Greenwich building committee seeks construction manager
The committee overseeing the planning of a new building for New Lebanon School is seeking proposals from construction firms interested in managing the project.
The construction firm will work with the building committee during planning and construction and will be responsible for budgeting, scheduling, safety, design work, contracts and permits. Once construction starts, it will monitor the site work daily and report regularly to the committee on the building work. A request for proposals was released Tuesday, with a due date of Nov. 25. Committee members plan to interview finalists on Dec. 7 or Dec. 8 and then vote Dec. 9 on which firm to hire.
Building committee members want to hire a construction manager now so the firm can join the project right after the panel chooses a building design to develop. The panel has already hired an architectural firm, the Hartford-based Tai Soo Kim Partners.
On Wednesday, Tai Soo Kim Partners presented four construction scenarios to the New Lebanon building committee. The plans’ estimated costs range between $32.8 million and $34.3 million. Two of them would involve moving New Lebanon students during construction, while the other two would let the children stay put during the building work.
“We’re just teeing it up, so that we don’t lose time once the option is selected,” Stephen Walko, the building committee’s chairman, said. “It’s also to make sure we have refined numbers to give to the BET so that when the RTM ultimately votes on this, we’re comfortable with the cost of the project.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Environmentalists to rally for renewable energy, against Algonquin pipeline
HARTFORD — The state’s push to bring more natural gas into Connecticut to heat homes and produce electricity is drawing fire from environmentalists, who say an expansion in pipeline construction means declining focus on renewable energy.
The Algonquin pipeline, which will run through the state from Danbury to Oxford, to Putnam, is the first of five planned interstate pipeline projects approved in March by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
“Renewable energy is a great investment in people and the economy, and avoids fuel cost increases due to scarcity and the worsening harm of climate disruption,” said Martha Klein, a spokeswoman from the Connecticut Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Klein said a law sponsored by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in 2013 to expand the state’s gas distribution system is discouraging renewable energy and driving massive gas pipeline construction across the state, including an interstate line that will travel through Danbury.
The Sierra Club and other environmental groups are calling for a state energy mix based primarily on renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind and hydroelectric, as opposed to gas, oil and coal.
They will hold a noon rally Saturday at the state Capitol to call for a state energy policy based on “100 percent renewable” sources.
“The construction of 900 miles of intrastate gas pipeline to connect hundreds of thousands of new customers to gas is underway,” Klein said. “The pipeline expansions will bring vastly more gas into the state, more gas than we use now, so the state is creating the need for gas. Discounts are offered to homeowners and businesses to convert to gas.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Subcontractors Angered By Long-Delayed Payments For Work On Highway Service Plazas
Since embarking in 2009 on a project to rebuild Connecticut's 23 highway service plazas, state officials and private developers have talked in glowing terms of their "innovative public-private partnership, through which private sector funding will help to rebuild and maintain public infrastructure."
But now, as the nearly $150-million job is at its end, subcontractors who are still owed a collective $5 million for work they have completed use less-than-glowing words to describe the two corporations that ran the six-year project: Centerplan Construction Co. of Middletown and Project Service LLC of Milford. "I hope you feel proud being a failure!!" Pablo Jimenez, owner of subcontractor PJ's Construction Co. of New Haven, wrote in an Oct. 13 email to the president of Centerplan, which managed the construction on project. Jimenez said he is still owed $320,000. He called Centerplan a "dead beat company" in the email and threw in "unqualified, incompetent, [and] greedy" — along with a couple of other choice words — and sent copies to the state Department of Transportation and The Courant.
The payments to subcontractors have been held up because of a financial dispute between Centerplan and Project Service, which for months had been pointing fingers at each other over who had to pay final project costs, including payments to people like Jimenez.
Only in the past few days has the DOT forced an apparent solution to the problem of non-payment, although Jimenez still doesn't have the money in his pocket.
It all has sounded a sour note at the end of what the DOT and the two companies say has been a successful project that has rebuilt rundown service areas on I-95, I-395, and the Wilbur Cross and Merritt parkways into inviting rest stops with varied food choices — all using private investment funds and not taxpayers' money. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Proposed XL Center Makeover Comes With A Hefty Pricetag
HARTFORD — A $250 million plan to transform the XL Center into a modern venue envisions swapping ugly concrete for glass at the corner of Ann Uccello and Church streets, bringing some of the vibe that’s inside the arena out to the street.
“When you’re in it, you feel the city and when you’re outside on the street, you can look inside,” Michael W. Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, said. “In other cities, these buildings deliver an energy level, and that’s what we have to achieve here.”
The goal is daunting and the redesign of the back of the XL Center is just the latest component of a proposed, top-to-bottom makeover and expansion of the 40-year-old arena. The $250 million project would be spread across several fiscal years and paid for almost entirely by the state.
The authority, which oversees the XL Center and the renovation, will have to marshal the political support from both Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the state legislature to secure funding. The project will have to compete with a myriad of other projects, including Malloy’s sweeping statewide plan to improve transportation and comes at a time when the state is mired in deepening financial woes.
The first chunk of funding — perhaps as much as $50 million — could get the project fully underway next year. If legislative approval is secured, construction could start the following year and be completed by 2019.
The plans envision a dramatic change that would essentially create a new arena: a second concourse to relieve congestion and irritating waits at concessions; more “premium” seating lower in the arena; and more amenities and restrooms. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE