“Union Station’s customers have been the center of our Union Station negotiations with the City of New Haven,” Rouse told the News. Kafi Rouse, spokesperson for the Commissioner’s Office of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, expressed support for developing commercial infrastructure in the area around Union Station. “We wanted to make sure that wouldn’t be overloaded just with parking, but that it had services and amenities for the neighborhood and attracted development as well,” Piscitelli told the News. He noted that the new developments will allow private companies commercial access to about four million people a year, following the station’s expected return to pre-pandemic ridership. This garage would increase parking capacity and build some “vertical development” near the station, Piscitelli said. He said that building a new parking garage outside the station could be a solution to this problem.ĭuring negotiations, representatives from New Haven and the state of Connecticut agreed to construct a 600 space parking garage with additional amenities and services at the site. It shouldn’t be left open, like it is now,” said Evan Brooks of Newtown, Connecticut.īrooks said he passes through Union Station often, and criticized the long lines of cars from ride-share services outside the station. “There should be housing put in and some more development. Lines from Amtrak, MTA-North and CT-Rail have stops at the station, and several buses offer service. New Haven subcontracts the maintenance and staffing of the station to the New Haven Parking Authority.Īccording to Amtrak’s 2019 data fact sheet, New Haven Union Station is the busiest Amtrak station in Connecticut. The station is still owned by the state of Connecticut, which they lease to New Haven. The organizational structure of the station will remain relatively unchanged in the new lease. “We’re really anticipating federal dollars to support the private dollars that will be here, as well as state dollars if needed.” “The goal of the negotiations is to reimagine Union Station for the next 35 years,” Doug Housladen ’04, head of the New Haven Parking Authority, told the News. Michael Piscitelli, the Economic Development Administrator for New Haven, said he views Union Station as the “linchpin” for the Hill to Downtown Plan. The new lease is set to begin in July of 2022 and comes after extensive discussions that are closely connected to New Haven’s “Hill to Downtown Community Plan,” an economic development plan originally composed in 2014. Representatives from New Haven and the Connecticut Department of Transportation have now tentatively agreed to terms for a 35 year lease of New Haven Union Station - a station that carried as many as four million passengers annually before the pandemic. Still, city officials now expect greater transparency regarding the operations of the station and its future infrastructure developments over the next 35 years. However, negotiations since then between the city of New Haven and Connecticut seem unlikely to end in New Haven owning Union Station. In 2017, former mayor of New Haven Toni Harp told WNHH radio that the city would like to own New Haven Union Station.
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