Hartford officials on Thursday marked the start of exterior
demolition at a long-vacant, five-story former data center next to Dunkin’
Park, clearing the way for another phase of redevelopment around the downtown
baseball stadium.
The city is using $10 million in state funding to demolish
the hulking, concrete building at 150 Windsor St., which occupies roughly 3
acres immediately north of the ballpark.
The building is expected to be taken down within 60 days,
with the property cleared and graded during the first quarter of 2027.
Demolition work began several months ago, when crews began
removing hazardous building materials from the interior of the building,
constructed in 1968. Thursday marked the beginning of demolition of its
exterior.
The former data center had fallen into severe disrepair
after years of abandonment. Vandals had damaged the interior, stripping away
most of the copper. Discarded drug needles, refuse left by trespassers and
batteries from power saws used by metal thieves were among the debris left
behind.
The demolition will open the property for redevelopment by
Stamford-based RMS Cos., which has already completed 507 apartments around
Dunkin’ Park and envisions eventually building roughly 2,500 apartments in the
surrounding neighborhood and on the nearby former Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute campus.
RMS founder and CEO Randy Salvatore, who attended Thursday’s
ceremony, said he continues to favor a combination of apartments and a boutique
hotel for the former data center site, although plans remain preliminary.
In September, Salvatore outlined a potential development
featuring a 120-room boutique hotel and up to 250 apartments.
“I would say that’s right now, if you would ask me what I’m
thinking,” Salvatore said Thursday when asked whether that concept remains his
preference. “But now we need to really sit down, get back with the architects,
do the planning.”
Salvatore said he expects to have a clearer development
concept within the next few months, following renewed discussions with city
officials and other stakeholders.
The property is among four city-owned development sites
around Dunkin’ Park that Hartford previously made available to RMS under a
long-term development agreement.
The data center site had also been considered as a location
for a state-backed artificial intelligence training and business development
center. In August, however, Gov. Ned Lamont announced the AI center would
instead be located at the State House Square office complex downtown.
Salvatore said that decision, along with the city’s
demolition plans, clears the way for more detailed redevelopment discussions.
Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, on Thursday, described the
demolition as another step toward transforming an area once dominated by vacant
buildings and surface parking lots into a neighborhood connecting downtown
Hartford with the city’s North End.
The mayor credited Salvatore, the state Department of
Economic and Community Development, the Capital Region Development Authority
and other partners with helping advance redevelopment around the ballpark.
Arulampalam also used an excavator to knock out a boarded-up window in a
ceremonial start to the exterior demolition.
State funding for the demolition includes $8 million through
DECD’s brownfield remediation program and $2 million through an Urban Act
grant.
DECD Deputy Commissioner Matthew Pugliese said the state’s
brownfield program aims to return blighted and unproductive properties to
productive use, generating private investment and adding taxable property to
municipal grand lists.
Andy Bessette, an executive of Travelers
Cos. who is also vice chair of the CRDA Board of Directors, said Thursday
he has wanted to see the deteriorating building removed for decades.
The demolition represents another milestone in a
redevelopment effort that began more than a decade ago with construction of
Dunkin’ Park, home of the Hartford Yard Goats.
RMS completed The Pennant, a 270-unit apartment building
southeast of the stadium, in 2022. This spring, it began leasing apartments at
The Portrait, a 237-unit building on a 5-acre parcel southwest of the ballpark.
The developer has also begun site work for a 286-unit
apartment building on the same parcel, supported in part by an $18 million
low-interest CRDA loan.
Beyond North Crossing, RMS owns the former 12.7-acre
Rensselaer campus at 275 Windsor St., which it acquired for $3.82 million in
late 2023. Salvatore envisions substantial residential development there,
potentially mixed with commercial, cultural or institutional uses.
Together, the North Crossing and Rensselaer projects could
eventually accommodate approximately 2,500 apartments, Salvatore has estimated,
although the final number and mix of uses remain uncertain.
The data center site occupies sits between the ballpark and
the former Rensselaer campus, offering an opportunity to connect existing and
planned development into a more cohesive neighborhood.
