The transportation infrastructure sector received some good news when President Obama signed the five-year, $305 billion Fixing America's Surface Transportation, or FAST, Act on December 4. The bill includes $225.2 billion from the Highway Trust Fund, which represents a $20.2 billion increase over maintaining current funding for the five-year life of the bill. The increased spending comes as welcome news to construction companies such as Granite , engineering services companies such Jacobs Engineering , as well as heavy machinery companies such as beleaguered giant Caterpillar .
Which company is best positioned to take advantage of this $300 billion windfall?
The gift of stabilityThe stability provided by a five-year bill is perhaps even more welcome news than the increased spending. Highway funding for the past several years has been characterized by short-term extensions. The challenge with short-term extensions is that they create uncertainty that makes it difficult for states to commit to large-scale projects.
In Georgia, for instance, Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry has indicated that 329 projects totaling $715 million were being held up because of uncertainty over federal funding. Similarly, in 2015, Arkansas suspended 70 projects worth $282 million. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Apartments proposed near future Wallingford train station
WALLINGFORD — A Branford-based apartment management firm is planning to build 100 to 120 new units along Parker and Washington streets.
Earlier this week, the Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved an application to change the zoning district at 75 Parker St. and 367 Washington St. from an I-40 industrial zone to a downtown apartment overlay.
JFA Management, which owns Parker Place, 57 Parker St., is expected to purchase 75 Parker St. There are about 120 apartments at Parker Place.
Plans call for the construction of a three-story building, which would house a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. JFA Management is expected to appear before the PZC in the next few months to present plans.
The apartments will be located within the transit oriented development district. Construction is continuing at the future train station, which will be in the vicinity of North Colony, Parker and North Cherry streets. The train station will be located about quarter mile from the proposed apartments.
If the plans are approved, Economic Development Specialist Tim Ryan said he believes it could lead to more development around the train station and downtown.
“I continue to be one of the town center’s biggest cheerleaders,” he said. “... It all ties together nicely, where you have a generational shift moving towards town centers. There’s community interest, developer interest of making town centers more vibrant. I truly believe it will lead to more organic growth that are commercial and industrial based.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Progress on the new police facility, which began in September, has been quick in order to meet a goal to open the facility in October.
The two-story internal steel structure has been constructed, and much of the underground work has been completed, including the septic system.
Mayor Michael Finkelstein said he hopes the workers will be able to enclose the building by the end of the week in order to heat it and begin constructing some of the interior walls.
Across the street, the Ledyard Town Center Committee will by next week send to bid a streetscaping plan to improve the look and accessibility of the stretch of Colonel Ledyard Highway in front of the fairgrounds and Ledyard Center School.
The committee has been pursuing improvement projects for the area of town that includes the town hall, fairgrounds and the Congregational Church since 2006.
In 2011, the town received a small town economic assistance program, or STEAP grant for $150,000 to build a stone wall along the area that divides the town's fairgrounds from the school and the congregational church. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Mild weather aids in construction of new Backus care center in Plainfield
PLAINFIELD — Buoyed by mild winter weather, construction of a new Plainfield medical center is on schedule for a summer or fall opening, officials said. In the seven months since construction began on the Backus Center for Specialty Care on Gallup Street, a skeleton of girders has risen over a concrete foundation. On Monday, wielding sparks arced and dissipated inside the steel shell of the center, located on land behind the PlainfieldBackusEmergencyCareCenter on Norwich Road. As workers hammered, yellow excavators and loaders navigated between large mounds of dirt behind the 40,000 square-foot, two-story building. “We’re on track to have construction ready to be complete in early June and for the specialty care offices to move in by the fall,” said Todd Wren, an engineer with O,R&L. “We should be weather-tight by late January, which means inside work can continue regardless of the weather.” Wren said the cooperative weather — there’s been little measurable snow so far this year — has allowed crews to meet, and even slightly exceed, the project’s work schedule. The specialty care center, like the nearby emergency center, will be owned by Branford-based O,R&L Plainfield LLC, but leased to The William W. Backus Hospital group. Recently firmed-up plans call for the building to house several medical service offices, including those dedicated to cardiology, women’s health, primary care, infusion and rehabilitation. A plan to add an ambulatory surgery center is pending state approval, Backus spokesman Shawn Mawhiney said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Eversource Proposes Transmission Line Through Three Towns
WEST HARTFORD — To increase power reliability, Eversource Energy plans to build a 3.8-mile underground transmission line through three towns, with the majority in West Hartford.
