West Haven receives funding to revitalize neighborhoods near VA hospital

Campbell Avenue is home to the West Haven Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“There are 2,000 employees at the veteran's system, which makes them one of the largest employers in the city of West Haven,” Mayor Dorinda Borer (D-West Haven) said.

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Hospital employees oversee about 58,000 veterans in Connecticut. Borer said the busy facility creates for a busy area.

“This neighborhood is already a distressed area, and through conversations with the governor, he recognized the need to assist West Haven in addressing this area, making sure we have safe, walkable neighborhoods, appealing streets and we invest for a better quality of life,” Borer said.

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The city was awarded $1.8 million through the community investment fund to add traffic calming measures, pave several sidewalks and roads and overall improve pedestrian safety.

“We are doing this all across the state, literally, investments like this that show we believe in your community, you believe in your community, have pride in your community,” Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Connecticut) said.

"The goal of this project is to improve pedestrian safety, and it is also an economic development driver because the veteran's administration hospital is located on Campbell Avenue, which is one of our business corridors," Borer said.

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Local business owner Arti Patel hopes the improvements will help slow down traffic.

“I mean this is a heavy traffic street, a busy street, but people don’t go slow, it’s just so fast,” Krauszer’s Food Store owner Arti Patel said.

Meanwhile, hospital employee Vanessa Zurita said the way the infrastructure is right now, it is difficult to cross the road.

“It will help out a lot especially because a lot of people from the hospital come down to get lunch and it's kind of difficult to make the traffic stop so we can cross the street,” Zurita said.

The city is currently in the design phase. Borer said once construction gets underway, the project will take about nine months to complete.