New Haven remains bullish on apartments as record year — with 1,000+ units coming online — projected

Hanna Snyder Gambini

New Haven is poised to have a record number of new apartments come online in 2024 from several high-profile projects.

More than 1,000 new units will be available for rent in 2024, marking one of the city’s largest single-year residential expansions in the past two-plus decades, according to economic development officials.

Since 2014, the city of New Haven has added at least 3,500 new affordable and market rate apartments. There’s another 3,500 units in the works for the next few years, not including the 1,000 apartments expected to debut in 2024.

That raises an important question: Can the city absorb all those new units without vacancy rates rising and rents being impacted?

A recent report by Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services projected a rise in apartment vacancy rates in New Haven County this year.

The report said, “Brisk supply gains will drive vacancy to 6.2% by the end of this year, the highest rate noted since mid-2012, when the metric recorded a multi-decade peak of 8.1%.”

However, New Haven economic development officials say the city will have no problems absorbing the new apartments.

Ginny Kozlowski, CEO of New Haven’s Economic Development Corp., said contrary to the report’s predictions, the new units coming online “are too few. We have 87,000 jobs in New Haven, we need more workers and more places for those workers to live.”

New Haven has historically had low apartment vacancy rates, around 3%, according to Marcus & Millichap data.

Those are expected to hold, especially as job creation remains strong and New Haven continues to offer a high quality of life, said Steve Fontana, the city’s deputy economic development director.

“We’re seeing apartments filling up quickly,” he said.

For example, the third phase of the city’s Audubon Square development, which obtained a certificate of occupancy in March for 63 units, is already more than 60% leased and should be fully leased by May, according to the developer.

The Audubon is a $75 million, multiphase, mixed-use project that first launched in July 2018, and has since brought online a total of 470 market rate units. The developer is Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.

Developers working in the city say new builds are seeing lease-up times cut in half, down to around three or six months now as opposed to roughly nine months to a year about a decade ago, Fontana said.

New Haven is seeing strong demand for all kinds of units, including smaller studios and one-bedroom apartments, as well as two- to three-bedroom units for families, Fontana said.

“The demand is there, and developers wouldn’t be coming here if the demand wasn’t there,” he said.

Other major city apartment projects set to come online this year include:

Square 10, a $400 million, multiphase, mixed-use project on the former coliseum site on South Orange Street by LWLP New Haven development group, which will add a total of 500 units, with 200 apartments coming online by this summer.

DSEL Properties is building 102 market rate units in a mixed-use project on Orange Street, set to open later this year.

The Archive, by Chicago-based developer CA Ventures, will add 166 units in two new mixed-use buildings on Chapel Street by this summer.

Other major projects in the works around the city include 130 units at 500 Blake St., in the Westville neighborhood; and 150 units in the mixed-use Dixwell Plaza redevelopment.

Low vacancy rates expected to hold

Victor W. Nolletti, executive managing director of investments for Institutional Property Advisors, a division of Marcus & Millichap, said New Haven will see a fair amount of new supply entering the market, but the city’s historically low apartment vacancy rates should hold stable, in the 3% range.

The city has been adding new apartments for years, and they are filling up quickly, Nolletti said.

New Haven — which has a population of just under 140,000, making it the second-largest city in Connecticut — benefits from a strong employment base that includes Yale New Haven Hospital, higher-education institutions such as Yale and the University of New Haven, and a biotech and research sector, he said.

Nolletti said there’s a natural ebb and flow in the market, and “there was a good stretch from 1990 to 2005 when there was very little new construction, a good 12 to 15 years with very few units. Now, they’re just exploding.”

Next phase of Gold Star bridge construction to involve major lane changes

Kimberly Drelich

Groton ― The planned replacement of the deck on the northbound Gold Star Memorial Bridge will require shifting two northbound lanes of traffic to the southbound span in two years.

At a public forum on Tuesday, the state Department of Transportation unveiled the planned configuration and details of the next phase of construction on the northbound span that will fix the bridge and make it so oversized trucks can cross.

Project Manager Tracey Brais, who outlined the project to The Day on Monday, said the two northbound lanes will be separated by a barrier from the three southbound lanes on the southbound span.

Meanwhile, two northbound lanes will be maintained on the northbound span.

Brais said Tuesday that since the state DOT is planning another project to strengthen the steel on the southbound side from the summer of 2025 to the summer 2026, the crossover of the lanes won’t start until 2026.

The more than 20 people at the public information meeting at the city’s Municipal Building, listened to the presentation and then asked questions about a variety of topics such as the what work is being done on the bridge now and how the painting of the bridge will be handled.

The second phase of the northbound project also will require some temporary exit closures. The northbound Exit 85 ramp will need to be closed temporarily for a short period of time, anticipated to be a couple of months. The northbound exit 86 off-ramp will be closed to traffic for about two years, with a detour in place, said Brais.

The project discussed at Tuesday’s information session is the second phase of the project to repair the northbound Gold Star bridge.

Currently, for the first phase of the project, crews are strengthening the steel on the truss spans, which are the main spans over the Thames River, Brais said. The first phase began in 2022 and is anticipated to be completed in June 2025.

