City seeks $32.1 million grant funding to improve Long Wharf, downtown

NEW HAVEN — The city is seeking $32.1 million in state grant funds to transform Long Wharf and enhance downtown, according to plans recently presented to New Haven alders.

City officials said $25 million would be used to demolish the former Gateway Community College, and expand and enhance Long Wharf Park as part of the Long Wharf Responsible Growth Plan; and $7.1 million to build a cafe kiosk and public bathroom on the Green, along with a family playground downtown.

Members of the Board of Alders’ Community Development Committee gave the plans and associated grant applications to the state’s Community Investment Fund a unanimous endorsement recently after a presentation by city staff led by Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli.

It also will require full Board of Alders’ approval.

Piscitelli, who presented the plans with City Engineer Giovanni Zinn and Deputy Economic Development Director Courtney Henderson, said there’s a good chance the city won’t get the entire amount it seeks all at once.

While New Haven got the highest amount of any community in the state in a first round of funding, “nobody’s going to get $30 million” in the latest round, Piscitelli told members of the committee, chaired by Dwight Alder Frank Douglass Jr., D-2.

But putting together a plan and grant application, including a cost schedule, for all the improvements the city would like to make, both downtown and at Long Wharf, will help the city in future rounds of funding, Piscitelli said.

The grant fund exists “to support transformative investments” in Connecticut communities, city staff said in an executive summary of the grant application. “The project represents an essential component to the city’s overall economic recovery,” it states.

The plans, which the city first began presenting publicly in 2021, call for the city to demolish the former Gateway building on Sargent Drive and replace it the new location of Gateway’s automotive trade school, which currently operates in North Haven.

The most recent plans, presented to the community in a public meeting Feb. 8, also call for construction of a new home for the APT Foundation, including its methadone treatment facilities, behind Gateway, replacing both the existing APT facilities at One Long Wharf and its existing clinic on Congress Avenue in the Hill section.

The project would redesign and raise Long Wharf Drive to make it more flood-resilient, build a community marina adjacent to the Canal Dock Boathouse and build a larger Long Wharf park that would be more pedestrianfriendly.

It would include more parking spaces and a dedicated, tent-covered area that would be available for picnics and while enjoying food from the nearby food trucks.

Zinn said that while the park at Long Wharf is “very popular with the food trucks,” it is “really lacking some of the amenities,” and the proposed improvements would address that.

Henderson told the committee that as time goes on, downtown is being redeveloped “as more of a family neighborhood.” The proposed family playground would be “a signature community asset,” she said.

“If you come here in the morning, it’s amazing how many school buses there are in the neighborhood,” said Piscitelli.

Downtown/Yale Alder Alex Guzhnay, D-1, asked whether there had been any discussions about maintenance of the public bathrooms.

“Certainly, public bathrooms are a challenge to keep clean,” said Zinn. “You have to clean them multiple times a day.” But the cafe kiosk would “create a small revenue stream” to help take care of those facilities, Zinn said.