Putting downtown back together

Unilever

View full image

Unilever

View full image

Since 2013, New Haven’s Downtown Crossing project has replaced two blocks of the Oak Street Connector—an unfinished artifact of postwar urban renewal dubbed the “expressway to nowhere”—with two large-scale commercial buildings serving the city’s biotech industry. This spring, the consumer goods giant Unilever announced it would occupy a $270 million building (above) to fill the third and final parcel of the project. When it opens, the company’s Global Innovation Center will employ about 300 people engaged in research and development for Unilever’s personal care and beauty brands like Dove, Axe, and Vaseline. The new buildings are between Yale’s central and medical campuses, and the university is a major tenant in the first two, 100 College and 101 College. “Our choice to put our new innovation hub in New Haven puts us right in the heart of where world-class talent already is,” Unilever R&D official Tiffany Yizar said in a video at the announcement of the new building.