NEW HAVEN, CT — New Haven's City Plan Commission voted unanimously Tuesday, Sept. 29, to approve a four-story, 177,022-square-foot lab-office building at 2 Church St., removing one of the few remaining approvals the project needs before work can start, the New Haven Independent reported.
Meeting in a special session on Zoom, commissioners approved the site plan along with a soil erosion and sediment control permit. The developer, Massachusetts-based Winstanley Enterprises, already has lab-office towers next door at 100 and 101 College St. The new building's planned tenants are QuantumCT, a state-backed nonprofit, and a Unilever research and development center.
Three weeks earlier, the Board of Alders voted unanimously for the agreement that lets the city hand the 1.8-acre public parcel to Winstanley. A $50.5 million state Innovation Cluster grant anchors the project and will pay toward the public works around it, among them the tunnels under the site and a larger plaza, according to the Independent.
No one from the public spoke at the meeting, and the commission received no written testimony.
New Haven Construction Plan: 1,400 Truck Trips on a Tight Site
The erosion permit needed a public hearing, so commissioners spent most of their questions on how the building will go up. Joseph Lenahan, a civil engineer with Fuss & O'Neill, said crews will remove roughly 28,000 cubic yards of soil, about 1,400 dump-truck loads.
Ted DeSantos, a Winstanley senior vice president, said the trucks will use the service tunnels under the site and head out toward I-91 and I-95. Hauling will generally run from about 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., outside rush hour, if the city's traffic permits allow, he said.
At the busiest point, 150 to 200 workers could be on site in a day, DeSantos said. Construction crews will park in the Air Rights and Temple Street garages and in a lot at 46 Prince St. The building will have 35 spaces of its own, underground, with the entrance on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard; under an agreement with the New Haven Parking Authority, up to 400 permits will be available at the Temple Medical Garage nearby.
"This is a busy construction site, and it's in a tight physical location," said commission member Adam Marchand, the Westville alder.
Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli said heavy construction should last from 2027 into 2029, peaking around mid-2028. It will overlap other big jobs nearby: the city's Arc Bridge and Church Street Promenade, work planned around Union Station, and a pair of new Yale projects in the Hill neighborhood.
A Bigger Plaza and a New Crosswalk
The public plaza that 2 Church St. will share with 101 College St. will grow by nearly half and give pedestrians a path from South Frontage Road through to MLK Boulevard. Marchand said he backed making the site a place people walk to, but worried about pedestrians crossing the frontage roads, where traffic is heavy and fast.
"I cross those streets all the time, and I agree completely with you," DeSantos replied. "People drive fast on those frontage roads." He said the project will add a crosswalk at Congress Avenue and South Frontage Road, one the city planned in an earlier phase of the Downtown Crossing project and then put off.