HAMDEN – For decades, the former Hamden Middle School campus has been a public hazard.
Shuttered since 2002, the falling down buildings at 550 Newhall St., the former Michael J. Whelan Middle School, have been frequented by homeless people, drug users and neighborhood youth despite a town-installed fence around the property and boarded-over windows, Legislative Council member Rhonda Caldwell told CT Examiner in a call last week.
At least a half-dozen fires have been reported at the property over the years.
The latest, on Wednesday, was reported at about 8:10 p.m. by several 911 callers. The fire was confined to one classroom on the third floor. No firefighters were injured during the incident in which they cut into the roof to access the fire and searched the top floor for occupants, Fire Marshal Brian Dolan told CT Examiner.
Dolan said he suspects the fire was deliberately set, but because he has so far been unable to identify who was responsible for setting it, he has logged the cause as “undetermined.”
The fire is further proof, Caldwell said, that despite town efforts, the building remains a public hazard.
“Clearly the fence didn’t stop someone from getting in there and setting another fire, so it’s really a problem,” said Caldwell. “Why do we have to constantly have these lives at risk to go and save an abandoned building? It’s outrageous.”
Caldwell, a Democrat, has represented the town’s fifth district since 2023, which includes the abandoned school. She is also a social justice organizer and a former Police Commission chair.
He told CT Examiner that police have been called to the property on a number of occasions in response to reports of vandalism and drug dealing.
Hamden Fire Chief Shelly L. Carter said such derelict buildings are a safety problem for the town’s public safety employees – luckily, Carter said, it’s one of the few the city has to deal with.
“If there’s so many fires at one [place], for a long period of time, then it compromises structure. And at two o’clock in the morning, you’re not necessarily able to see what’s going on. If there’s a hole in the floor, if there’s something going on with the roof, it causes my concern,” Carter said Monday, adding that another small fire, limited to a few ceiling tiles, was reported over the weekend.
“We don’t know how structurally sound this building is, and I don’t want to put anyone in danger if there’s no person in there that we need to rescue,” Carter added.
Years of stalled plans
The town has considered a variety of plans for the campus over the years, but none have come to fruition.
A plan to convert the old gymnasium into a community center and construct 87 apartments fell through after seven years in 2022; a $9 million community campus; a senior center; and, most recently, a youth and community center were among others scrapped for lack of funding or other concerns.
Caldwell said she liked the community center plan, but joined the council majority in an 8-5 vote against the plan in July in the face of strong neighborhood opposition. Residents instead favored a plan to replace the foundations of about 300 houses in Newhall, in the southern portion of town.
The state and town have also stepped in with federal ARPA funding to fix foundations and right a historical wrong – the disposal of industrial waste in the wetland and low spots between the 1910s and 1960 where the houses were later built. Winchester Repeating Firearms deposited coal ash and manufacturing waste in those wetlands as far back as World War I.
As of May,126 property assessments for the foundation repairs were completed and preliminary cost estimates of between $9.6 million and $11.4 million were set for the repairs, according to the town.
Speaker of the House Matt Ritter visited Newhall a few weeks ago in support of adding matching funds – about $8 million – to the program, said Caldwell.
“The neighbors had been waiting for their homes to be fixed. They never wanted a community center,” Caldwell said. “We had to listen to their market situation. They came out to numerous council meetings and they just were like, can you please not do that and focus on our homes?”
Another plan in the works
But the council’s shift away from a proposed community center in June might not be the last word on the blighted property
Since the vote, town workers have been reworking contracts with two private demolition firms to allow the property to be razed, Town Engineer Stephen White said, even without a plan for redeveloping the property.
White said the town was also working with an outside company to update a decade-old environmental assessment of the property to reflect changes in the law.
If those efforts meet with the approval of the council, and state officials with the Department of Economic and Community Development and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the razing of the school campus could start as early as early next year, said White.
Caldwell in the meantime told CT Examiner she’ll try not to get her hopes up about the town’s latest solution.
“OK,” she said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”