A state Department of Transportation report concludes it would cost $53 million to move the old Yale Boathouse from the path of Interstate 95 construction.
The estimate includes the $31 million projected cost of the move and an additional $22 million for a 16-month delay of work on the highway itself.
“It says ‘more money.’ It doesn’t say whether they’ll pay for it,” City Planner Karyn Gilvarg said Tuesday
Plans for a new 10-lane Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, also known as the “Q” bridge, carrying I-95 over the Quinnipiac River, would require the demolition of the boathouse if it remains in its current location.
The 92-year-old boathouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1999, the city, the DOT and the Federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation signed a “memorandum of agreement” regarding the future of the boathouse.
The agreement stated that the DOT would pay to move the building if the move were deemed “feasible and prudent.”
The issue of financial prudence is up to the DOT, and in January former Commissioner James F. Sullivan told Mayor John D. DeStefano Jr. not to expect the state to save the boathouse.
DeStefano responded by threatening to sue the DOT for violating the 1998 agreement if it does not move the boathouse.
–Associated Press