Yale participates in real-estate developments and an employee home-buying cash incentive program. The real estate development activities include a cooperative agreement established between university and city to renovate a retail area, a $2 million university investment. It has also rehabilitated and purchased property adjacent to the university to create 333 housing units, 45,000 square feet of retail space which culminates into a $12.5 million investment. $2,4000 cash payments are awarded for ten years to university employees who purchase homes in the New Haven neighborhood. It has also invested in a business incubator/science park.

The University is working in tandem with private developers, the city of New Haven, local banks, and other groups to conduct the revitalization. It also received financial assistance through tax-credits and a $2.3 million HUD grant and an ISTEA grant.

So far the project has had positive effects on the community. As of May 1997 Yale had invested $41,715,000 in these and other revitalization projects.

Excerpted from the Brookings Institute Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy’s “”Urban Universities and their Role in Central City Economies”", December 1997