MERIDEN -- Proclaiming "the transportation system in Connecticut is terrible," the governor said he wants to add a lane in both directions of congested, confounding Interstate 95 in southwestern Connecticut. Without a better flow of traffic and a vision for all forms of transportation, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said, the state's economic development will continue to lag.
During a news conference to drum up statewide support for the multi-decade, multibillion-dollar transportation initiative he outlined to the General Assembly the day before, the governor deflected questions about particular plans he may support for new tolls on state highways -- and made no mention of how much it might cost.
Instead, he said the decision will be up to a consensus among lawmakers in the General Assembly.
A long-term study of tolls is already underway, however, and James P. Redeker, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, said it will be completed within months.
The tolls will have to be spread equitably throughout the state or the proposal will be the target of bipartisan opposition, Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, said.
Malloy's legacy-setting transit plans also include widening Interstate-95 from Greenwich to Stonington to relieve the traffic that routinely bogs down for hours, discouraging drivers and regional development. "It's time to do what should have been done long ago," said Malloy, a former 14-year mayor of Stamford. He said that a successful strategy in New Jersey that Redeker helped develop when he worked there was the construction of parallel highways next to existing ones.
"We've got to take this issue on big," Malloy said. "The reality is that the three-lane portion is in worse shape than the two-lane portion and they're both in terrible shape."
Malloy reiterated a report that came out last week shows that underinvestment in transportation costs the state $4.2 billion. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Work begins on downtown Bridgeport building
BRIDGEPORT -- The city on Thursday announced that work is beginning on the redevelopment of a historic building at the corner of Main and Golden Hill streets.
The Jayson/Newfield structure, which comprises two side-by-side buildings, dates to the turn of the 20th century. Developer Urban Green, which has completed other local projects including the former Citytrust bank conversion, will turn the building into 104 apartments with about 9,000 square feet of ground-level retail.
The project is part of what the city calls Downtown North, a six-block section along Main Street of mostly abandoned, blighted buildings. Environmental work, including asbestos and lead paint removal, must be completed before renovations can begin. The Jayson/Newfield building is expected to be completed in spring 2016
Meriden looks forward to reaping economis benefits sown in 2014
MERIDEN — For much of the city, particularly downtown, economic development in 2014 meant rebuilding infrastructure; and the demolition and purchase of key properties to brace for the promise of building big in the upcoming year.
Additionally, two downtown manufacturing companies took steps toward expansions, Protein Sciences entered new markets on Research Parkway, Townline Square plaza on Route 5 filled its vacancies, while Westfield Meriden mall gained TJ Maxx, yet lost an anchor and nearly lost a second.
Heavy construction activity downtown this year bolstered the city’s message to residents that changes were coming. Mayor Manny Santos called the daylighting of Harbor Brook at the former Hub site, “a major milestone in Meriden’s history.”
City officials spent years laying the foundation for the 14-acre downtown park by tying the city’s need to control its flooding problem to a state and federal plan to increase commuter rail service through the city. The ultimate goal is to spur economic investment in a transit-oriented development downtown that ripples beyond Meriden’s borders.
“We’re very excited for the prospects for 2015; including the anticipated selection of one or more development teams to construct significant, mixed use projects in our (transit-oriented development) district, for the anticipated expansion of Accel International and for continued development of the East Main Street commercial corridor,” said Juliet Burdelski, director of the city’s Department of Economic Development.
Accel took advantage of the city’s Manufacturing Assistance Program to allow for continued growth in 2015. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Tanger confirmed Wednesday it had severed its agreement with W/S Development Associates to be a part of a 480,000-square-foot retail development located near I-691. The company gave no reason for the move. Tanger's outlets at Foxwoods are set to open later this year.
W/S owns seven Connecticut retail centers, including the Shoppes at Farmington Valley.
Spring completion projected for Simsbury's Dorset Crossing project
IMSBURY — After years of construction, two apartment complexes on the Dorset Crossing property on Route 10 are slated for completion this spring.
Ojakian Commons, which is for people with disabilities, and the Eastpointe complex are expected to be available for occupancy by June 1, said Anthony Giorgio, managing director of the Dorset Crossing developer, The Keystone Companies.
Ojakian Commons will have 48 units and is open only to those with disabilities who need services coordinated by either the National Multiple Sclerosis Society or Favarh (the ARC of the Farmington Valley), said Ken Regan, vice president of Regan Development Corp., the developer.
"There's really a demand for the accessible, affordable housing that we are producing," Regan said. "It's not something that gets done a lot in Connecticut."
Regan said the facility is the only one of its kind in New England specifically designed to provide accessible, affordable housing for people needing services coordinated by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. So far, the facility has received about 150 applications.
