Stamford school renovation on tight schedule
STAMFORD -- The first classes of Stamford students may be able to attend school at the former Sacred Heart Academy site in September 2016, but only if the city keeps to a very strict timeline.
Meeting in a back office of the city's engineering department last week, the city committee tasked with preparing the former Catholic girls' school to serve as a public elementary magnet school laid out the schedule it had to follow to meet that goal.
"It's pretty aggressive," city engineer and committee co-chairman Lou Casolo said to the committee members. "It's doable, but it's tight. If you want this to happen, there can't be any slippage in this schedule." The property at 200 Strawberry Hill Ave. was purchased by the city for $10 million in August. It is home to the 1925 building that housed the Sacred Heart school, along with a 1964 addition. For many, it represents one of the best hopes for alleviating the school district's sizable overcrowding issues.
The school closed in 2006 and was home to the Stanwich School until 2013. It is not up to code requirements for a modern public elementary school, according to city officials.
The plan is for the city to begin advertising for qualified architectural and engineering firms this week and to make a selection by May.
In June, the Board of Finance authorized $55 million toward the project. The estimate of the cost has since grown to $77 million. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Malloy says transit plan will need priorities
HARTFORD --Last week the governor announced an ambitious, multi-billion-dollar, long term vision for transit improvements. On Monday, he acknowledged that the plans would have to be prioritized.
"We're not in a position to start mega-projects in the next couple of years," Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said. "This obviously has to be a ramp-up as we get those largest projects ready to go."
Malloy spoke after the State Bond Commission, which he leads, approved $5.75 million for designing several new railroad stations, including Orange, and enhancements to the Merritt 7 stop on the Danbury branch of Metro-North. The rail funding is in addition to $4 million allocated last July for preliminary work for the planned Barnum Station on Bridgeport's East Side.
Longer-term projects would include widening Interstate 95 to relieve traffic congestion and improvements along Interstate 84 in Hartford and Waterbury.
During the monthly meeting of the commission, which is controlled by Democrats, state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, questioned the governor's ambitious transportation vision at a time when the General Assembly is facing a billion-dollar budget in the fiscal year that starts in July.
"The bonded indebtedness of the state Connecticut has never been larger," said Frantz, a member of the commission. "And I'm going to say it's about $21.6 billion. Yes, interest rates are low but the thing that everyone has to keep in mind is that once you start to issue all these bonds that number starts to add up and you have to pay back that principal regardless of what interest rates are." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Fuel supplier gets tax breaks from Plymouth
PLYMOUTH — The town has granted a series of tax abatements over seven years to a company that is taking over an abandoned industrial lot on South Main Street.
The Town Council unanimously approved the deal with Inland Fuel Terminals Inc., which is buying a 10-acre lot at 370 S. Main St. and an adjacent 1.87-acre lot.
Inland Fuel will be getting a 50 percent tax abatement for the first five years, which will drop to 40 percent in the sixth year, 30 percent in the seventh year, and zero after that.
“They are putting $6.5 million worth of improvements into the property. About $1.5 million of that is going to soft costs, like engineering fees, landscaping, excavation, so the value of the permanent improvements will be $5 million,” Town Attorney William Hamzy has said.
The larger lot was owned by Structus LLC until the town foreclosed on it in 2013. It was the site of an industrial building that collapsed under the weight of snowfall in 2011. The smaller lot was also owned by Structus but is undeveloped.
The town cleaned up the debris and agreed to sell both lots to Inland Fuel for $300,000.
Mayor David Merchant said Structus failed to pay its taxes on the property for about 10 years, a situation that never should have been allowed to go on so long.
The town has set the value of the property at around $400,000, so between what Inland Fuel is paying for it and what it has already put into cleanup there, the company will pay more than fair market value, he said.
“This is an outstanding company that’s moving into town,” Merchant said. “This company will expand and you’re going to see that area double and triple in size there in the next couple of years.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
East Hampton school officials want expansion instead of construction
EAST HAMPTON >> The Board of Education has taken a step back from its request that the town build a new Center School.
