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8 n e w h a v e n B I Z | J a n u a r y 2 0 2 0 | n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m T R E N D I N G : B e y o n d t h e H e a d l i n e s DECD's Lehman lays down Lamont's law In downtown, developers elbow for (hotel) rooms E C O N O M I C D E V E L O P M E N T I f you thought Gov. Ned Lamont's economic development strategy begins and ends with imposing tolls on trucks, you were wrong. It only begins with that. But according to David Lehman, commissioner of the state's Department of Economic & Community Development (DECD), there is so much more. According to Lehman, who joined Lamont's team last summer aer 15 years at investment bank- ing behemoth Goldman Sachs, the new administration's econom- ic-development strategy for 2020 rests on four pillars. He laid out the administration's plan Dec. 12 at the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce's Regional Economic Outlook Breakfast 2020. e first "pillar" is transportation — and not just tolling, which be- came a lightning rod for Lamont's transportation scheme and will be the subject of a special legislative session to convene in the new year. In November administration and lawmakers finally agreed on a ten-year, $20 billion transpor- tation plan. e plan includes long-overdue improvements to MetroNorth's New Haven Line, including faster and more reliable trains to Grand Central Station and service upgrades to the Wa- terbury line as well. Pillar No. 2 on the economic development agenda is "talent" — leveraging the state's educated workforce (nearly 50 percent with at least a bachelor's degree, vs. about a third nationwide) to jump-start business expansion and attract new employers. Lamont in October announced the creation of the Governor's Workforce Council, formerly known as the Connecticut Employment & Training Commission. Lehman named "fiscal stability" the third pillar of the governor's economic agenda. "We have not had our fiscal house in order," he said, of a state that has raised its income tax three times in the last decade rather than confront an "expense stream growing at a faster rate than its revenue stream." e source of that irreversible expense "stream" — state-employee pension costs — Lehman did not address. Lehman implicitly criticized the awarding of direct dollar incen- tives to companies to remain in or relocate to Connecticut, which under the Malloy administra- tion became a conspicuous $200 million-a-year failure as giant employers such as GE defected to greener pastures. "I don't think we need to have or should have the best or most aggres- sive job-creation incentives," Lehman said. "I think we need to have a competitive strategy that works for taxpayers and grows the economy." He said the Lamont team planned to roll out a new econom- ic-development "plan of action" in January or February that will "focus on industries that really grow the state's economy." n DECD Commissioner David Lehman. L O D G I N G & H O S P I TA L I T Y F or two decades New Haven was essentially a one-hotel town. Soon, the city center may house an embarrassment of lodging riches. During 2019 two upscale hotels opened in downtown New Haven — one new construction and the other a renovation of a historical Chapel Street hostelry. Over the same 12 months ground was broken on a third, while a fourth project was green-lighted for Rt. 34. Finally, an existing George Street hotel was sold to an owner that plans to reposition it for the Yale market. Last January, the 108-room, luxury extended-stay Blake Hotel opened at High and George streets downtown, the vision of developer Randy Salvatore of the Stamford- based RMS Companies. In late October longtime Chapel Demolition work at 80 Elm Street is clearing the way for a six-story Hilton Garden Inn. Street SRO fixture the Duncan Hotel was reborn as "Graduate New Haven" — an upscale, college- themed 72-room boutique hotel developed by Chicago-based AJ Capital Partners. In early December a Maryland hotel chain, Choice Hotels International, paid $2.8 million for a 0.78-acre parcel at 480 Martin Luther King Boulevard — the so-called "Route 34 West" superblock. Earlier in the fall the City Plan Commission approved the company's application to build a six-story, 130-room hotel on the site to be operated by Choice subsidiary Cambria Hotels. Also in early December, demolition began on the 1948 former Webster Bank building at 80 Elm Street. Norwalk's Spinnaker Real Estate Partners plans to build a six-story Hilton Garden Inn on the site. And last month, it was an- nounced that the Noble Investment Group had acquired the 135-room New Haven Hotel at 229 George Street from a subsidiary of the New- port Hotel Group. Also, a deal is said to be in the works to redevelop the long-fallow Pirelli headquarters building on Long Wharf into an upscale hotel. According to city Deputy Business Development Director Steve Fontana, the surge in activity is in part due to "pent-up demand" for both hotel rooms and rental residential units in the city center. at demand is a function in part of expansion at both Yale University, which has added two undergraduate residential colleges, and Yale New Haven Hospital, which has announced plans to build a major neuroscience center on the St. Raphael campus. "ere are more people coming to New Haven" than before, Fontana says, "and they need a place to stay." n

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