When Dan Cecil agreed to open his business, World of Beer, on Harbor Point, it was with the understanding that the massive development would be built quickly and bring thousands of tenants into the neighborhood.
A year later, business is slowing down and Cecil blames it, in part, on the fact that construction workers are gone.
Progress has stalled on the development since the city put a halt on the processing of new applications until the Zoning Board accepts a viable proposal for replacing a 14-acre boatyard destroyed by the developers in late 2011.
“I don’t think they should hold the entire project hostage,” Cecil said. “I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest — including the taxpayers’ best interest — to not let Harbor Point be built.”
“I think it’s putting a big constraint on the businesses,” he added. “One of the things that attracted us to the area was the long-term viability of the project. When we made the decision to invest it was with the anticipation that it would be built as designed.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Jury to decide AFB Construction suit against Trumbull first selectman
A jury will decide if Trumbull’s first selectman purposely tried to block a friend of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy from getting a $100,000 contract to expand a preschool in Trumbull.
Inconvenience, backups at New Haven's exit 44 frustrate City Point residents
NEW HAVEN >> The state Department of Transportation intended to increase safety by eliminating an exit and creating a diamond-shaped interchange at Exit 44 off Interstate 95, but residents of City Point see it as an inconvenient, backed-up mess. In fact, residents of the Harbour Landing and Breakwater Bay condominiums off Sea Street can’t get home if they’re coming from West Haven without going around via Kimberly Avenue, even though they live just a few dozen yards from the exit. A right turn onto Sea Street is not allowed from Exit 44 northbound or the new access road that ends at Ella T. Grasso Boulevard.
“You’re not allowed to take a turn,” said Vin DiLauro, president of the Harbour Landing Condo Association. “There’s a lot of good Samaritans out there, good, law-abiding citizens” who are “making an illegal turn” to get to their homes. “It used to be an easy on, easy off,” DiLauro said. “Now I say it’s a mess.”
Deciding not to take an illegal turn involves what Paul Larivee of the Hill/City Point Neighborhood Association calls “a big loop-de-loop,” turning left and driving up to Kimberly Avenue in order to come back down the Boulevard. Ann Okerson, a resident of Harbour Close, mentioned “the difficulty of getting home when you come off of I-95. When you get to the bottom of that [ramp], the signs say ‘No Turns,’ so you can’t drive directly to our neighborhood.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State could rake in $62B in highway tolls
HARTFORD - Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is backing away from a state commissioned study which concludes that slapping electronic tolls on all of Connecticut’s highways could generate more than $62 billion in revenue over 25 years.
“Tolling can be a viable option for establishing a new, sustainable and equitable source of revenue for transportation investment in Connecticut,” consultant CDM Smith said in the federally funded study on tolls obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media.
Commissioned by the state, the Smith study looked at various tolling possibilities, including border tolls, limited tolls on certain highways and express lanes, and concludes maximum revenue would be produced by placing tolls on all highways — I-95 and I-84, the Merritt Parkway and limited access state highways such as Route 8.
But despite the huge windfall predicted by the study, Malloy quickly distanced himself from placing tolls on state highways.
“The governor has neither proposed tolling nor endorsed the contents of this report,” said Devon Puglia, a Malloy spokesman. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE