New Haven coliseum will be imploded Saturday
NEW HAVEN, Conn. --This city that has struggled for decades to be a model of urban renewal plans to blow up a centerpiece of its past Saturday in 18 seconds and try another strategy.
The oft-delayed implosion of Veterans Memorial Coliseum has been scheduled for 7:30 a.m. Crews are trucking in 15,000 rented tires to absorb the impact and traffic at the busy Interstate 95/91 interchange will be stopped so drivers aren't startled by the noise and vibrations.
"It's the passing of an old friend whose time had come," Mayor John DeStefano said Tuesday.
After the rubble is cleared, Gateway Community College and Long Wharf Theatre will move from the outskirts of the city to the coliseum site and an adjacent property. Those moves are part of a $230 million development project that also includes stores and up to 280 housing units.
The coliseum opened in 1972 and hosted minor league hockey, wrestling matches, monster truck rallies, the circus and concerts from performers including Elvis Presley and the Grateful Dead.
Like many similar projects around the country, the arena was designed to resuscitate a once blighted downtown.
But the coliseum, which closed in 2002, never generated the kind of business officials expected. Instead of crowding restaurants and shops, visitors parked on the rooftop garage, saw a show and left.
Critics argue that DeStefano is replacing one failed plan with another, more expensive one.
"The last thing New Haven needs is more nonprofit activities," said developer Joel Schiavone. "It's the worst possible approach to try and revive downtown."
Schiavone said non-profits will take up valuable downtown blocks without paying taxes or generating more business. A better approach, used by successful cities, would be to build apartments and condominiums, he said.
"They've got to get people to live downtown," Schiavone said. "They have a wonderful opportunity to restore New Haven to what it was -- a place where people lived and where people shopped."
City officials said the plan includes more housing and taxable properties and will enhance New Haven's role as the cultural arts capital of Connecticut. The new development will create thousands of construction jobs, millions of dollars in new taxes and additional spending by bringing college students and theater visitors downtown, officials say.
New Haven has enjoyed a revival in recent years with more stores downtown, the emergence of biotechnology firms and a growing nightlife. But it didn't come easily.
New Haven spent more per capita in federal money than any other city in the 1960s. Whole neighborhoods were bulldozed and one in five residents was displaced to make way for a highway, a mall, parking garages and, finally, a sweeping modernistic coliseum of steel and concrete.
Besides the failed coliseum, New Haven tried for years to open a major mall, but finally gave up amid litigation from the owner of nearby malls. IKEA, the Swedish furniture and houseware retailer, opened on the site instead.
The implosion of the coliseum was supposed to happen in September 2005, but was delayed by concerns about protecting sensitive utility lines. Those concerns added $1.8 million to the cost of the project.
Part of the building has already been dismantled and there is no interior stone, meaning the implosion should not create much dust.
The implosion will leave 50-foot piles of rubble. Within a few months, the rubble will be cleared and the area will be paved as a temporary parking lot until New Haven embarks on its next development.
