New Haven poised to advance 200,000-square-foot Unilever lab as Downtown Crossing nears final
NEW HAVEN — City officials are preparing to move forward
with a 200,000-square-foot laboratory and office building that would
become the centerpiece of New Haven's growing life sciences and quantum
technology hub while completing the final phase of the Downtown
Crossing redevelopment project.
The proposed development at 2 Church St. would become the
home of the previously announced Unilever
Global Innovation Center. Backed by millions of dollars in state funding,
the project is the third and final phase of Downtown Crossing, the city's
long-running effort to replace the former Route 34 highway and reconnect
downtown with the Hill neighborhood and medical district.
The project's development and land disposition agreements
will go before the Board of Alders' Community Development Committee during a
public hearing at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Board of Alders chamber at City Hall.
If approved, the agreements will advance to the full Board of Alders for a
vote.
“New Haven is one of fastest-growing hubs in the nation for
the life sciences and quantum science, and the developments of 100 College
Street, 101 College Street and 2 Church Street all demonstrate the growth of
these industries in our city and underscore how New Haven is a center for
cutting-edge research, development and innovation in these fields," said
Mayor Justin Elicker.
"Importantly, as we grow, we are committed to growing
inclusively — and, just like the other buildings, 2 Church Street and the
companies housed there will provide new job opportunities for our residents and
also generate new tax revenue for the city that helps pay for critical
municipal services that support our residents," Elicker said. "It’s a
really exciting time of economic growth and development for New Haven.”
Downtown Crossing was created to repair the damage caused by
urban renewal and the construction of Route 34, which demolished the Oak Street
neighborhood and divided the Hill from downtown. The 2 Church St. project
represents the final phase of that effort.
For Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli,
however, the project is about more than a single building. It's about growing
efforts like QuantumCT and BioCT to put Connecticut — and New Haven — on
the cutting edge of quantum technology and biotechnology.
Just as importantly, he said, "it reinforces and
provides opportunities to connect New Haven residents to meaningful career
opportunities at all levels."
The state has committed about $37 million to support those
broader efforts, with funding benefiting not only the city and development
partner Winstanley
Enterprises but also organizations including QuantumCT and BioCT,
Piscitelli said.
QuantumCT is a public-private partnership that includes the
University of Connecticut, Yale University, Southern Connecticut State
University, ConnCORP, Connecticut Innovations and the state Department of
Economic and Community Development.
The National Science Foundation announced
Tuesday that QuantumCT will receive a two-year, $15 million award to
support technology translation, workforce development and incubator operations.
The award could grow to as much as $160 million over the next decade if the
partnership demonstrates sufficient progress, according to the announcement.
The developer, 2 Church St. LLC, is a subsidiary of
Winstanley Enterprises, according to documents submitted to the Board of
Alders.
The building would rise on a vacant 1.8-acre parcel that is
part of a 4.5-acre site originally owned by the state and later transferred to
the city for economic development. The property is bounded by College Street,
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Church Street and South
Frontage Road.
The city previously transferred an adjacent 1.75-acre parcel
to Winstanley for construction of the nearby 497,762-square-foot 101
College Street laboratory and office building.
The city and Winstanley have secured commitments for $34.7
million in state funding for the 2 Church St. project and related
infrastructure improvements, including the Church Street Promenade across South
Frontage Road — a key element in reconnecting downtown with the Hill
neighborhood — and a pedestrian Arc Bridge that would extend the promenade.
"There's some time sensitivity here," Piscitelli
said, citing global competition to develop quantum technologies.
The city hopes to transfer the property to Winstanley in
2027. After an estimated two-year construction period, the building is expected
to open in 2029.
Gov. Ned Lamont and DECD awarded funding for the
Quantum & Life Science Cluster in September 2025 to accelerate growth in
industries including biotechnology, artificial intelligence, advanced
manufacturing and quantum technology.
According to the Board of Alders application, the New Haven
initiative is intended to create jobs in the life sciences and quantum
technology sectors while expanding opportunities for city residents. The
project also includes a new public plaza, completion of roadway and tunnel
improvements associated with Downtown Crossing, and space for business and
institutional partners, including QuantumCT.
A city flyer says the project would create career pathways
for New Haven residents through local hiring, internships, workforce
partnerships and training programs in quantum technology and life sciences in
partnership with Southern Connecticut State University, Gateway Community
College, Albertus Magnus College and QuantumCT.
The project also calls for expanded STEM opportunities for
students, including an additional $200,000 for BioCity, support for the ACE
mentoring program at Hillhouse High School and guaranteed program admission for
qualifying students from the Hill, Downtown and Dwight neighborhoods.
Renderings unveiled for Stonington technology park
Kimberly Drelich
Stonington — READCO has unveiled preliminary renderings for
a proposed technology park on Route 2 just off Exit 92 of Interstate 95.