Instead, the board is suggesting it could live with an expansion of the middle school and/or Memorial School instead. Last year, the school board offered to give the Center School to the town for use as a combination police station/town hall.In exchange for that gift, the school board asked the town to build a new Center School on land adjacent to Memorial School. In proposing the construction of a new school, Board of Education members stressed that the state would reimburse the town for approximately half the anticipated $20 million cost of construction. But during an informational meeting last week for residents about anticipated new construction by the town, Board of Education Chairman Kenneth Barber said the school department is seeking to reduce the number of school buildings from five to three.
In addition to the Center School, the school board is also seeking to divest itself of the school administration building located at 94 Main St., Barber said.
The administration offices are housed in a two-story, wood-frame building that was built in 1866, the year after the Civil War ended as Barber noted. In an email Monday, Superintendent of Schools Diane Dugas said a 2008 review of the town’s buildings “suggests an expansion” of Memorial and/or the middle school. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Businesses wary of highway tolls
With or without a lock box, Connecticut businesses don't have a lot of faith in state government.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the legislature have seized on the idea of using state highway tolls to help pay for underfunded transportation infrastructure. If all sides hash out the details of a proposal they already agree on in principle, tolls in Connecticut could be a reality by the end of the legislative session, which started Wednesday.
The business community, however, is extremely wary of what government ultimately will do with this new revenue, said Eric Gjede, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. While the money is supposed to be earmarked for transportation infrastructure improvements, the state has a history of reallocating money to shore up deficits and fund other projects.
The gross receipts tax, for example — one of the two taxes levied on the sale of gasoline — was set up in 1991 to provide insurance against fuel spills at gas stations. But, the state raided that fund so many times to cover deficiencies elsewhere in the budget that the insurance program was discontinued in 2012, leaving gas stations to pay for cleanups out-of-pocket. The gross receipts tax, however, is still in place.
"If you are going to impose something new like tolls on the people and businesses of Connecticut, they need to have confidence that it is going to be used for transportation projects and not diverted for other expenses," Gjede said.
Malloy has said he would only support tolls if the legislature passed a law saying transportation revenue would not be diverted for other purposes, a so-called lock-box provision. However, of the 23 other states with similar lock boxes, 17 still have found ways around the law, through practices as simple as diverting transportation funds not covered under the lock box to other non-transportation programs.
Connecticut businesses have mixed feelings on tolls anyway, Gjede said. They will hurt delivery and logistics companies, but the state's crumbling transportation infrastructure and highway congestion are CBIA members' top concerns. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
DoNo developer eyes Feb 1, start
Middletown developer Robert A. Landino says he and his partners' vision for a downtown Hartford ballpark ringed by new housing, offices and retail is closer than ever to breaking ground.
Landino told HBJ last week that his Centerplan Development Co. is close to wrapping up contracts with the city and the state transportation department, and groundbreaking for the $350 million "Downtown North'' redevelopment could come as early as Feb. 1.
"We're hoping to get started in about six weeks,'' Landino said.
Last Monday, Landino announced Centerplan had acquired the real estate, vehicles and other assets of former North Haven contractor Earth Technology Inc.
He said the equipment and other resources acquired in the deal enhance Centerplan's construction capabilities for the DoNo development and other New England projects.
– Gregory Seay
Glasgo Dam repairs delayed possibly till fall
Residents in the Glasgo Pond area who months ago were facing loss of their water supply due to lake drawdown may have until early fall before the process gets underway again. An official from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said that the lake drawdown, postponed after residents' wells dried up, is awaiting completion of a lengthy permitting process that may set the project back as many as eight months. DEEP Spokesman Dwayne Gardner said, "It's difficult to say for sure" just when the drawdown will actually begin. Permits must be obtained for the project from the DEEP's own inland water resources division dam safety program, as well as from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he said. "If we're not in the position to do the drawdown in the spring, we will wait until after the recreation season ends, which is after Labor Day," he said. "It's better to do it the right way than to expedite the process and not get it right." Griswold First Selectman Kevin Skulczyck said he was surprised by the delay. Initially, he said, "the DEEP diagnosed this [project] as a high priority," he said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State engineers union: Using private contractors drives up costs
With Gov. Dannel P. Malloy planning major enhancements for Connecticut’s transportation network, the union representing state engineers moved Monday to ensure its members are leading that effort.