The total budget for the complex is under $13.5 million, but the developers are receiving a "fair amount" of assistance from the state, Regan said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Yale, Pearl Harbor bridge projects show branding matters, money follows
For large building projects, cranes are like the crocuses that pop up in spring: they are the first vertical presence on a construction site. The cranes are now up at the site of the new Yale residential colleges, and have been for years at the new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge.
The new bridge and even newer residential colleges both are huge undertakings in their respective building types: Over $2 billion will be spent on the bridge and its dozens of collateral projects, as designed by Parsons Brinkerhoff. Over $500 million will be spent to house about 750 students: the equivalent of building each occupant a McMansion worth about $700,000 — not including land costs. While the costs are inherently extreme for the bridge’s level of scale and complexity, the federal government wanted New Haven’s new bridge to be as visually expressive as a Parsons Brinkerhoff effort in Boston: the Bunker Hill Bridge, whose cable-stayed suspension technology intentionally alluded to the rigging of the USS Constitution and its supporting towers echoed the Bunker Hill Memorial Tower. The Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge’s “extradosed cable” design is acknowledged by engineers to be both inefficient and harder to build than simple span bridges — like the Moses Wheeler Bridge being built at a fraction of the time (five years) and cost ($200 million) 10 miles to the west in Stratford.
Just as the design load of 40,000 cars a day of the old Pearl Harbor bridge is now grossly inadequate, Yale’s 5,100 undergrad student capacity had seen annual applications rise to almost 30,000 for 2,000 places — leaving many exceptional applicants without a place. Just as you can’t stack cars on bridges, bunk beds are not a great way to lure top-level minds and bodies to Yale, so new dorms must be built. Yale’s new student residences were designed by its School of Architecture’s dean, Robert A.M. Stern — perhaps the leading architect of traditional academic buildings in the world.
But not only do Yale students eschew bunk beds, they do not live in “dorms.” Residential colleges were created hundreds of years ago at Oxford and Cambridge, and fuse living, eating, learning and social life into residences for students — and were championed by Yale and Harvard in the early 20th century: with a common architect — James Gamble Rogers — whom architect Stern has vowed to pay homage to in his new designs. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Malloy on rail vs. highwayexpansion: All of the above
Meriden – Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday his new transportation vision includes the widening of I-95 from New York to Rhode Island, a colossal undertaking that he insists can co-exist with his commitment to the continued expansion of mass transit.
Malloy, who gave the final approval for a bus-rapid transit system in the Hartford region and the expansion of rail service from Springfield through New Haven in his first term, said the vision he outlined Wednesday after his second inaugural does not represent a retreat on rail.
“Let me put it this way: It’s all of the above,” Malloy said in the first press conference after opening his second-term with a major address on transportation. “Because our problem is so large that no one part of the transportation plan will solve it. All we’ll be doing is putting Band-Aids on a gigantic problem.” But not everything can be done at once, and Malloy still is weeks away from indentifying specific projects, offering budget estimates and proposing new revenue stream to pay debt service on what is certain to be massive new transportation bonding.
Malloy is engaged in a campaign, with the first phase to acclimate legislators and taxpayers to what is likely to be framed as a once-in-a-generation undertaking with implications for the economies of Connecticut and the northeast, since the state is now a chokepoint in the regional rail and highway systems. The first legislation he intends to propose will be how to construct a “lockbox,” a mechanism for guaranteeing that new transportation revenue will be forever tied to transportation spending. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Courthouse construction underway in Torrington
TORRINGTON >> Actual construction for the new Litchfield Judicial District courthouse on Field Street has started. Though construction was originally scheduled to begin in late October, then early November, project manager David Wlodkowski said the facility should still be completed by the originally slated date in April. “We haven’t been put in a situation that we can’t manage,” Wlodkowski said about the slight delay.
The construction started about two weeks ago, and blue fencing was put up around what is now just a parking lot, across Clark Street and around the area where a building was demolished earlier this year to make room for what will be a new parking garage. The finalizing of everything, including the design of the facility, took a little longer than initially planned for, Wlodkowski said.
“We’re off and running now,” he said of the $81.4-million project. After the site was completely fenced off, the construction crew started the subsurface work, Wlodkowski said.
“We’ll be scraping the earth and putting in the foundations over the next several months,” he said.
Once the new facility is completed, it will be secured by a fence, except for on the Field Street side. The building will be a mix of a three-story and four-story section. The new courthouse will have a 175-spot parking lot for visitors in addition to a separate lot for employees.
“I’ll be a heck of a lot more confident when we’re out of the ground with steel,” Wlodkowski said about the construction timeline. Officials broke ground on the property last August. The project had been in limbo for more than four decades, when Governor Dannel Malloy decided to make it a priority. The courthouse is a consolidation of four separate divisions of the court system, replacing Bantam Superior Court, the Judicial District Courthouse in Litchfield, a Family Services Office in Litchfield and the Juvenile Court in Torrington.