The first phase of the Stonington Technology Park calls for
an 80,000-square-foot office building and 125,000-square-foot light
manufacturing building.
The Old Lyme-based developer went before the Architectural
Design Review Board on Monday and will incorporate the board's feedback into
the renderings. READCO plans to return to the board in September to seek final
approval.
The proposed four-story office building features a large
conference area on the ground floor that allows for collaboration and
presentation of ideas, Christen M. Robbins, the architect for the project and
senior project manager at BL Companies, said Tuesday. The idea is that it is
not just an office space, but a place to solve problems and research and
develop in the technology realm.
A cafeteria within the building opens out into an outdoor
patio and green space.
The office building entrances are adjacent to the light
manufacturing building, so employees can move between the two buildings, as
they do office and desktop work and manufacturing, she said.
The proposed manufacturing building is built into the grade
and features a single story with a level below that is buried, Robbins said. It
is designed for very light, not waste-generating manufacturing and has a
smaller two-bay loading dock.
Both buildings incorporate various colors and textures of
metal panel to provide better insulation, she said. Design features include
banding and different column pillars to break up the facades, and each building
entrance is designated in blue.
Overall, the buildings are designed to look high-tech and
sleek, she explained, with green space and plantings on the campus so employees
can walk around the site.
The proposed development features a loop road for trucks
outside the buildings so pedestrian and smaller vehicular traffic remain
separate and employees feel a level of safety and comfort to walk between the
two buildings and go outside on their breaks, Robbins said.
READCO CEO Michael Lech said the adjacent Stonington Village
residential development will have walking trails, and there is additional land
adjacent to the technology park, so people will have different opportunities to
get into nature.
Christen and Lech said the board was interested in the
amenity spaces and creating a campus setting for the technology park and
offered ideas about color and adding more vegetation in some areas.
"We enjoy the opportunity to engage with the
architecture review board," said Lech. "They are talented architects
themselves and offer insightful advice on appropriate fits of our project into
the area."
Lech said groundwater protection is at the forefront of any
development they are doing along Route 2, and the intent is also to make the
building as sustainable as possible and potentially incorporate solar panels.
The next phase includes another 80,000-square-foot office
building, farther back in the site, for which the developer would later seek
approval from the Architectural Design Review Board, said Robbins.
READCO had initially proposed an 80,000-square-foot Stonington
Technology Center farther south, but then decided to pursue a technology
park to meet a high demand for technology space, Lech said last month. He said
targeted prospective tenants are companies with high-tech jobs, such as
computer programming and computer design.
Lech said residents will move into the adjacent Stonington
Village on Aug. 1, as part of the first 72-unit phase of the overall
approximately 275-unit housing development. A Stop & Shop supermarket and a
McDonald's are next to the apartments.
Readco Holdings, LLC and Readco Hookset, LLC applied for a
zoning map amendment to the Neighborhood Design District for the two
office buildings and light manufacturing building. A public hearing is
scheduled for 7 p.m. July 21 at the Stonington Board of Education District
Office at 204 Mistuxet Ave. in Mystic. READCO would also need site plan
approval for the project.
Hartford seeks tax break for 125-unit affordable housing project near cinema site
Hartford officials are seeking a long-term tax abatement
agreement to support a proposed 125-unit affordable housing development on land
that formerly served the Apple Xtreme Cinema in the city’s Parkville
neighborhood.
The City Council on Monday referred the proposal to its
Planning, Economic Development and Housing Committee after Mayor Arunan
Arulampalam introduced the measure. The committee is expected to review the
proposal later this month or in early August before sending it back to the full
council for a final vote.
Specific financial terms of the deal were not immediately
available, but the proposal would authorize the city to enter into a 15-year
tax-fixing agreement, with two optional five-year renewals, for a $18.75
million development at 332 and 344 New Park Ave. The project, known as Edge
400, would include two mixed-use buildings with 125 affordable apartments,
resident amenity space and ground-floor retail.
A 65,311-square-foot building at 332 New Park Ave. will
contain 61 apartments affordable to households earning between 50% and 80% of
the area median income, while the 70,678-square-foot building at 344 New Park
Ave. will include 64 apartments affordable to households earning between 30%
and 80% of AMI.
Construction is expected to be completed within two years of
the project’s financial closing.
The project has been proposed by EG1 Owner LLC and EG3 Owner
LLC. The limited liability companies are connected to Marc Daigle, principal
and CEO of affordable housing developer Dakota Partners, state records show.
The two apartment buildings would be constructed on what is
now a vacant parking lot that formerly served the Apple Xtreme Cinema, which
closed earlier this year. The development is part of a plan to transform the
broader movie theater site with more than 300 apartments, a reimagined
entertainment venue and additional commercial uses.
New CT law clarifies property tax payments for solar arrays
As large solar arrays have proliferated across Connecticut
in the last decade, so have questions about how much tax revenue local
governments can draw from the fields of panels.
