New Haven development projects seen as means to create ‘jobs pipeline’ [New Haven Register, Conn.]

Dec. 26--NEW HAVEN -- In the past 12 years, Carter Winstanley has renovated more than 1.2 million square feet of real estate in the city, helping to fill commercial space with bioscience labs and offices, and spur development downtown and in Science Park.

Two of his current projects are among those targeted by the union-affiliated Connecticut Center for a New Economy and newly elected city aldermen as part of their vision for a "jobs pipeline" and training that circles back to local neighborhoods.

According to its website, the center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the economic and social well-being of working families in urban centers by initiating and supporting efforts to raise wages of the working poor, improve public education and training, and preserve affordable housing.

The center put out a report outlining the need to demand job training and local hiring from projects that qualify for state and federal grants and tax credits aimed at renovation and work force expansion.

It will be the first test of a potential community benefits agreement since the concept was introduced in 2006 as part of labor peace with Yale-New Haven Hospital, when that institution agreed to hire workers from the city, advancement opportunities for its current employees and millions in direct contributions to New Haven and training programs.

The question is how this applies to a developer, as opposed to a business owner or a major institution like the hospital, who is responsible for construction and attracting tenants, but makes no decisions on who those tenants hire.

The broader question is who should be responsible for job training, particularly given the high unemployment rate, a stalled economy and the increasing wage gap between the wealthiest in the country and the shrinking middle class.

Winstanley, currently the highest taxpayer in the city, spends more time in New Haven than at his Massachusetts development offices.

"I'm the city's biggest salesman, and I'm out selling the city of New Haven every day and selling tenants why they should be here, but every other city in New England is attempting to do the same thing," Winstanley said in a recent interview.

He said there is only so much he can do.

"If I'm saying, by the way, you are going to have to set aside X number of dollars to train, it makes it a harder sell," Winstanley said.

He can influence construction hiring and he has voluntarily met or exceeded the city's hiring goals for residents and minorities on private projects he developed.

A critcal report by CCNE doesn't recognize this, and city officials said it misunderstands the purpose of a brownfield training program run at the former Winchester Repeating Arms site he's starting to transform.

Winstanley said as a city, "We want to open up as many avenues as we can into these jobs (including high tech,) but if we don't bring them here in the first place, we will never have the opportunity to let those avenues work. So we need both," he said of a partnership with the city.

"By approaching it straight through the employers is not really the answer," he said.

Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said the frustration over high unemployment is a national issue, and people's demands here are part of that concern. He pointed out, however, that half of New Haven residents don't work in the city.

"We rely on a regional job market, and as long as the state and regional job market is down, it is going to be a challenge for everybody," DeStefano said. If you look at what is driving the economy in New Haven it is knowledge- based businesses, he said, and the need is for technical skills.

"I think there are lots of credible organizations that provide skills training, whose missions are to do that, who are funded to do that," the mayor said, pointing to the community colleges and the regional work force development board.

New Haven is in the middle of a project to reclaim 11 developable acres downtown by eliminating the Route 34 limited-access highway. That road split the area 50 years ago in a discredited redevelopment model more accommodating to commuters than neighborhoods.

The complicated public infrastructure improvements are estimated to cost $34.65 million, with the city contributing $7 million; Winstanley Enterprises putting in $500,000; some $800,000 will come from the New Haven Parking Authority; and $26,350,000 from federal and state sources.

A $100 million, multistory lab building and parking garage at 100 College St. to be built by Winstanley will be the first structure on the reclaimed site.

Because Route 34 is state land, that will be turned over to the city, which in turn plans to sell a portion to Winstanley for the lab building. New Haven will require certain standard commitments from him on hiring construction workers and minority contractors, as it has on other similar projects.

As part of a development agreement, 10 percent of his small-business contractors must be African American, 6 percent Hispanic and 11 percent women. The construction work force hiring goals are 25 percent city residents; 25 percent minorities; and 6.9 percent women.

The 100 College St. building and garage is expected to generate up to 2,000 construction jobs, while the tenants will bring between 600 and 960 permanent jobs of all skill levels.