Chess touts $1B Point Stratford plan to business community
STRATFORD – Mayor David Chess has shored up his economic
development team as the town undertakes the largest development in decades in
the transformation of the former Stratford Army Engine plant known as Point
Stratford.
He shook up the town’s Economic Development Department
around the same time the Town Council approved a resolution approving a $2
million grant that comes from the proceeds of a state bond for the planning
stages of the Point Stratford redevelopment. Ten months into his tenure as
mayor, Chess replaced Director of Economic Development Jim Capra and Manager of
Small Business Development Anne Gaydos. He named his Chief of Staff Caryn
Kaufman as interim director and engaged Mike Freimuth as an economic development
consultant.
The transition creates an opportunity to build on the
department’s work, maintain continuity for businesses and partners, and
strengthen the Town’s long-term economic development strategy, Chess wrote in a
release issued on Sept. 28. Kaufman will oversee day-to-day operations, ongoing
projects, business outreach, and small business development.
At the time, Chess said the town hired Freimuth to provide
strategic guidance, assist with organizational planning, and help ensure the
town continues advancing priority initiatives without interruption.
“Economic development remains central to our vision for a
vibrant, resilient, and business-friendly community, and growing our economy is
essential for providing property tax relief to our residents,” Chess said.
“This change gives us a valuable opportunity to assess our needs, reinforce
what is working, and create a stronger structure for the future. With Caryn’s
leadership and Mike Freimuth’s expertise, we are well positioned to continue
building momentum and serving our businesses, residents, investors, and
community partners.”
Chess took the opportunity to roll out his new economic
development team and goals at a luncheon hosted by the Bridgeport Regional
Business Council at Riverview Bistro on Oct. 15. He touted the $1 billion Point
Stratford project, which he has helped turn into a proposed mixed-use
development from the previous plan to convert the 77-acre former Stratford Army
Engine plant into industrial warehouse space.
“This will become a true destination,” the mayor told a
packed room of business people. “It will be the single largest investment made
in Stratford for many, many decades. It will hold a sports and teen center. It
will be a destination waterfront.”
He explained his reasoning for the change.
“When I came in, there was a lot of disbelief in the
business community about taking the project from being industrial to being
mixed-use development,” he added. “In terms of revenue, it was like night and
day. The only the town really has is the space. You can sell your space and get
$1 for it or you sell your space and get $100 for it. We want to try to create
an economic base to support our community.”
Point Stratford
The former Army engine plant property owner Point Stratford
Renewal LLC has advanced a $74 million tidal flats remediation of the property
prior to the redevelopment. The Brownfield property needed to be cleared of
contamination due to years of industrial use. Developers are planning to submit
a master plan by December.
“We acquired the property from the United States Army on
April 2, 2024,” stated the developer’s principals Jim Cabrera, Ted Lane, and
Executive Vice President Peter Cabrera. “Since then, we have advanced one of
the most ambitious environmental remediation efforts in Connecticut while
assembling a master planning team capable of delivering a redevelopment worthy
of the site’s history and its potential.
“We are working in close partnership with the Town of
Stratford, the State of Connecticut, the U.S. Army, and the Connecticut
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to ensure that what is built
here is environmentally sound, economically durable, and genuinely shaped by
the community it will serve.”
The development calls for waterfront parks and trails along
the Housatonic River, multi-family housing, retail storefronts and restaurants,
a potential hotel and conference center and a sports and teen center, according
to Chess and Point Stratford Renewal.
The development team includes the following companies and
organizations: Cooper Robertson (Corgan) – master planner; fieldoperations –
landscape architect; Langan – Civil, environmental, traffic, and lighting
engineering; Moffatt & Nichol – coastal engineering; HR&A Advisors –
Market, economic, and fiscal impact analysis; Carmody Torrance Sandak &
Hennessey – land use counsel; Greenberg Traurig – environmental counsel;
Pullman & Comley – tax increment financing district counsel; Sullivan &
LeShane – Public affairs and community engagement; Entact – site contractor;
and Cumming Group – cost estimator and scheduler.
“The next thing we are going to need from the governor is $8
million to build a destination park on the waterfront that has activities, that
has a restaurant,” Chess told BBRC members. “We hope to bring that to the state
legislature in the next six months.”