For years, state law gave municipalities and their tax
assessors the leeway to determine the value of solar panels and other equipment
subject to personal property taxes. At the same time, developers could seek a
variety of tax exemptions on their projects allowing them to drastically reduce
— or in some cases eliminate — their local tax obligations.
Towns have faced challenges even with projects that
don’t qualify for tax exemptions, because the value of solar panels tends to
depreciate quickly. In some cases that’s left towns with budgetary holes to
fill in the years following a project’s initial installation.
As a result, litigation has erupted
in some towns over tax bills for solar projects. Fearing financial
uncertainty, both developers and municipal leaders have negotiated deals to
stabilize their tax payments and provide more predictability to both parties.
They’ve also appealed to lawmakers for a long-term solution.
After several failed attempts to address the issue,
lawmakers passed an omnibus energy bill during the 2025 legislative
session that includes a new calculation for levying taxes on large solar
arrays.
The law, which applies to commercial solar facilities that
commence operation after July 1, 2026, creates a uniform tax of $10,000 a year
for every megawatt of electricity the panels are capable of producing. For
example, an averaged-sized facility with an installed capacity of 6 megawatts
would pay $60,000 in annual taxes to the town in which it is located.
The uniform capacity tax, as it’s known, only applies to
large, ground-mounted solar arrays with an output of over 1 megawatt. (Most
residential rooftop systems, for example, are between 5 and 10 kilowatts in
size and are exempt from property taxes.)
The author of the policy was state Rep. Jamie Foster,
D-Ellington, whose district in the Connecticut River Valley is home to several
of the state’s largest solar arrays.
Under the new system, Foster said that most commercial solar
developers will no longer be eligible for broad exemptions from local property
taxes (including those for distributed energy systems). But when taxes are easier to
calculate, she said, it’s simpler for developers to project future costs and
secure financing for their projects.
It’s not that commercial developers are all trying to avoid
paying local taxes, Foster said. They just want to know exactly what their tax
liability will be, so they’re not surprised after the fact, she said.
The uniform capacity tax applies for 20 years, during which
time solar developers will be exempt from paying personal property taxes on the
equipment. The land underneath the array is still subject to local real estate
taxes.
The law exempts arrays built on state-owned land,
brownfields, landfills, solar canopies or systems that are designed to power
certain critical facilities such as a hospital or police station.
Despite widespread support for a more uniform tax structure,
talks in the legislature stalled for years as developers and local officials
debated the exact tax rate commercial solar projects should face.
In 2021, state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, introduced legislation proposing a flat, $5,000-per-megawatt tax
on commercial solar arrays. While Rhode Island already had a similar law
charging the same rate for solar facilities, Osten said the idea failed to gain
traction in Connecticut.
“I don’t think people understood the concept of it, and
nobody had had the experience,” Osten said. “I think it took a long time to get
people’s interest on it.”
The following year, lawmakers tucked language into a broader
energy bill requiring the Office of Policy and Management to conduct a study of
taxes that are applicable to commercial solar projects. That report, released in 2023, highlighted the number of
legal disputes over tax exemptions and called for a more “clear and consistent
framework.”
Over the next several years, Foster said negotiations over
setting a flat tax ranged from the initial $5,000-per-megawatt proposal to some
as high as $13,000-per-megawatt. By 2025, the two sides were able to meet at
around $10,000, according to multiple people involved in the discussions.
“I think it was really tied to figuring out what that number
should be that created the delay,” said Will Herschel, chief executive at West
Hartford solar developer Verogy.
The idea gained the support of East Windsor First Selectman
Jason Bowsza, whose town is home to the largest concentration of commercial
solar arrays in Connecticut, with seven facilities either active or under
development.
Bowsza said the town was able to negotiate a tax
stabilization agreement with one developer; another developer agreement was
worked out via court settlement. Bowsza said five other projects qualified
for exemptions allowing them to pay no property taxes.
Earlier this year, Bowsza and other local officials successfully
lobbied lawmakers to pass a moratorium on new solar development in
East Windsor and neighboring Enfield due to frustrations over the amount of
land being turned over to developers, in addition to the loss of revenue from
tax-exempt projects.
But for other towns that are just starting to field interest
from solar developers, having a standard tax rate will make it easier for
local officials to determine whether or not a specific project is in the best
interest of the town — and its finances — Bowsza said.
It’ll be easier to compare the revenue a town currently
receives from a given property against what it would receive if solar were
installed there, Bowsza said. “They can then decide based on looking at those
numbers whether or not they want to contest an application.”
During the 2026 legislative session, before the new tax went
into effect, lawmakers made a last-minute fix to it. A drafting error in the
original legislation had exempted some existing projects from having to pay
personal property taxes.
Foster said the inadvertent exemption applied to around six
projects. The fix, which was included H.B. 5442, subjected those projects to the uniform
capacity tax starting in 2026 and lasting for 19 years — as opposed to 20 for
those projects that commence operations this year.