This second and last phase, which will last from 2025 to the fall 2029, will involve steel repairs to the approach spans over land, replacing the bridge’s deck, replacing bearings, patching up concrete, painting the bridge, and installing new highway lights, a new crash-tested railing system and steel mesh fencing.

Brais said the project is primarily needed because, based on the last biennial inspection, the bridge deck and bridge superstructure are in poor condition.

She said the bridge is safe to drive over, as inspection teams are out there at least biennially inspecting the bridge, and any time there is an incident such as the fire last year. Maintenance crews also frequently address issues as they come up, especially when the public notices a pothole or broken joint.

She said the repairs are needed to bring the bridge up to a state of good repair and keep it in service for at least another 25 years without a major rehabilitation project.

The project also will strengthen the bridge so it will be able to carry oversized, overweight trucks, which currently are detoured 17 miles, she said.

Brais said the DOT plans to go out to bid for the estimated $591 million project for the second phase of the northbound span. The DOT has a $158.2 million federal grant and plans to use 90% federal funds and 10% state funds for the remainder of the project.

The northbound bridge was originally constructed in 1943 to carry two lanes of traffic in both directions. With the construction of the southbound bridge in the late 1960s, the northbound bridge was partially reconstructed in 1975.

New London resident Andrew Lopez said he biked to the meeting in Groton with six of his friends. He said there is a lot of activity on the bike path on the southbound side: they had to pause to let a runner going in the opposite direction pass, then a motor scooter came from behind them and drove past, and then they passed bicyclists heading in the opposite direction.

Brais said the DOT plans to hold a public information meeting at a later date for a project to improve the southbound span’s shared-use pathway. The goal is to widen the path, so it is at least 11 feet wide but mostly 14 feet wide.

More information is available at: https://portal.ct.gov/dot/bridges/project-pages/gold-star-memorial-bridge

People can submit comments or questions to the DOT, by May 14, by emailing DOT.GoldStarBridgeProjects@ct.gov or calling (860) 594-2020.

New Milford launches long-awaited $4.3 million construction project to replace Merryall Road bridge

Kaitlin Lyle

NEW MILFORD – The construction work to replace the Merryall Road bridge began Monday with the removal of the existing 20-foot-long bridge that had been classified as in "poor condition."

The bridge, which spans the West Aspetuck River near West Meetinghouse Road, was identified as one of the five worst bridges in Litchfield County.

The new bridge will be “longer and larger” — 40 feet long and 22 feet wide — and will have new guardrails, according to Jack Healy, director of New Milford public works. The new bridge has been approved by the state Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Healy said.

The cost of construction is $4.3 million, with the cost split 50-50 by the state and the town. Watertown-based Dayton Construction Co. was awarded the contract and is expected to finish work by Nov. 30, according to Healy.

The section of Merryall Road on the northern side by the bridge will be closed to traffic for the project’s duration, according to Mayor Pete Bass’s Facebook page. 

West Meetinghouse Road will be closed to through traffic May 7 and May 8, to set up the construction crew’s crane, remove the superstructure and then break down the crane, according to the public works’ website.

The town has sought to fix the Merryall Road bridge for many years but struggled to find the best approach. The town filed its initial application to DOT for the project in 2013, Healy said. 

Several public hearings and informational meetings were held to gather input from residents.

New Milford hired WMC Consulting Engineers in Newington in 2022 to provide the design of the bridge and associated roadway and site improvements along with an evaluation of additional alternative studies for the bridge replacement. 

WMC said the bridge replacement project would take seven months, starting April 1, 2023, and running through Nov. 30, 2023.

The project began a year later because the town encountered delays in getting the needed permits, Healy said. Town officials also talked to residents about the project and worked to make sure the project met the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ standards.

“We had a few delays with the permitting, with making sure we got all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed,” Healy said. New Milford received its final permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in April, he said.

Concrete arrives for Pomperaug High’s tennis courts

STEVE BIGHAM 

SOUTHBURY – Forty-seven truckloads of concrete were delivered to Pomperaug High School on Tuesday as part of the ongoing reconstruction of the school’s five tennis courts, which have been closed and unplayable for nearly a decade.

Region 15 Superintendent Joshua Smith said he is hoping the court project will be completed in time to allow the school’s boys and girls tennis teams to play a handful of matches before the spring season concludes.

The $1.4 million project was approved by voters in Middlebury and Southbury last year as part of an $11 million bond package for various districtwide upgrades. R.S. Site and Sports of Oxford is the contractor for the tennis court project.

School officials said the new courts have been built using state-of-the art underground cabling to provide just the right amount of tension to ensure no cracking occurs.

The new courts will be made of concrete rather than asphalt. Tuesday’s pouring of 470 square yards of concrete was provided by Concrete LLC of Oxford.

R.S. Site and Sports noted the courts will need to cure for about a month before being painted.

In recent years, Pomperaug’s tennis teams have practiced and held matches at the nearby Edgewood Bath and Tennis Club, a private facility in Middlebury that has been charging Region 15 rent.