Somers, Dubitsky among legislators in Plainfield to fight trash plant
Sara Bedigian
Plainfield — When Tim Livernoche and his wife, Jana, moved
to their 9-acre property at 395 Norwich Road 20 years ago, they didn’t think a
trash plant could show up in their backyard.
Many residents here had that same belief, as they have vehemently
opposed a proposed 45-megawatt waste-to-energy trash plant.
The facility, initially proposed to the state Siting Council
by developer SMART Technologies, was
withdrawn due to “voluminous public comment,” but the developer has plans
to resubmit a new plan.
The Livernoches own one of the nearly 500 homes that would
be directly impacted by the plant if the Siting Council approves the expected
revised plan. The development is planned in a residentially zoned area at the
intersection of Norwich and Black Hill roads.
“We are getting ready to retire, and this is our forever
home,” said Tim Livernoche, a lifelong resident. “So to look out your back
window and see a huge facility, backup beepers, trucks, everything else, 24/7 …
we didn’t sign up for that.”
The Livernoches hosted a group of state legislators and town
leaders in their front yard Thursday to discuss the next steps in the fight
against the facility.
Legislators discussed financial, environmental and community
concerns and urged residents to continue staying informed and sending letters
to the Siting Council, which ultimately would decide whether to approve the
plant.
In a non-binding referendum last year, 93% of residents
voted “no” to the plant.
Residents have said the plant could damage air and water
quality, wildlife habitats and ecosystems, and create traffic, odor and noise.
State Sen. Heather Somers, R-18th District, said the
developers of the plant have not been forthcoming in providing information
about the project. This includes the financial risk if the facility cannot
operate as projected.
“When a project of this magnitude and this impact is
proposed without clear answers, the financial risks don’t just simply
disappear, and they can ultimately fall on municipalities, taxpayers, and the
residents who don’t want this in the first place,” Somers said.
Plainfield already has three nearby regulated
environmental/industrial pollution sources that affect the air and are
processed with carbon, including a wood burning facility called Plainfield
Renewable Energy and a tire processing site called Empire Tire in Lisbon. The
third is the town’s transfer station.
“There are plenty of communities in this state who have no
affected facilities whatsoever,” said state Rep. Doug Dubitsky, R-47th
District. “The people of Eastern Connecticut cannot be the dumping ground for
the rest of the state’s garbage.”
The area’s legislators suggested putting the facility in
another section of the state or looking at smaller sites at a county level.
The state has been trucking large portions of trash out of
Connecticut after the state’s largest trash facility, located in Hartford, shut
down in 2022.
The legislators held the press conference on Thursday after
a previously scheduled Siting Council public hearing was cancelled after SMART
withdrew its initial application.
That initial application was designed to accept 1,800 tons
of trash a day, with a maximum rate of 2,500 tons per day. The petition said
the facility expected around 120 truckloads each weekday.
The facility was planned for 81 acres within a larger
506-acre sand and gravel mine property owned by O&G Industries, which
operates Rawson Materials. The site is undeveloped except for the sand and
gravel operations.
Residents have expressed frustration that they do not have a
say in the proposal. The Siting Council did grant
the town intervenor status before the application was withdrawn, allowing
First Selectman Kevin Cunningham and specialized attorney Ann Catino to be a
party in the proceeding.
Cunningham said despite the withdrawal, he is still working
with Catino after the town voted
to allocate $250,000 of its fund balance to hire her last month.
Republican legislators also pointed to two bills that were
not passed in the past legislative session that would have given the town
control to override a state level environmental permit decision, like the trash
plant.
The current
law allows towns under 10,000 residents to override a denial or approval,
but since Plainfield has 15,000 residents, it does not qualify. A 2025 bill
would have raised that number to 16,000 residents, but was vetoed
by Gov. Ned Lamont.
Somers said she will be working to introduce new bills that
could help small towns face large developments like the trash plant in the next
legislative session.
“We’re not going to be a target for these dumping sites, the
people have spoken loud and clear, and we’re standing with them, and we will do
what we can,” Rep. Anne Dauphinais, R-44th District, added.