West Haven council advised against fed funding for arts center
At a special meeting in December, ARPA Committee chairman Ken Carney advised the council that the city has pressing needs related to youth safety, such as school athletic fields in poor condition and a failing boiler at Carrigan School, that will cost the city much more to address if it were to wait any longer. Carney said the $3.5 million earmarked for the arts center included in Mayor Nancy Rossi’s plan to spend the city’s $29 million allocation of American Rescue Plan Act funding could be better applied to addressing the city’s basic infrastructure concerns.
“No one is going to say, ‘You have a bad breaker in City Hall, we’re going to donate to fix that,'” Carney said. Yet, he argued, there are private donors and government grants that can support the development of a downtown arts hub.
For years, the city has eyed a former Masonic lodge at 304 Center St. as a potential site for an arts center that would support theater, fine art and other cultural events. The project seemingly stalled for years as the city lacked funding to begin the second phase of development, after having stripped the building to its studs.
Several council members expressed similar concerns, that now may not be the best time for investing in an arts center. Most added the caveat that they support the arts and would like to see a successful and thriving downtown arts scene, but did not believe it a pragmatic investment.
“Weighing everything out, we’re going to have to save the taxpayers’ money first before pumping money into an arts center,” said Councilman Gary Donovan, D-At Large. “We don’t even really know because we didn’t get any prices on anything.”
Councilman Ron Quagliani, D-At Large, noted that the building’s assessed value — $738,000 according to city land records — is a fraction of the proposed $3.5 million construction price tag.
“I think the arts community is vibrant and could be more vibrant. They should have a space, but it’s the wrong building,” he said.
Carney said inflation has made the project less viable than when it was included in Rossi’s plan, and a lot of maintenance work would need to be done to make a three-story building accessible to the public under current regulations, including excavating the side and installing elevators He said the city has not received a design for the building, a process that can take almost one year to complete and would leave a little time before the Dec. 31, 2024, deadline when all ARPA funds must be officially designated.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think we have enough money to finish this thing, even with $3.5 million,” he said. “In the meantime, other projects aren’t going away: electrical, the fields, things on this list that has to be done or they end up in the bond list.”
At a public hearing last summer, roughly a dozen supporters of an arts center at 304 Center St. explained to the City Council about the value of the arts to a city’s morale and its economic development. Elinor Slomba, president of ArtsWest CT, responded to concerns from some residents that city streets were pockmarked with potholes by saying that having a downtown economic driver that supports patronage of local businesses is how the city collects the tax revenue needed to patch the roads.
Following the December special meeting, Slomba said she was disappointed the council seemed to be basing its decisions on “a single source of information” — the recommendations of one civilian who leads a volunteer committee.
“I can understand there are a lot of immediate pressures the council is facing in weighing the needs of their constituents, and I would just urge them not to abandon the center of town and not to lose courage, to at least do what we can do to move this project forward,” she said. “You don’t pull the plug on a project without consulting with key stakeholders.”
Slomba said a lot of work and consulting had been done in the lead-up to the center being included in Rossi’s ARPA plan; prior to that plan’s official release, the city’s state delegation obtained $2 million in state bonding for downtown revitalization, $1.5 million of which was earmarked for 304 Center St. to be developed as an arts center. She warned that she believes the City Council is operating with “blind spots” and the rush to complete projects before a deadline may be to the city’s detriment.
“Sometimes when you’re rushing, you’re wasting time,” she said. “Many creative people in the arts know the wisdom of, ‘slow down to speed up.'”
Simon McDonald, director of membership and marketing for the Milford Chamber of Commerce — which now represents the city’s economic development interests — said that regardless of the council’s spending priorities with ARPA funding, he believes the arts are a strong economic driver for a city.
“I think they could get a lot out of having a space in that area,” he said. “As a resident of Milford, I see what the arts have done for the community.”
State Rep. Dorinda Borer, D-West Haven, who was co-chairwoman of the General Assembly’s bonding subcommittee, was instrumental in obtaining the $1.5 million in state bonding for the arts center.
“Between the money the city already invested and the state grant, I was under the assumption we could get the doors open,” Borer said. “There has not been a plan in front of the council, so at this point I can’t blame them.”
Several members of the council have bemoaned that, despite repeated requests for a business plan to demonstrate the economic feasibility of the arts center as well as a deliberate intention from the city to ensure its success, they have not seen a plan.
“In 2013, there was a comprehensive plan created and series of Memorandum of Understandings put in place between the City of West Haven, the then West Haven Council on the Arts, and private partnerships in anticipation of opening the Center. In my opinion, this The plan was well thought out, collaborative, and essential to the successful operation of a self-sustaining program,” said Quagliani in an emailed statement. “Several months ago, I requested a similar updated plan to be submitted to the Council for review. I have not received that plan to date and I am not aware that there has been any one group designated as the responsible entity to lead this initiative or manage this asset which is likely why no information has been received and underscores my reluctance to fund this project at this time.”
Slomba disagreed with council members’ claims that no business plan has been submitted, as ArtsWest CT submitted two documents outlining a plan for the building’s viability as a fiscally solvent operation.
“It’s more accurate to say they haven’t acknowledged any specific plan,” she said.
Borer said she believes it’s a benefit to the city that there are community advocates for an arts center who have taken initiative on behalf of the city, but the responsibility for executing a plan for a city-owned building falls on city leadership.
“There needed to be city leadership. You can’t have an outside organization making a plan,” she said. “You can’t do it without the leadership of the city.”
Councilwoman Bridgette Hoskie, D-1, expressed her concerns that a newly-developed building could end up in disrepair, like the Savin Rock Conference Center on Rock Street, which became dilapidated after years of neglect.
Quagliani said he did not know whether it was made clear who was responsible for developing a business plan, but the lack of response “leads me to believe no official designation has been made,” which informs his instinct not to support allocating federal money toward the building.
Rossi did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Before releasing her finalized ARPA plan to the City Council last year, she stated her intention to allocate money towards the arts center. However, at the June 2022 public hearing she said she is “not getting involved in the intricacies of ARPA” after turning over her plan to the City Council and creating a volunteer ARPA Committee to manage projects approved by the council.
Borer said she “doesn’t blame” the council for pulling back its support given the lack of clear planning. However, she said “it doesn’t mean we have to throw the baby out with the bath water.”
Borer has repeatedly advocated for the city to hire a city planning director to coordinate overall planning goals for city neighborhoods instead of having the city do development on a building-by-building basis; she said the current status of the planned arts center underlines the city’s need for such a position. Rossi included a line item in the city’s budget for a contractor to carry out such a role, but no hire has been made more than halfway into the fiscal year.
Some council members said that, even if the city does not apply the full $3.5 million in funding towards the arts center, they wanted to see a good faith effort at doing something so the city does not lose the $1.5 million in state bonding for the building’s development.
“I feel totally uncomfortable zeroing out the arts center,” said Councilwoman Colleen O’Connor, R-At Large. Councilwoman Robbin Watt-Hamilton, D-5, said she, too, would not want to see the city pay money to abate a building and prepare it to be developed and then abandon the project.
Borer said having the city back away from a bonded project was “new territory” for her and she was unsure whether the city would need to return the $1.5 million, as it was part of a larger package.