Keeping tabs on the New High School Construction
Nasty Nor'easter and all, construction work on the new Guilford High School keeps chugging along on target-and under budget. The Guilford High School Building Committee (GHSBC) has agreed to target the spending limit on the new high school project to $91.2 million, $1 million less than the referendum that was passed by the town majority, explained the committee's Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mary Beeman on the committee's Facebook page, www.facebook.com/guilfordhigh.
Some numbers: The building foundation, excavation, and backfill is 95 percent complete, and the expenditures are 12 percent finalized. The steel structure assembly is 60 percent complete, and the decking for the concrete floor is in progress. The steel framing is in place in the administration area and the performing arts classroom in area A of the structure, and the framing is currently underway in area C, which is the southern classroom wing. With so much progress taking place on the "bones" of the new high school, the GHSBC will soon review the mock up of three sample walls of color for the interior of the new building, getting ready to tackle the inside designs. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE READING
Report: Time right for reversing damage of I-84's viaduct
The aging, I-84 viaduct in Hartford tore apart neighborhoods when it was built in the 1960s and certainly has plenty of counterparts across the country. But a new listing by the Congress for the New Urbanism, a non-profit that promotes reducing the impact of highways that slice through cities, also places the Hartford viaduct among its top 10 picks for highways in the United States and Canada that have potential for reversing damage done to neighborhoods. The potential is rooted in on-going, active planning locally for alternatives and communities that are supportive of making a change, said Norman Garrick, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Connecticut and and a CNU advisory board member. “These are projects that are not just theoretical, they have advocacy around them,” Garrick told me. Hartford’s I-84 viaduct has been on CNU’s biennial “Freeways Without Futures” report ever since 2010. The 2014 report also includes such cities as Buffalo, Detroit and Toronto. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE READING
Retailers signing on to Chesire outlet plan
CHESHIRE >> An executive with the Massachusetts-based company that is developing a 470,000-square-foot outlet center at the intersection of Route 10 and Interstate 691 said the firm is nearing a critical mass of signed leases with retailers needed to secure financing for the project. “We’re not there today, not yet, but we’re getting close,” Louis Masiello, vice president of development for W/S Development, said Tuesday. “We have some signed leases in hand already, but theses are companies that have not made their commitment to us public so I can’t share their names with you at this point.”
The signed leases from the retailers will be used to leverage the necessary financing for the actual construction of the project, Masiello said.
The retail portion of what is still ultimately envisioned as a mixed-use project is currently in its final stages before the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission. If the PZC grants the retail portion of the project the approval it needs, there still are state approvals that must be granted, Masiello said.
“While it is still possible that some of our stores could open by the third quarter of 2015, it is by no means a guarantee,” he said. The project, which got its first PZC approval in 2008, was put on hold for several years after Connecticut and the nation sank into a recession later that year. Masiello acknowledged that there is always the possibility that another economic decline could force further delays on the project, but said that it require some significantly dire circumstances to occur.CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE READING
Is OSHA"S new silica law flawed?
The Construction Industry Safety Coalition, which represents 25 different construction trade associations, issued the following statement as it filed comments regarding the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) proposed Crystalline Silica Rulemaking: “After an exhaustive analysis that involved hundreds of construction safety professionals, builders, construction managers and specialty trade contractors representing virtually every facet on the industry, it is our conclusion that the administration's proposed new silica rule is significantly flawed and will do little to improve workplace health or safety. Specifically, the proposed rule sets a silica exposure standard that cannot be accurately measured or protected against with existing equipment and includes a series of data errors that undermine many of the rule's basic assumptions. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE READING
