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FRESH START

New owners to transform long-troubled Chapel Square Mall, reviving key New Haven location with new retailers, restaurants

BY DEBRA HAZEL

Photo: Vern M. Williams

Chapel Square Mall suffered a long decline in recent decades and now stands empty.

It was once the dominant mall in the New Haven, Conn., area, but today Chapel Square Mall stands empty.

“This used to be Main and Main” for New Haven retail, said W. Lehr Jackson, a principal of Williams Jackson Ewing, Baltimore, a part owner of the mall. The history of the once successful (though more recently, deeply troubled) mall has in many respects mirrored that of New Haven itself over the past few decades.

Local developer Roger Stevens opened Chapel Square in 1964 as part of an effort to renew downtown New Haven. Like many cities in the U.S. Northeast, New Haven suffered from a combination of the post-World War II flight of urban dwellers to the suburbs and the decline of the region’s manufacturing base.

The center, which spanned three city blocks bounded by Temple, Church and Chapel streets and North Frontage Road, formed a monolith whose solid exterior did not interact with the street at all. At its opening, the center was anchored by Malley’s, a family-owned department store, and by Macy’s. For a time, it prospered.

“The idea was in the vanguard, but what was ill-conceived was that Macy’s and Malley’s were at the caboose,” trailing the mall on adjacent streets, said Scott Healy, acting director of New Haven’s Town Green Special Services District. “It worked at the time, because it was very automobile-based,” with a then-novel, adjacent parking deck.

But the opening of suburban malls — Connecticut Post Mall opened in 1960 and Meriden Mall opened in 1971 — eroded Chapel Square’s customer base, despite its proximity to downtown offices and Yale University, just two long blocks away. Malley’s closed in January 1982.

Enter The Rouse Co., then in the midst of its urban development era, during which it built such centers as Faneuil Hall, Boston; and Harborplace, Baltimore. In 1984-85, about the time it sold its interest in Connecticut Post Mall to what today is called Westfield America Trust, Rouse renovated and re-leased Chapel Square in a partnership with the city of New Haven and Yale. (The Yale University Endowment Fund holds a small stake in the center.)

“We started re-leasing to upgrade the mix, bringing in [British home furnishings retailer] Conran’s, putting together a food court,” said John E. Pollard, SCSM, president of Middlebury, Conn.-based Real Estate Advisors. Pollard oversaw the Chapel Square effort for Rouse and is now leasing downtown New Haven for Yale (see story, Bush-league to Ivy League).

The tenants were a blend of locals and nationals; in keeping with the demographics at the time, they were not particularly high-end. But Chapel Square’s problems were far from over. Macy’s, in the midst of its bankruptcy proceedings, threatened to leave. The state came to the rescue, offering the store $2 million to stay. Macy’s did, until just after the agreement period, in mid-1993. It then closed after having collected $889,000 of the state’s money. Conran’s remained as the mall’s sole anchor for several months. Then in March 1994 it, too, abandoned the mall, as the company pulled out of the United States entirely.

“That was the point at which it turned difficult,” Pollard recalled. In 1995 Rouse pulled out, with the management of the mall reverting to the New Haven Chamber of Commerce. With no anchors, most of the national chains departed, leaving the center populated mostly by local and service-based merchants such as hair and nail salons.

Yet another developer, The Cordish Co., then became involved. Cordish Co. had a contract with the city to redevelop the abandoned Park Plaza hotel, adjacent to Chapel Square.

“I said to the city, ‘If we pull off a miracle and build the hotel, I want an option to buy the mall.’ We signed an option agreement,” said David Cordish, president and chairman of the Baltimore-based developer. The hotel reopened as the Omni Hotel in 1994, but the city reneged on the mall option. Instead it pursued talks with Taubman Centers and New England Development about redeveloping the site, all of which came to nothing. Meanwhile, Cordish sued in 1998, and the city and a partner, Philadelphia-based Lubert-Adler Management, paid Cordish a total of $3 million last year to settle all claims and compensate him for the option.

That opened the way for Williams Jackson Ewing, which had revitalized the retail at other urban projects, including Union Station, Washington, D.C.; Grand Central Terminal, New York City; and Suburban Square, Philadelphia. Williams Jackson Ewing joined Lubert-Adler and New Haven-based College Street in April 2002 to buy the project for about $6 million.

“We had been in college communities for years,” said Jackson, whose company’s projects include Palmer Square, Princeton, N.J. “We love college towns and college communities. We think they have a vibrancy no shopping center can duplicate.”

But it wasn’t until Yale began redeveloping retail in the streets around its campus that New Haven’s true potential, and that of Chapel Square, became more evident, according to Jackson. The downtown is much safer than it was a decade ago, thanks to community policing efforts.

“Suddenly, New Haven is a neat little town,” Jackson said. “It’s always been a great restaurant town, and really vibrant culturally.”

Chapel Square’s overall retail market population is nearly 2.5 million people, while household income within three miles averages $54,000. That grows to $75,000 within 10 miles. Increasingly, the residents of tony nearby towns, including Greenwich and Westport, visit downtown New Haven for entertainment and shopping.

Jackson quickly saw that a major reconfiguration was needed. What wasn’t needed was a department store.

“Look at what’s happened to them,” he said. “There’s consolidation and decay.”

Instead, the new, 200,000-square-foot Chapel Square will largely face outward. The exterior with its entrances will use lots of glass to showcase merchandise. The renovation, estimated at $20 million, will also add four levels of apartments and refurbish nine levels of office space over the mall.

Plans call for a two-level bookstore and a home furnishings chain to anchor the corners on Chapel Street. Joining them will be at least two sidewalk restaurants and approximately 12 specialty stores ranging from 1,750 square feet to over 10,000 square feet. At press time, Jackson was still negotiating leases and declined to identify tenants.

The mall’s interior won’t be eliminated completely. Entrances on both Temple and Church streets will lead to an arcade housing a food market and a rotunda that will be a gathering point as well as a link to the Omni Hotel.

“We believe in food markets, where everybody can get great food, such as the 43rd Street Market we did at Grand Central Terminal,” Jackson said.

The second level will accommodate a fitness club and other tenants.

“Turning the stores so they’re facing out onto the street will make it much more appealing,” said Lynn Fredricksen, communications director of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, which is located in the office tower above the mall.

Neighboring retailers note that a strong Chapel Square can only benefit the downtown redevelopment Yale pioneered.

“We’ve been supportive of their efforts, and it will complement ours,” Pollard said.

Cordish, too, says he wishes Chapel Square well.

“God bless them,” he said. Demalling the project “makes perfect sense for what they’re doing. If Rouse couldn’t make it work as a mall, who can?”

Stores will begin opening in September, with completion scheduled for next summer. “We’re excited about it,” Jackson said, “and about New Haven.”

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