The city also plans to develop curriculum and a career ladder program for New Haven residents interested in working in the bio-tech and medical research fields, which is similar to programs in place for nurses and allied health jobs.

This would be done in conjunction with the Workforce Alliance, Gateway Community College and the Economic Development Corp., with the EDC committing $100,000 and $150,000 from Winstanley.

"The reality is, we agreed to most of those (hiring goals) any ways (on projects on private land) even when we don't have to, so it is not a huge hurdle for us to get over," Winstanley said of the requirements.

He has just finished a $45 million conversion of two buildings at the former Winchester site, which will house the headquarters for a home-grown financial services company, Higher One.

The firm, which was founded by former Yale University students a decade ago, raised $36 million in a public offering in 2010, and will benefit from some $25 million in state grants and tax credits if it adds 200 jobs by 2015.

Several aldermanic candidates approached Higher One this summer about a training program for local residents. Anne Gatling Haynes, CEO of the Economic Development Corp., said it is working with the Regional Workforce Alliance on it.

Winstanley is still looking at the economics of converting another portion of Winchester's for housing, where 20 percent of the 200 units would be set aside for tenants with incomes less than 50 percent of area median income.

Winchester's was a major employer in the city for decades, with more than 16,000 manufacturing workers up to the late 1960s, according to the CCNE report, providing stable incomes for immigrants and African Americans for "at least two generations."

Those and other manufacturing jobs are now gone, replaced by low-wage service jobs or highly skilled medical and research work, which has left out many residents in a city plagued by sectors of deep poverty.

The CCNE report was critical of Winstanley's participation in a program for some 14 neighborhood residents, funded by federal stimulus funds, where they were trained in asbestos and lead removal and other hazardous brownfield work.

"For them to suggest that we made a small or immaterial effort just for the press is very disheartening. Anybody who works with us knows that we have been committed to this market for a very long time," Winstanley said.

The CNNE report said the 14 workers in training did not get permanent jobs at the Winchester site, and the work dried up shortly after they were trained.

But Lilia Snyder, program manager for Small Contractor Development at the city, said it was "always a training program. They were never promised a job. This was strictly career building."

Snyder said the 14 participants received $4,554 each in wages during the training, and a total of $8,864 when the value of license fees, equipment, a physical and course costs to Gateway Community College are added.

"Our whole focus was not to have a job for two to three weeks, but to give them the ability to earn a living," she said of the federal $120,000 grant that supported the training.

There were eight weeks of training and 10 days of on-the-job instruction.

Also, as part of the Minority Business Enterprise program, Eco-Urban Pioneers was hired and earned close to $300,000 for work on the site, while another local company, Wesley Oliver Painting and Construction, is receiving about $100,000, Snyder said.

The Winchester renovation for Higher One, which lasted from February through this month, had a work force that was 32 percent minority and paid an average of $19 an hour. A total of 25 percent of the workers were from New Haven, with the average wage again $19 an hour, exclusive of benefits for both groups, Snyder said.

"The numbers are phenomenal, and he has committed to do it for any project he will work on in the city," Snyder said.

When contractors are told to meet the city's hiring goals, "the backing of the developer is key to this success," Snyder said. "Everyone who is ready, willing and able, we try to get out there," she said of qualified workers.

Winstanley also fronted the money for the insurance for the two minority contractors in training, as well as paychecks for their workers until the delayed billing cycle kicked in.

"We helped them get to the finish line so they would be able to stand on their own two feet going forward," he said, something that was confirmed by Snyder.

Winstanley said construction is "linear" in nature -- when one task is finished, a new one can begin. Remediation work takes place at the front end.

"Just because you are trained in remediation, doesn't mean you have 11 months on the site," he said. Total remediation was finished a few weeks after the local people were trained.

On another front, he said they put some laborers who worked in one area, such as hanging Sheetrock, on painting duty "so they could stay longer on the job. Whenever we had the opportunity, we did it, but quickly, however you get into mill work and IT and the skills don't always translate," he said.

DeStefano said you engage in economic development to generate taxes to pay for services and hopefully to create as many jobs as you can.

Asked if he worries that development projects will be held up over discussions of community benefit agreements, he said, "I think people are reasonable and when people see the benefits of the project, they are self-evident."

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