DANBURY — After more than four years of planning and lining up financing, officials with the Connecticut Institute for Communities are ready to move forward on a four-story health center on southern Main Street.
The institute, a not-for-profit social services organization headed by former U.S. Rep. James Maloney, will be building the health center on the site of the city’s former police station. The institute acquired the property, with plans to build both a health center and senior housing, more than four years ago for $1.1 million.
While it took some time to line up financing for the project, Maloney said they have about $15 million available for the new building and recently signed a contract with Bethel-based Verdi Construction, who will begin working on the project this month.
The financing came from a combination of state grants, private mortgages and money that became available through a federal program that allows private investors to earn tax credits by investing in community projects.
“It took a while to put all the money together, but we are now at a place where we can move forward with the health center,” Maloney said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Danbury's Kovacs Construction finds new home in Oxford
DANBURY — After more than 20 years of calling the city home, the Kovacs Construction Co. is moving out of Danbury.
While the move is a sad one for company officials who’ve spent much of their careers at the Danbury office on White Street, the company’s services have been in demand throughout the state. Wanda Kovacs, who runs the family-owned company along with her brother, Tom Kovacs, said a building they purchased in Oxford last week will give them more space and offer a more central location for their operations.
The company was founded in the 1970s by Richard Kovacs, an Air Force veteran with experience working on hydraulic systems, in Stamford. The company moved to its location in Danbury when it built a new facility on White Street in 1986. Kovacs Construction specializes in government sewer and water infrastructure, including pump stations and water treatment plants. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
BHS students: Construction made year difficult
BERLIN — The school year at Berlin High School has come to an end — a year in which a number of students said couldn’t have concluded soon enough; one in which they said was anything but easy as a result of the massive construction and renovation project taking place to the building.
A group of approximately 20, each of whom declined to give their name, while spending one of their first days of summer vacation on the basketball courts located on the edge of the school’s parking lot, used the likes of a “disaster,” “a complete inconvenience,” “impossible” and “really frustrating” to describe the experience of the past school year.
One student, a member of the Class of 2016, said that in many aspects the new school, at this point, was no better than the old one. He said depending on the classroom, the temperatures were extremely hot or extremely cold, it was noisy and often times a foul odor could be detected.
Another said the constant banging of construction equipment made it “very difficult to concentrate” and that it certainly hindered not only their ability to learn, but the instructor’s ability to teach.
Two seniors who were making their way into the building Wednesday afternoon to pick up their caps and gowns in preparation for Sunday’s graduation ceremony, said that at one point their entire class had to pick up and move to another room as they feared the banging and rattling above them would force things to fall through the ceiling. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Southington sports complex gets informal PZC approval
SOUTHINGTON — The town’s efforts to attract a sports complex developer got a boost after Planning and Zoning Commission members gave unanimous informal support this week to a proposal that includes a 300,000-square-foot dome.
A 112-acre site on West Street owned by the Sepko family is for sale and the town’s economic development office is targeting the site for a sports complex.
The town doesn’t own the property but approved up to $40,000 to develop a placeholder site plan to show zoning commission support for the concept. Louis Perillo III, economic development coordinator, said the town’s efforts help reduce the cost and risk of developing a sports complex.
Planning, design and full approval can cost as much as $100,000.
“That’s a lot of money for a developer to spend just to see if it’s acceptable to the town,” Perillo said.
Any developer still needs to get formal approval to build a complex.
According to a contract signed with the Sepko family, the town agreed on an undisclosed price to market the property. The contract also stipulated that the Sepkos will reimburse the town for engineering work if the property is sold through the town’s marketing efforts.
At least two developers were in the audience during Tuesday’s Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. They declined to identify themselves but said they were from Southington and planned a complex with eight fields, a restaurant and viewing area. They showed renderings of the proposed complex to town officials and others after the meeting. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
HARTFORD — A dispute between Amtrak and the state over escalating expenses has jeopardized chances that commuter trains will be running on the New Haven to Springfield line by late next year.
Connecticut's long-strained relationship with the railroad apparently fractured further in the past year, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is now asking federal officials to intervene because of what he calls Amtrak's failure to manage budgeting and staffing for what was supposed to be a $365 million job."The result is that the project is grossly over budget and significantly behind schedule," Malloy wrote in a May 11 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
Malloy told Foxx that the Federal Railroad Administration must get tougher in overseeing Amtrak's work on its 62-mile Springfield branch, but said the real solution is to take the project out of Amtrak's control altogether.
"Connecticut believes that the only way to fund and own responsibility for the success of this corridor is to transfer ownership of the line to the state of Connecticut," says a copy of the letter, obtained by The Courant.
Officials from Amtrak and the DOT met last week to review a new construction bid for the work, but it's not clear whether the project — known as the Hartford Line — can be ready to roll at the end of 2016. State Transportation Commissioner James Redeker said he anticipates a report from Amtrak and its primary contractor in mid- to late August showing a detailed budget forecast and construction schedule. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE