NEW YORK (AP) — Tommy Gambardella is a master of New York's construction universe.
Each morning before dawn, he rides an elevator more than 50 stories up the side of a skyscraper growing on Manhattan's West Side. Then, he steps out onto a narrow walkway with a drop-dead view of the city below and mounts some spiral steps into the glass control cab of a tower crane.
There, he's alone, in silence.
From high in the sky, he can see the sun light up Manhattan all the way to the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. He wraps his fingers around two joysticks to bring the crane alive.
Gambardella, 49, is at the helm of one of the giant tower cranes sprouting across the city, a prime force in a building boom that is changing New York's skyline. It can be dangerous work — a fact hammered home by several deadly accidents in recent years.
"Is it a thrill? I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it," he says after climbing from the translucent fishbowl of his control cab, atop what will be a 65-story apartment tower. "But you need to have a little more nerve than the average human being, and be a little crazy."
New York is enjoying a construction bonanza following a recession that choked new investment for years. The city has issued permits for about $35 billion worth of both residential and commercial construction in the past year.
Fifty-five tower cranes and 26 smaller, "crawler" cranes are now in use, licensed by the city — about twice as many as two years ago, according to the Department of Buildings.
Standing on the sidewalk, it is hard not to be awed by, and a little frightened of, the supertall cranes hoisting loads of steel into the sky. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Twenty organizations, including the state Department of Transportation and business leaders such as O&G Industries, broke bread at the Best Western Hotel in North Haven at the 2016 Congressional Delegation Transportation Breakfast to celebrate the passage of Fast Act, the bill that provides more than $300 billion nationwide for a five-year plan to upgrade the country’s infrastructure. Of that number, Connecticut will receive $500 million.
“Thanks for keeping transportation a priority in Congress,” Don Shubert, of the Connecticut Construction Industries Association, told the delegation which includes members of Congress Jim Himes, Rosa DeLauro, Elizabeth Esty, John Larson and Joseph Courtney, as well as U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy was not able to attend but sent a video addressing the attendees.
Murphy sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, a powerful committee that is responsible for funding government organizations, departments and agencies.
“It’s been a generation — 30 years — since we had a Connecticut senator on appropriations,” he said. He used that position to kick off a bipartisan dialogue about transportation funding, he said. “It was right after my election that a handful of individuals in this room sat down with me and challenged me to elevate this issue.” Congress had been slow to approve a long-term transportation bill, opting instead to approve funding for only months at a time, which has made it difficult for construction firms to do any long-term planning. In December, President Obama signed into law the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, which authorizes $305 billion to be spent over the next five years on a variety of transportation needs, including public transportation, highways and railroads.
Connecticut’s share of that money is half a billion dollars, which is far lower than Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s $100 billion, 30-year plan to upgrade state infrastructure. An upgrade is desperately needed, Murphy said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Oxford power plant financed
OXFORD - The companies behind a planned 785-megawatt power plant called CPV Towantic in the local industrial park have announced they have locked up the financing necessary for the project.
In a news release, Maryland-based Competitive Power Ventures, or CPV, and GE Energy Financial Services state they have secured approximately $753 million in debt financing from a 16 private-sector lenders, led by MUFG Union Bank North America, Credit Agricole Corp. and Investment Bank and CIT Bank North America.
CPV, which has begun construction of its power plant on Woodruff Hill Road, states the consortium of lenders is comprised of financial backers with whom CPV has had a long-standing relationship, and some for whom this represents the first time they have invested in the U.S. power generation markets.
The project is expected to cost more than $1 billion, and between debt and equity, the companies have all the money they need to move forward, CPV representatives said Saturday.
Gary Lambert, CPV president and CEO, in a news release thanked Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration and state agencies that reviewed and approved the project, and local supporters.
The financial announcement is a major blow to members of the local community who are vehemently opposed to the project. The most vocal critics, who have tried to stop the project at every turn, are represented by the Stop Towantic Energy Coalition.
THE ORGANIZATION MET Saturday to discuss how to proceed with its efforts to block the project, which it believes would be harmful to the environment, area housing values and would have an adverse effect on Waterbury-Oxford Airport. Wayne McCormack, that organization's president, said the group is extremely disappointed. "And we're surprised that so many banks are willing to invest in an endeavor that is still in the courts," he said. "It's mind boggling, but they've done it."
McCormack is part of a group of 17 intervenors, which includes the Town of Middlebury, who have appealed the Connecticut Siting Council's decision to approve the project. New Britain Superior Court Judge Carl J. Schuman denied the appeal in January, but the denial is under review by the state appellate court. "We're still opposed to the plant," McCormack said. "I'm not sure what our next step is, but we're not just folding our tent." He said the group still believes the town of Oxford should meet with an outside consultant to help it develop a fair payment in lieu of tax, or PILOT, agreement. Currently, Oxford and CPV are operating under the belief that a PILOT agreement for a 512-megawatt project that was approved in 1999 for about $56 million is still in effect.
Oxford has twice denied a restructured agreement that First Selectman George R. Temple drafted with CPV that called for $112 million in lieu of taxes over 22 years— once at town meeting in September and once at a referendum in February. Temple said he is more concerned at this point with drafting a town budget than he is with the tax agreement. "Once the budget is settled, then we will get working on the tax agreement," he said. "For this year, we will get about $5 million, which is about $3 million less than we would have if the ($112 million) deal was approved. So people can thank their friends who shot it down for that." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE