February 26, 2015

CT Construction Digest February 26, 2015

Eversource to pitch new energy substation in Greenwich

Eversource, the energy company formerly known as Connecticut Light and Power, will host an open house at Greenwich Town Hall on Tuesday to present plans for a new power substation on Railroad Avenue.
"Building a new substation is not something we do frequently," Eversource spokesman Frank Poirot said. "It happens when customer demand for electricity continues to grow, and we've been marking that trend in Greenwich in particular for years now."
The current bulk substation, in Cos Cob, was built in 1964, when there was less demand for energy in American's daily lives. Eversource anticipates the need will exceed its capacity at some point in 2017, Poirot said this week.
The energy company filed a municipal consultation earlier this month, outlining a multiyear plan to bring a new substation into town at 290 Railroad Ave., a building the company has owned since the 1970s. That location is home to Pet Pantry, a pet store, which recently bought the old Baang property on East Putnam Avenue for $2.7 million.
The first step of that process is the open house, which will be held in the Town Hall Meeting Room from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, where representatives from Eversource will explain plans for the project and invite questions from the public.
Poirot said if it's approved, construction would likely begin as soon as August 2016, kicking off a process he said is estimated to cost $104 million. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Plans for New Canaan Library moving forward

Breaking ground on a long-awaited and larger New Canaan Library is one step closer after the formation of a new capital committee to raise funds to build it.
More than two years after hiring an architect to consider potential designs, the new committee will begin a capital campaign to raise $25 million, according to library Executive Director Lisa Oldham.
The committee will be made up of Lydee Hummel, the vice president of the library board; Kathryn Burt, a trustee of the board; and Anda Hutchins, a former trustee of the board.
Among the needs for a new building is a larger auditorium to accommodate lectures and other programs and a much larger children's area, Oldham said. Another limitation of the facility is its 100-year-old infrastructure and a lack of space for patrons to take part in library programs.
About a third of the 37,000-square-foot building is unusable space at the basement levels, including mechanical rooms, she said.
"The auditorium is sub-optimal and can't accommodate all the people interested in events," Oldham said. "If we had a library with 37,000 square feet that was usable, it would be a good-sized library."
An early plan envisioning a 55,000-square-foot building is probably financially out of reach, Oldham said, but a new facility with 37,000 square feet of usable space would be able to serve the library's current needs.
The library has been at 151 Main St. since 1913 and was expanded and renovated in 1937, 1952 and 1979, according to the library website.
The building and grounds at the library are owned by an association and not the town of New Canaan and are expected to raise the majority of money for the new building from private donations. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Uncertain funding a problem for aging roads in Connecticut, nation

Touted as one of the first interstate highways, a 200-mile span of Interstate 70 between suburban St. Louis and Kansas City stands as a prime example of the challenges facing the nation’s roads.
Built in the 1950s and ’60s with a 20-year-life expectancy, the four-lane highway is crumbling beneath its surface and clogged with traffic as it carries more than 30,000 vehicles a day on many of its rural stretches, requiring more frequent repaving. The cost to rebuild and widen it is estimated at $2 billion to $4 billion — as much as five times the projected yearly construction and maintenance budget of Missouri’s transportation department. And there is no easy way to pay for it. The state fuel tax hasn’t risen in about 20 years, and voters defeated a 1-cent sales tax for transportation. Gov. Jay Nixon has since floated the idea of hiking the gasoline tax and reviving a previously failed plan to turn I-70’s reconstruction over to a private entity that could charge tolls estimated at up to $30 per car.  As legislatures convene across the country, lawmakers and governors are confronting similar realities in their own states: how to address an aging network of roads, highways and bridges during an era in which federal money for such projects has remained stagnant or declined. Figures compiled by The Associated Press show the total amount of money available to states from the Federal Highway Trust Fund has declined 3.5 percent during the five-year period ending in 2013, the latest year for which numbers were available. During that span, the amount of inflation-adjusted federal highway money dropped in all states but Alaska and New York. In response, states have tried to devise ways to fill the gap. Governors and lawmakers in several states are proposing new taxes, tolls and fees to repair a road system whose historical reliance on fuel taxes no longer is providing enough money to cover its costs. “You’re seeing states all across the country that are looking to do something, because they realize you can’t count on the federal government,” said Missouri state Rep. Dave Hinson, a Republican who supports the idea of raising the state sales tax for road improvements.  CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Hundreds turn out for labor committee hearing at Middletown city hall

MIDDLETOWN >> It may have been cold outside. But passions were aflame inside Middletown City Hall Tuesday, as members of the General Assembly’s Labor and Public Employees Committee took testimony for and against a range of issues.
There were more than 50 proposed bills up for discussion. But as the committee chairman, Sen. Gary Winfield, D-10, noted, the main arguments focused on two key issues — increasing the thresholds for prevailing wage rates to kick in and imposing limits on unemployment benefits. Speaker after speaker trailed to the microphone at Common Council chambers to share their opinions, make their points, or to denounce or support proposed legislation for the nine committee members.
Some of the arguments were well-rehearsed, others well-known to committee members, having been presented to the same committee last year during a public hearing in New Britain.
Speakers used the same facts to argue different interpretations and opposing viewpoints before an audience that ranged to upwards of 250 to 300 people when the hearing began at 6 p.m.
Many of the people who made up that audience were large, bulky men — union members from various construction industry trades.
They did not wear their pride on their sleeves, but on their shirts, on oversized patches on the backs of their jackets, or on emblems on their hats.
Because there was an overflow crowds, Capitol police officers herded scores of people from the chambers into the hallway just outside. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Demolition but not construction coming soon for Southington Ideal Forging

The Ideal Forging buildings in the downtown may be demolished in the next few weeks but that doesn’t mean the retail and housing proposed for the site will be constructed soon.
Representatives of a proposed 250-unit condominium building, Greenway Commons, are scheduled to meet with town building officials today to plan the demolition of the Ideal Forging buildings. The plan involves a $70 million retail and residential complex in the Southington downtown.
Building Department John Smigel said a representative would present some of the documentation tomorrow needed for a demolition permit.
“They’re still working on giving us the required paperwork,” he said.
Meridian Development Partners, a firm from New York, owns the property. The company could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The project to use the former factory complex between Mill and Center streets has been in the preliminary stages for about a decade.
The industrial site also required environmental remediation. In 2013, Weston Solutions Inc., an environmental consultant and redevelopment advisor, supervised the removal of manufacturing chemicals, oils and florescent light ballasts on the site. Groundwater remediation was done in the same year.
Some of the buildings have already been torn down. Smigel said the demolition permit currently requested would mean the destruction of five main buildings and three or four smaller accessory buildings.
There’s still more cleanup needed on the property though, according to Town Council Chairman Michael Riccio. A special tax district was formed called the Greenway Commons Improvement District that will provide remediation funding in return for property tax sharing between the town and the state. The tax district helps to fund projects that are difficult to finance privately.
Once Meridian has the demolition permit, the buildings can come down and remediation done. But Riccio said the company will likely wait for the market to improve before starting work.
“As far as constructing buildings, they’re a long way from that,” he said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
 
 
Norwich - Spectra Energy will host an open house from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Holiday Inn, 10 Laura Boulevard, to provide information about the Atlantic Bridge Project.
The project involves adding natural gas pipeline infrastructure to the existing Algonquin Gas Transmission and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline systems. The project will bring new supplies of natural gas into the region by November 2017, the company said. The new pipeline will be in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Existing meter stations also will be modified.
During the open house, Spectra Energy representatives will answer questions about the proposed facilities, safety, land acquisition and the environmental permitting processes, as well as about construction, operations and other aspects.

Three states to work together on clean energy proposals

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Wednesday that Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have initiated a coordinated process that will lead to a three-state request for proposals for clean energy resources.
"By working together with neighboring states we can make the most efficient use of our resources to attract new clean energy projects at the lowest possible cost for ratepayers while advancing our interests in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases," Malloy said in a news release. "The joint procurement process opens the possibility of procuring large-scale projects and transmission to deliver clean energy on a scale that no single state could secure on its own."
Other goals include diversifying the fuel mix in New England and helping to address winter reliability issues.
The three states took the first step in the procurement process by formally releasing a draft request for proposals for a 30-day comment period. The comment period will end on March 26.
After considering the comments, the states will issue the final request for proposals this spring.
It will seek bids on new Class I Renewable Energy projects, which include wind, solar, small hydroelectric, biomass and fuel cells of at least 20 megawatts, and large-scale hydroelectric power projects that were constructed after Jan. 1. The draft proposal seeks to allow the states to consider projects for the delivery of clean energy through: CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Labor berates bills that would ease prevailing wage rules in Connecticut

MIDDLETOWN — Fifteen bills that would reduce the number of public construction projects that pay union wages inspired vehement opposition from hundreds of union construction workers, far more than could fit Tuesday night in a standing-room-only hearing room.
 The audience at times applauded pro-worker speakers and at times heckled legislators or a town official advocating for prevailing wage changes. The prevailing wage standard does not require that contractors hire union workers, but that they pay union level pay and benefits to any workers hired. Hundreds of union construction workers who tried to attend an off-site Labor Committee hearing in Middletown's city hall. The chamber had only about 100 seats, and virtually no standing room, so as many workers crowded the lobby as sat inside. "With so many bills, it's difficult to know where to begin," said Jeremy Zeedyk, an organizer from Sheet Metal Local 40. He said every year, union members spend energy debunking myths about the prevailing wage and its impact on towns. "Yet here we are doing the same old dance again," he said.The majority of the bills would change the threshold that triggers prevailing wage from $400,000 to $1 million for new construction. Those who wish to raise the threshold say that higher labor and benefit costs under the prevailing wage mean projects are delayed or never done. Rep. John Piscopo, R-Thomaston, said his first selectman first asked for relief from prevailing wages costs in the late 1990s. "It's a discussion whose time has come," he said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Tolls heard in Hartford yesterday

HARTFORD — Residents of Danbury, Greenwich, Enfield and other border towns deluged state legislators Wednesday with emails urging them to oppose highway tolls. "It would almost appear to be political suicide for anyone to go down this path," said Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, who is joining other Republicans in opposing tolls in Connecticut. At least one Republican legislator from the Danbury region had promised last week to organize a show of strength from anti-toll voters at Wednesday's hearing before the legislature's transportation committee. That came to pass when several hundred emails — overwhelmingly against tolls — arrived for the committee members.
 Opponents warn that border tolls would hurt towns near Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island because merchants could lose business from people who might decide not to drive into Connecticut. Connecticut residents who commute to jobs across the border also would suffer, opponents said, and local roads would be clogged with drivers trying to detour around the tolls. "You are going to have backups of drivers seeking to avoid a toll on the exit ramps on I-95 and absolute mayhem if this body approves border tolls," Sen. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, said at the hearing. On the opposite side of the debate, Rep. Russ Morin, D-Wethersfield, hammered the concern for public safety: Connecticut faces billions of dollars of long-postponed maintenance work on roads and bridges with no money to pay for it. "At some point we have to stop kicking the can," Morin said. "A tragic accident brought tolls to an end in Connecticut. I'm concerned when I hear, 'Let's talk about it.'" He said he didn't want to see a tragedy caused by poor maintenance force the state to hurriedly spend billions to improve its infrastructure. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE