New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Developments aim to transform Elm City
Pirelli building becoming sustainable hotel, while Whit Wooster Square aims to set new standard for rental living
NEW HAVEN — This is no cookie-cutter design, something to which the 140,000 drivers who travel past the site daily can attest.
Bruce Redman Becker’s Hotel Marcel, a reuse of the city’s iconic Pirelli building, plans to be open next fall despite the hit the hospitality business has taken since the response to coronavirus pandemic crushed the economy.
Becker said Wednesday that the historical aspect of the building, its unique design, its sustainability features as the first zero-net hotel in the country, and its very visible location along
side Interstate 95 will make for a successful $50 million investment.
The hotel will be a Hilton as part of its Tapestry brand. Chesapeake Hospitality, which runs 30-40 hotels on the East Coast, will be the operator.
A day before work on the hotel began, Hine, an international real estate firm, broke ground for its 230 rental apartments and some 5,600 square feet of retail space across two buildings at 630 and 673 Chapel St., yet another construction project underway in New Haven.
The Whit Wooster Square is the first multifamily development in Connecticut for Hine, adding to its 18,000unit portfolio.
Hine took over the project from Spinnaker Real Estate Partners, which put it on the market after years of litigation by a competing developer in New Haven, all of which Spinnaker won. But that slowed its plans as it continued to work on Audubon Square where hundreds of apartments there are now occupied.
Becker, the architect and developer for Hotel Marcel, last was in New Haven when he built 360 State Street, a 30-floor apartment complex downtown with a groundfloor boutique grocery store.
The conversion of the Pirelli building, designed in 1967 by brutalist architect Marcel Breuer, will feature 165 rooms along the perimeter on five of its floors.
There will be a restaurant and bar with flexible conference space on the ground floor and parking for 130 cars next to the hotel.
Becker said he will work with the Canal Dock Boathouse across the way on Long Wharf Drive on event planning. He said the hotel will have some 7,000 square feet of conference space.
The building originally was the corporate headquarters for Armstrong Rubber, and then for the Pirelli Tire Co.
As part of the historical preservation, Becker said they are retaining the original executive offices on the 8th floor, which will be converted to the nicest suites.
Becker said the biggest intervention in the renovation will be on the 9th floor.
He said when the headquarters was being built for Armstrong, it only wanted a two-story structure. ThenMayor Richard C. Lee, who was redeveloping the city at the time, wanted something more impressive as the entrance to New Haven off the highway.
Becker said an additional 16-foot story was added to the top, reportedly to house the mechanicals for the building, but he said there were only two pieces of equipment there. “It was really done for the scale of the building and was underpurposed, he said.” He said a cooling tower was sunk inside the roof.
Now the plan is to open it up to let light into what will be a meeting room floor with courtyards and gallery space. He said there also will be a small terrace with views of Long Island Sound and the New Haven cityscape.
The Whit Wooster Square is replacing the former Comcast building and also will use space across the street which will partially continue to be a parking for the adjacent Smoothie apartment building. The new apartments will feature a brick facade and steel accents, drawing on the architecture of the former industrial buildings in the area.
Another apartment complex, located behind The Whit, is further along in its construction schedule. Both of these buildings are filling in the connection between downtown and the Wooster Square neighborhood.
The Whit will feature a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom residences as well as several two-story, loft-style apartment homes.
The amenities for the complex will include communal workspaces with private offices; a club room with “chill lounge”; and a social dining room and with catering kitchen. The social space will connect to a roof terrace featuring grilling stations, bar and lounge seating, a fire pit and views of the treelined Olive Street and Wooster Square Park.
An outdoor courtyard at The Whit Wooster Square will feature a resort-style pool; lounge area with fire pit; grilling stations with dining areas; and a connection to the interior club room. An expansive fitness center with a yoga room, coffee bar, bike room and dog wash round out the amenities at The Whit Wooster Square.
“We expect The Whit Wooster Square to bring a new rental experience to this already vibrant enclave of New Haven,” said Grant Jaber, managing director at Hines. “The combination of upscale amenity spaces with thoughtful residence layouts and high-end finishes throughout will set a new benchmark for rental living in the area.”
For the hotel, Becker said it will be one of the first in the country to operate without fossil fuels.
“(Given) the climate crisis and global warming, we felt that if we are going to make a commitment (to sustainability) we wanted to develop this building in a way that does not contribute to that problem,” Becker said.
He said they will heat and cool the building with electric high-efficiency VRF air-source heat pumps. Solar power that will be installed on the roof and in solar canopies in the parking lot will provide all the electricity needs. Taken together this will make it a zero-net energy building.
All lighting will be lowvoltage DC power-overethernet LED technology, cutting energy use for lighting by 30 percent, he said.
As a result of the materials Becker said he is using and the insulation of the building envelope, he said it also will be the first passive house certified hotel in the United States, a standard that has already been adopted in Europe.
Another sustainability goal is LEED Platinum certification, which he said only 10 of the 80,000 hotels in the United States have earned.
Hotel Marcel is being financed with a $25 million loan from Liberty Bank; Bank of America is investing in historic tax credits, and United Illuminating is providing some funding to help meet the developer’s energy goals. Connecticut Innovation extended a tax exemption on materials.
Chris Green of Chesapeake Hospitality said the hotel will be recognized nationwide and maybe worldwide for its sustainability features and commitment to being a passive house.
“That doesn’t just happen in the hotel environment,” Green said. “I think the New Haven community is going to experience something that they didn’t believe was possible in this hotel.”
Given the pressure on the hospitality industry now, “making this kind of statement and this kind of commitment matters to the hospitality industry.”
Chris Arnold, senior vice president of commercial real estate at Liberty Building, said they are investing in the hotel for a number of reasons. He said they wanted to be associated with something that is “very important to New Haven in terms of redeveloping an historic landmark.”
He said it has unique attributes being located at the juncture of Interstates 95 and 91 with its high traffic count. He said the sustainability features will appeal to people at Yale University and visitors going there, as well as Yale New Haven Hospital. In addition, Arnold said it will be a good meeting place for business people coming from New York and Boston.
New Haven as a whole needs additional hotels, he said. Arnold said the Hilton reservation system is very strong and will drive occupancy. He said there will be shuttle buses to downtown.
Kraemer Sims Becker, Bruce Becker’s wife and business partner, said the Hotel Marcel project “synthesizes everything Bruce has been about. It is really his passion for design, historic preservation, green energy, green architecture. The other part is he is so committed to Connecticut,” having grown up in New Canaan. “He has made such a commitment to Connecticut cities.”
“It all comes together in this building,” Kraemer Becker said.