CSEA-SEIU Local 2001 also released Department of Transportation analyses from last fall showing engineering and inspection work done by private contractors cost 36 to 52 percent more than that done by state employees. The DOT had to turn to the private sector, though, because of inadequate staffing.
The union also has been on edge since last fall when it became clear that a Malloy administration initiative to beef up DOT professional staffing had not materialized.
“We have been saying for years that privatization is a gigantic waste of resources and now we finally have the department’s own evaluations to prove our point,” union President Stephen Anderson and Travis Woodward – president of the engineers bargaining unit within Local 2001 – wrote last week to DOT Commissioner James Redeker.
“We are using expensive outside contractors to do the state’s work because we can’t hire more people,” Anderson and Woodward added. “And we can’t hire more people because the state is simultaneously dealing with a budget deficit caused in part by wasteful practices.”
“The governor is starting this important dialogue on transportation precisely because we’re looking to build for the future – not just for the next fiscal quarter, but for the next quarter century," Malloy spokesman Devon Puglia said. "We want to lay out a vision for the next several decades, and how we approach staffing and project management will be part of the discussion going forward.”
During his re-election campaign last fall, Malloy frequently shielded himself from attacks that transportation projects have progressed slowly on his watch by noting this year's budget adds 103 full-time positions to the DOT – an agency both private-sector transportation advocates and state employee unions have argued is badly understaffed. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State approves money for new rail stations
HARTFORD -- The State Bond Commission on Monday endorsed $5.75 million in borrowing to fund the design of new rail stations in Enfield, West Hartford, Newington and North Haven along the newly rebranded Hartford commuter line.
The money, which follows a $4 million allocation approved last year, will also pay for improvements to existing stations in Windsor Locks and Windsor, as well as a study to determine the location of a new station in Hamden. And it will fund two new stations on the New Haven line, in Orange and Bridgeport, as well as renovations to a station in Danbury.
"Creating a commuter rail line along the I-91 corridor is part of our transformative transportation vision for Connecticut,'' Malloy said after the meeting. "This bond authorization will give these important projects real momentum and I'm happy about that.''
The Democratic governor also provided an early glimpse of his sweeping transportation plans, the centerpiece of his 2015 legislative agenda. He told reporters that unsnarling a traffic tangle at the Charter Oak Bridge on I-91 in Hartford will likely be part of the plan. "A bridge that isn't that old but somehow they had the bright idea of designing it with only one right-hand lane connecting to the bridge,'' Malloy said during a press conference at the Legislative Office Building. "[That's] not a good idea to begin with when the traffic was even lower in the '80s than it is currently. Right now that project is a project that you can expect to see included in the long list of projects that we'll lay out.'' CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Nothing new about how to keep your employees
You can tell that some construction industry officials are getting serious about attracting and retaining employees: They are adopting trendy programs and using words with lots of syllables. Hot dog!
The employee crisis is real, of course, or at least is moving into near-crisis territory. During the recession and post-recession slowdown, old hands retired and younger construction veterans decided to seek a living in a less volatile line of work. Meanwhile, the youngest generations in the workforce continue to choose software work in cubicles over hard physical labor in the field.
Result: Contractors are looking at higher levels of work but with lower levels of experienced help in the equipment yard. Consequently, some employers are turning to what is called “onboarding.” The word dates from the 1970s and alludes to the idiomatic expression “on board,” as in, “Welcome on board, James. We know you’ll be a great employee.”
Onboarding is described, get your tongue ready, as “organizational socialization.” It is a plan for orienting new employees, acclimating them to company culture, training and mentoring them, and basically holding them by a hand until they feel secure in their new workplace environment. Sounds a lot like pre-kindergarten.
Anyway, some companies are hopping, dare I say it, on board. Their human resources people are using the jargon like it is their native language. They are rolling out PowerPoints on how to socialize their newly recruited employees. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE