Lamont: Nearly $1M grant to help develop former New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum site
The office of Gov. Ned Lamont said late Tuesday that he would on Wednesday announce plans to redevelop the site of the former New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum and construct a 277,435-square-foot “Class A life sciences and tech office building” there.
The governor will hold a press briefing on the plan at the former site of the New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum; 265 South Orange St., which is now a parking lot. The coliseum, a music and sports venue for generations, which was demolished in 2007, “was the final piece of the late mayor Richard C. Lee’s dream of a revitalized city,” then Quinnipiac University Associate Professor Richard Hanley said, in a statement by the New Haven Museum. “And, like other projects, it didn’t work,” Hanley noted in that statement.
Lamont’s office said in an emailed statement late Tuesday that to “facilitate construction” of the life sciences and tech office building, the state “is awarding a $990,000 grant through the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s Brownfield Remediation and Development Program to perform soil remediation, excavation, and disposal of impacted soils at the 0.8-acre parcel.”
The statement noted the site has been been a parking lot “since the demolition of the sports and entertainment arena in 2007.”
The statement also said Lamont is to be joined by New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development Deputy Commissioner Matthew J. Pugliese, and other.
“To many baby boomers, the former New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum represents the glory days: From Aerosmith to ZZ Top, and even Elvis, the Elm City hosted some of the biggest names of the 70s, 80s and 90s, along with minor-league hockey, monster-truck pulls and professional wrestling,” museum staff noted in 2022.