from The New Haven Independent

Yale To Move, Replace Historic Building

by Thomas Breen | Nov 21, 2019

Yale plans to move an historic two-story Trumbull Street building a few hundred feet down the block — and then build in its stead a new four-story building for the university’s Economics Department.

Yale Senior Program Planner James Elmasry and Associate Vice President for New Haven Affairs Lauren Zucker presented those construction and relocation plans Wednesday night during the regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission.

The meeting, which lasted nearly six hours, took place in the basement meeting room of the municipal office building at 200 Orange St. instead of the commission’s regular meeting space on the second floor of City Hall.

The commissioners unanimously granted Yale two key approvals it needs to move ahead with the project.

They signed off on the university’s site plan for relocating the early-19th century, two-story academic building at 87 Trumbull St. roughly a block east across Hillhouse Avenue and over to 85 Trumbull. That parcel, also owned by the university, is currently home to a driveway and a 30-space surface parking lot.

Elmasry said that the relocated building will take up the entire driveway and around five parking spaces at 85 Trumbull, leaving the rest of the lot intact.

The university plans to build out new storm sewers, drainage, utility services, and landscaping for the relocated building, as well as a new driveway for the slightly-smaller parking lot.

“That will be fun to watch,” City Plan Commission Chair Ed Mattison said with a smile about the university’s planned relocation of the historic two-story wooden building.

A contributing structure to the Hillhouse Avenue Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places, the house-turned-academic building was first built around 1807 and then rebuilt in 1871, according to the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation.

Elmasry said that the university will be preserving and relocating only the original wooden structure. It plans to demolish the two brick additions that were built on the western edge of the current building significantly later in its history.

Moving the structure down the street should take only a day to complete, Elmasry estimated. He added that digging the new foundation and preparing 85 Trumbull to receive the house will obviously take quite a bit longer.

He said the university plans to move the building sometime after June 2020 commencement. “We want to find a time that is not very populated” with students, he said.

City Plan Commission Vice-Chair Leslie Radcliffe warned him that, just because students from the regular academic year are no longer on campus during the summer, that doesn’t mean that that area of the university isn’t still teeming — with summer school students, staff, faculty, and visitors.

“I would recommend that this be moved on a weekend,” she said.

The commissioners also unanimously approved the university’s request for minor modifications to Planned Development Unit (PDU) 89 that would allow for the construction of a four-story, 37,750 square-foot Economics Department building on the soon-to-be-vacated site at 87 Trumbull.

That PDU, which is city planner-speak for a specifically defined area that allows for a bespoke mix of buildings and uses, is bounded by Henry Luce Hall to the north, the Yale Department of Economics to the east, Trumbull Street to the south, and Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies (of which 87 Trumbull is currently a part) to the west.

The City Plan staff report on the proposed new building indicates that it will connect to existing Economics Department offices located at 28 Hillhouse Ave. and 30 Hillhouse Ave. as well as to the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at 77 Prospect. The university plans to install new sidewalks, site lighting, landscaping, and stormwater management improvements, according to the report, and it will remove the existing driveway and curb cut, creating one new off-street parking space.

Day Pitney Attorney Joseph Hammer said the university does not need any zoning relief for the proposed new building. It needs a minor modification to the PDU to update that district’s building registry to included the proposed new structure.

Looking at the digital rendering for the planned new building, City Plan Commissioner and Westville Alder Adam Marchand asked Elmasry why the university does not plan to replicate the historic clapboard facade of the current 87 Trumbull St. building and its neighbors.

“Yale certainly can do it,” he said, remarking on the neo-Gothic aesthetic of the two new residential colleges nearby on Prospect Street.

There are some cost limitations, Elmasry said. Plus, “there’s quite a bit of programming we’re trying to get into this building.” The more open, modern design for the larger building allows for that kind of classroom capacity, he said.

And, he added, “we’re trying to respect the fact that this is new construction” that will be “complemented by all these gems” of early 19th-century architecture elsewhere on the block.