The line will run between the Newington substation and the southwest Hartford substation, passing through portions of Newington, West Hartford and Hartford, Eversource spokesman Frank Poirot said.
"There is a roundabout connection between the two substations, but we believe that by building a more direct shortcut between the two for electricity to go through, it would provide improvement for both substations in terms of reliability," Poirot said.
The Hartford substation near New Park Avenue is currently connected to the regional grid by two underground transmission lines; one from the east and the second from the north, he said. The new proposed line is like "a missing piece of the puzzle," he said.The 115-kilovolt line aims to "build redundancy" into Eversource's system, adding another path for the electric current to flow, Poirot said. Essentially, if there is a problem in one circuit, power can be switched to another, he said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Senate President: No Votes on Tolls Until 2017
HARTFORD — The highest-ranking senator said Thursday that there will be no votes in the legislature on new tolls on Connecticut highways until 2017.
Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat, spoke the evening before Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's transportation finance panel is scheduled to recommend tolls and tax increases to fund Malloy's 30-year, $100 billion transportation program. The report, to be released Friday morning, is expected to recommend increases in the gasoline tax and the sales tax to fund billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements, officials said. The panel's recommendations are advisory only, and any tax increases must be approved by both the legislature and the governor.
Looney intends to delay a vote on tolls until after the public votes, as early as November, for a constitutional amendment that would create a lockbox that would prevent any money set aside for transportation from being used for any other purpose.
"All of those [funding options] will be on the table for discussion in 2017, assuming the lockbox passes in 2016,'' Looney said.Besides tolls, the report Friday is expected to recommend increasing the state sales tax by half a penny to 6.85 percent and increase the gasoline tax by 2 cents per gallon per year for seven years, according to state officials who have been briefed on the report.
Looney said Thursday night that he had not seen the report but said there would be no rush to approve the funding sources for transportation.
"Certainly, I don't foresee tolls being adopted in the immediate future,'' Looney said. "There has to be adoption of the lockbox first before there is any discussion of any additional transportation revenues.'' CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
River Street property in New Haven to be demolished
NEW HAVEN >> It’s been a dream for more than a decade, but the city is finally giving up on saving part of its industrial history along River Street.
The former New Haven Pipe Bending Co. at 142 River St. has deteriorated to the point where Building Official Jim Turcio and others agree that it has to come down.
Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson estimated it may cost as much as $300,000 to demolish the asbestos-laden structure, but Turcio thought it would be less than that.
He said he wouldn’t allow a walk-through of the structure because of the deterioration, as the building suffered a small fire in August and was partially demolished at that point.
The company is part of the Bigelow Boiler plant complex where hundreds of residents worked from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century in the city’s Fair Haven section. The historic significance goes farther back as it was constructed on the site of Camp Terry, a former Civil War Army barracks that housed Connecticut’s two African-American regiments, the 29th and the 30th, according to Connecticuthistory.org. Bigelow Boiler, owned by Hobart Bigelow, made huge industrial furnaces that were shipped around the world, while his Pipe Bending Co.made the tubes needed for those boilers. Bigelow at 198 River St., adjacent to the Pipe Bending Co., is the larger of the buildings. The front portion of Bigelow has been stabilized with a potential plan in the works to renovate it to offices, according to Helen Rosenberg, one of the city’s economic development specialists. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE