The Haven developers submit site plan application to West Haven PZC; Simon Property Group also involved

A house on 1st Ave. in West Haven photographed on January 24, 2018 is slated for demolition to make way for The Haven upscale outlet mall. A house on 1st Ave. in West Haven photographed on January 24, 2018 is slated for demolition to make way for The Haven upscale outlet mall. Photo: Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close The Haven developers submit site plan application to West Haven PZC; Simon Property Group also involved 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

WEST HAVEN — The developers of The Haven luxury outlet mall are moving forward with the 235,000-square-foot development, submitting an application for site plan approval to the city this week — with Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group joining The Haven Group as a partner in the project.

Simon, owner of the Clinton Crossing outlets in Clinton and the Crystal Mall in Waterford, is one of the largest shopping center developers in the world, with projects all over the United States, Europe and Asia that generate billions of dollars in sales, including the Copley Square Mall in Boston and Roosevelt Field on Long Island, N.Y.

The project currently is slated for completion in summer 2020 “and will transform West Haven into a retail and entertainment hub,” the developers said Tuesday in a news release. The plans filed with the Planning and Zoning Commission Monday call for 80 stores and five full-service restaurants.

“We are looking forward to bringing our extensive experience to this project in partnership with The Haven Group,” Danielle DeVita, executive vice president of Simon, said in the release. “We are also very pleased to be working with the City of West Haven on this one-of-a-kind luxury project.”

Ty Miller, the Dallas-based president of the Haven Group LLC, said, “We are very excited to move this project forward after years of behind-the-scenes effort. Today’s submission represents our best proposal yet.”

The Haven Group, originally a partnership led by Miller and the late Sheldon Gordon, who died last September, is affiliated with the family that owns Highland Park Village in Dallas.

Mayor Nancy Rossi, who watched the project begin to unfold during the administration of her predecessor, Mayor Ed O’Brien, said she’s pleased to see the application for site plan approval filed and believes The Haven has the capacity to be a major economic boost for West Haven.

“I’m very pleased and very excited that the first step is being taken for this project,” Rossi said.

“I do believe that this will definitely help the City of West Haven,” Rossi said. “It’s going to bring people to our city. Hopefully, people will go out to dinner” or enjoy the city’s shoreline while they’re in town, she said.

Rossi also said The Haven has the capacity to spur other development in the fiscally constrained city.

Despite the change in The Haven’s development team, “They said that nothing has changed,” she said.

In meetings since Rossi took office in December, “they kept stating that they were going forward with the project ... and I’ve been behind the project since I was on the City Council, so I’m very pleased about that,” Rossi said.

“This is a major step forward for a project of this magnitude, which lies along the eastern gateway to the city right off I-95 along the waterfront, making it a destination location that will complement three-plus miles of beaches,” Rossi said in the release.

“This prime site is also minutes from the downtown business district, regional train station, and campuses of the University of New Haven, Yale University West and Veterans Affairs Hospital,” Rossi said. “Since taking office, my staff and I have done everything we can to assist the developers, and we will continue that effort until the project is complete.”

The Haven had been in the property acquisition stage for the past four years as the developers negotiated with 57 property owners — missing several of its own previous stated completion target dates — leaving many in West Haven questioning whether it would ever move forward and upset about all the boarded-up properties within the project area.

The transfer of the city-owned Bayview Park — which was developed in part with federal funds and consequently needed federal approval to be sold for development — was one of the issues that held up the process, officials have said.

There are a total of 57 properties within the 24-acre project area, which is bounded by Main Street, First Avenue and Elm Street. The project includes what is now Water Street, which will be closed and eliminated as The Haven is built.

The Haven Group Executive Vice President Matt Armstrong has called The Haven “America’s first upscale waterfront outlet mall.”

Gordon, Miller and O’Brien unveiled the project, a $200 million, “high-end” shopping center to be built in two phases, on June 10, 2014.

In addition to 80 stores and five restaurants, the project would have a public waterfront promenade with a 200-seat amphitheater.

Armstrong said last fall that at that time the developer had spent more than $30 million on the privately financed development, which he has compared to the top 20 percent of the retail stores that constitute Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley, New York, about 50 miles north of New York City.

Armstrong has said The Haven would be the only direct-waterfront, luxury retail center in the country. It would pay $2 million in annual property tax and create more than $15 million in incremental sales tax for the state, he has said.

The Haven would provide 800 full-time and 400 part-time jobs, plus 800 construction jobs using all Connecticut-based contractors, he has said.