Pride Center Makes Moves Down Orange Street

New Haven Pride Center Executive Director Juancarlos Soto: A transformative move. Lucy Gellman Photos.

The front gallery may be empty, but Juancarlos Soto already sees offices for case management, with bookshelves along one side of the room and a mural adorning the other. Up a ramp, he can envision community meeting spaces, with a private room for support and affinity groups that need it. Where artists once bustled in and out of a kitchen with crackers and canapés, there will be an expanded food pantry, with a restroom and shower tucked nearby. In the next room, artist pop-ups and maker fairs are just waiting to happen. 

Welcome to the new, street-level home of the New Haven Pride Center, which this month begins its move from the basement of 84 Orange St. to Artspace New Haven's old digs just down the block. While the distance between the two buildings is less than a quarter of a mile, it marks a momentous shift for the Center, which for years has sought greater space, visibility and physical access for the community-focused work and outreach that it does. 

It plans to open its doors at 50 Orange St. next month. 

"It just feels so good to think that this year, we came out of everything with this space," said Executive Director Juancarlos Soto, who signed a 10-year lease with Beacon Communities LLC last week. "Part of the reason I fought so hard for a space like this is to show the work that we're doing. We're gonna be here for a very long time."

"Being in the LGBTQ+ community, visibility is our strongest weapon," Board Co-President Nicholas Bussett added in a phone call Monday afternoon. "Being so visible and so available to people, it's far more welcoming. Just the amount of people we're going to be able to help in that space is going to be so much more significant." 

Soto in the current space, which is underground at 84 Orange St.

The move has been years in the making. Since the Center's first paid director started in 2017, staff members have spoken often about the need for a space that can accommodate the organization's growing footprint, which in a given week includes support and affinity groups, youth game nights and back-to-school celebrations, public discussions around LGBTQ+ rights, and a food pantry and clothing and hygiene closets. In the past year, the space has also been growing its lending library, with titles designed for LGBTQ+ readers and allies of all ages.

For years, all of that work has taken place out of sight, in the basement offices of Svigals + Partners at 84 Orange St. To get into the building—the front door to which doesn't fit most motorized wheelchairs—people have to ring a bell, appear on a ring camera, get buzzed in, and then descend down to the basement. Downstairs, the space is cramped and often overheated, with offices and a central room that don't always allow for the privacy staff and community members want or need. 

While showing mayoral hopeful Liam Brennan around the space earlier this year, Executive Director Juancarlos Soto stressed the importance of simply being visible, and not wanting patrons to feel like they were being forced back into the closet while they were seeking out services. Now, he and the Center's six fellow staff members are able to build their vision for a larger community resource hub, where multiple groups can be meeting at any given time. 

A screening room that will become a private area for support and affinity groups. 

In what was once Artspace's street-facing front gallery, Soto plans to have an office just for case management, supervised under the direction of Support Services Coordinator Bennie Saldana. Behind it, he sees public and private space for the community, including enough room for multiple support groups to meet at any given time. In the back, Artspace's former kitchen will become a well-stocked food pantry; two restrooms will become community resources. Outside, he plans to fly a large Pride flag, so there won't be any question about where the Center is. 

"We're making sure that we're inviting community members and organizations that haven't always worked with us," Soto said. Those include the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK), three churches that surround the New Haven Green, Junta for Progressive Action, Connecticut Students for a Dream (C4D), the Connecticut Oral Health Initiative and a relationship with YNHH that provides free clinical support for LGBTQ+ youth seeking therapy. 

"We've always wanted to provide those things, but we didn't have the space,” he said. "In every sense, we want to make this as much the community’s [space] as it is our space.” 

The neighbors are part of that: he's already joked with the owners and staff at Bark & Vine, the LGBTQ-owned plant shop across the street, about hanging tin can telephones between the two storefronts. Between touring the space, taking meetings and voting last Tuesday, he touched base with All Star Barbershop's Steven Strother about providing gender-affirming haircuts. He is also working with The Barberie at 488 Orange St. to make hair care part of the Center’s programming.   

To him and to other staff members, the timing feels triumphant. This month, the Center signed a lease with Beacon almost exactly a year after it temporarily lost its nonprofit status, sending the organization into a months-long period of transition. In January, board members made the decision to furlough eight of nine employees (six have since returned). A month later, the organization reinstated its 501c3 status, working towards building back both its budget and its programming and trust in New Haven. By June, it had begun collaborating with both new and longtime community partners, from Olmo to A Place to Nourish Your Health.   

Harmony the Valkyrie at Pride New Haven in October. 

Then in September and October, it bounced joyously back with back-to-school and Pride Month festivities, including a flag raising on the Green, drag queen story hour, and community block party filled with music, dance and song. In the midst of that celebration, it also faced a bomb threat that highlighted the need for a new and visible space with multiple safe modes of egress. Soto said he is extremely grateful for the space, and equally excited to get to work and invite the community in. 

He added that the move would not have been possible without the support of several new partners, including the Leonard-Litz Foundation and the City of New Haven. Currently, rent on the space is $5,000 per month, meaning the Center will have to raise $60,000 on overhead alone each year. In the city's 2024-2025 Fiscal Year budget, which will be announced in March of next year, Mayor Justin Elicker plans to propose a $30,000 annual allocation to the Center. 

In addition, Soto said that the Pride Center is hoping to secure both state and federal funding, including from the federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. As of Monday, Bussett said that the Center has "a [financial] runway for at least over a year."  

"I can't underscore how excited I am about this huge step forward for the Pride Center, in part because they have really faced some struggles in the past year," Elicker said in a phone call last week, confirming that he hopes to make the $30,000 an annual fixture in the city budget. "They are not only bouncing back but going forward with a space that recognizes the work that they are doing."

Saldi: "I've been waiting for the day."

On the block and across the city alike, Center staff and supporters are not the only ones who are looking forward to the move, which is already underway on Orange Street. As he rang Soto up for a  philodendron Birkin plant last week, Bark & Vine Owner Ralph Saldi said he's thrilled to officially welcome his friends to a new storefront across the street. For weeks, he's known that the Center was close to signing a lease, and couldn't wait to broadcast the news. He's already daydreaming about a queer plant exchange in the spring. 

"I'm super excited!" he said. "A lot of people, when they're looking for the Center, they'll see our Pride flag and come into the shop, and we'll walk them across the street [to 84 Orange]. I've been waiting for the day" when he can point them directly across the sidewalk and street, where a rainbow-patterned mural already adorns the asphalt and planters have blocked the road from traffic. 

Soto beamed. "I can plant plants that take sunlight now," he said.