Coliseum failed due to decision to remove exhibition hall from project

I read with interest the article about the New Haven Coliseum. In 1969, I was a young architecture student. I had returned from an Army tour in Vietnam in November of 1968. It was too late in the year to enter architecture school, so I found a job at Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates, in Hamden. My first assignment there was to revise the Coliseum plans to remove the exhibition hall that was originally supposed to have been part of the project. The article quotes Matthew Nemerson about the decision not to renovate the Coliseum, “I think it was a lost opportunity to hold onto something that would be very valuable.” In reality, the opportunity was lost years earlier, before I came home from Vietnam.

The Coliseum project was sent out to bid twice. The first bid, in 1968, included the exhibition hall. To put this in context, this was before the Hartford Civic Center and before there was a civic center and exhibition hall in Providence. The exhibition hall would have made the Coliseum a true multi-use facility. In round numbers the original low bid was $27 million. The city decided that was too high, so they instructed KRJD to remove the exhibition hall, make other revisions to reduce the cost, and rebid the project. I was part of the team that revised the drawings. It was a complex set of plans, and that task required a couple or three months to complete.

When the revised project was sent out for bid the second time, the low bid, again in round numbers, was $27 million. The goahead was given to award a contract and to construct the Coliseum ... without an exhibition hall. The decision to remove the exhibition hall was fatal. Within a few years, both Hartford and Providence had constructed larger, competing venues with more space and more flexibility than the Coliseum could provide. The Coliseum ultimately failed, in my opinion, because of the shortsighted decision in 1968 to remove the exhibition hall from the scope of the project. The decision didn’t save any money, but it crippled the facility. Harwood W. Loomis Woodbridge

Policymakers should lower barriers to employment, not create new ones

While new jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the teen unemployment rate is near historic lows, there’s a dark side to these numbers.

Just one in three teens either has a job or is looking for one. What’s more frightening is that nearly 11 million teens have either dropped out of the labor force or never entered it.

One factor in the declining teen labor force participation rate are increases in state and local minimum wages. According to a study by authors David Neumark and Cortnie Shupe, wage hikes have been a “predominant factor” in the decline.

Policymakers concerned about preserving starter jobs for young and lessskilled job seekers should seek to lower barriers to employment, not create new ones.

Samantha Summers Communications Director, Employment Policies Institute Washington, D.C.