstorm

    Don’t sigh too heavily TG, the comparison isn’t a very good one. On one hand you have New Haven, apartments overlooking the green and surrounded by Yale. In South Norwalk you have overpriced condos overlooking a very scenic waste treatment plant. I wouldn’t rush to put a grocery store in there either.

  • turfgrrl

    Barnstorm: I actually know this area of New Haven quite well. Yale is quite a few block from State and Chapel, and the area was quite Norwalkesque not too long ago. Formerly industrial, on the periphery of downtown, somewhat of a sketchy neighborhood. When they built the state street train station to bring in the shoreline commuters it changed things a bit. Not unlike what could’ve happened near the SoNo train station.