NEW HAVEN — After 12 years of the former Strong School sitting vacant on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven — and several previous attempts to redevelop it — there’s hope that it finally may get new use as a mix of market rate apartments and affordable housing.
Two prospective developers — both described by city officials as well-qualified — made presentations this week at a community Zoom meeting hosted by the city and Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller, D-14. The two presentations were similar in some ways but offered a number of stylistic differences.
“We feel like we’ve got two really credible respondents” in the Glendower Group, the development arm of the Housing Authority of New Haven, and Pennrose, a privately-held firm active in 20 states, with an office in Boston that is leading its effort, said Carlos Eyzaguirre, the city’s deputy economic development administrator.
The Glendower plan, presented by Glendower and Elm City Communities President Karen DuBois-Walton and Executive Vice President Shenae Draughn, included 32 new housing units, several third floor artists live/work spaces, several second floor community spaces such as conference and meeting rooms, a possible fitness studio or recording studio and ground floor retail and small business space.
The Pennrose plan, presented by Boston office developer Karmen Cheung, would preserve the original school school building as affordable housing and live/work artists space and create an LGBTQ-friendly, 100 percent affordable rental development. It would repurpose the existing auditorium as a community arts and gathering space.
Pennrose has partnered with the New Haven Pride Center and has reached out to Long Wharf Theatre, which is giving up its longtime home in the Long Wharf Food Terminal, and Fair Haven’s Bregamos Community Theater about possibly using space.
Eyzaguirre, a member of the selection committee, said that “over the next week or two we’re going to meet and finalize the selection and hopefully have an announcement by the beginning of October.
“We’ve already been meeting as a group,” Eyzaguirre said. “We’ve had internal presentations from the respondents … I feel good about whatever direction the selection committee goes in.”
Other members of the selection committee include Alder Miller, City Plan Executive Director Laura Brown, Livable City Initiative Executive Director Arlevia Samuel, Project Manager Jeff Moreno, LCI Manager of Neighborhood and Commercial Development Mark Wilson and community members David Wilson of the Mary Wade Home and Diane Ecton, co-chairwoman of the Fair Haven Community Management Team.
Eyzaguirre told the group that the former Horace Strong School has not been in use except for storage since its closure. “Beginning back in 2019, the Fair Haven community itself came together and came up with their own redevelopment criteria,” he said.
Among the criteria are that whatever goes in the space must enrich the neighborhood’s social and cultural life, drive economic development, host activity both during the day and at night, provide revenue for the city and include a responsible development plan for the area that’s in line with the city’s goals.
The city worked with New York- and Detroit-based Interboro Partners to create its request for proposals and did “a pretty robust survey” in the summer of 2021 to help determine what people in Fair Haven would like to see, Eyzaguirre said.
Draughn said Glendower, founded in New Haven in 2001, has constructed over 2,000 residential units over the years. “Our work is displayed throughout the city of New Haven. We have established entirely new communities” such as the Brookside and Rockview communities, which replaced what once were housing projects in the West Rock area.
Glendower has longstanding relationships with the city and the state Department of Housing and Housing Finance Authority and “we have a track record,” Draughn said. The group’s architect, Patriquin Architects, is based a few blocks away at Grand Avenue and Front Street in Fair Haven.
“Why us?” asked DuBois-Walton, who lives in Fair Haven. “We are so rooted in Fair Haven and the New Haven community … We know each other, we know this city and we know how to do quality projects in the City of New Haven.”
And “when we say affordable, we say, regardless of what your income level is, you’re not going to pay more than 30 percent of your income,” she said. “We know how to build affordable housing … We bring the tools to make this project affordable. We’re in this community. We’re not going anywhere.”
Cheung said Pennrose “are long term holders of our projects. We don’t build things and flip them.” Pennrose has done other adaptive reuse projects similar to this one, she said, showing images of several of them. She said its core values include a commitment to listen and engage with the community.
David Gamba of WRT Architects said his team did a “deep dive” into understanding the neighborhood and “this deep dive helped us to better understand the role” Strong School “has played in Fair Haven.”
Pennrose’s proposal includes an “open space concept” with “welcoming plazas” facing Grand Avenue, Perkins Street and Clinton Avenue, along with opportunities for public art both within and outside the project, Gamba and Cheung said. It would have a community theater space on the first floor.
“No disrespect, if you are not from Fair Haven how would you know what would work best for this community?” asked one member of the public in a written chat message.
Sandy Cloud, chairman and CEO of Cloud Co., which is part of the Pennrose team, responded, “We may not be from the storied Fair Haven community but we do know a thing or two about how to engage the community. Though we’re not from Fair Haven we have a strong understanding and belief about how to engage the community,” he said.
Asked by a member of the public what LGBTQ-friendly might mean, Cheung said it would be “just a welcoming environment,” with nothing reserved for any particular group.
