April 12, 2016

CT Construction Digest April 12, 2016

South End residents upset over continued crushing activity

STAMFORD - Residents neighboring A. Vitti Construction in the city’s South End are dismayed the city’s recent court victory against the excavating business has not meant relief from the dust, noise and vibrations of his operation.
“He was quiet for a few days, but, just as I suspected, he started up again,” said Harbor Street resident Mike Adancio.
Although the Stamford-Norwalk District Superior Court sided with the city last month and ordered the excavating business to cease crushing construction debris at its Rugby Street property, a pending appeal before the state’s Supreme Court means business as usual.
“Unfortunately, the court system allows him to do what he’s doing,” said Thomas Mills, chairman of Stamford’s zoning board. “We’ve tried to stop him many times.”
Mills said a possible avenue of relief for residents would be to allow Vitti to move its operation indoors.
The Zoning Board last month changed the language of zoning rules to allow the business to construct a building on its land that would contain the equipment to process construction debris.
Thomas M. Cassone, attorney for Vitti, said the business wants to mitigate neighbors’ concerns.
“In order to get along with neighbors and to continue their business, they’ve devised a plan to continue their operation indoors,” he said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Schooled in construction

BRIDGEPORT — Hard hats are not required by the Central High School dress code, but these days they wouldn’t seem out of place.
As students pour out into the corridors of the 48-year-old high school between classes, exposed pipes, wires and foam fireproofing hang over them. The student body of 1,600 has had the entire school year to get used to hallways without ceiling tiles, workmen walking past and the sudden relocation of classrooms. “Sometimes there are noises, but it is not that much of a distraction,” Keahna Galarza, a Central High magnet senior said, waiting at the end of the day for a ride home from a school that doubles as a construction zone.
It will be that way until Galarza is well into college.
By the time this $86.4 million school construction and renovation project is complete in late 2017, the city’s largest comprehensive high school will not only have a new library and new auxiliary gym, but thoroughly renovated classrooms and facilities throughout the school’s 284,000 square feet. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Bridge work to span two years
bridge
State Department of Transportation crews began construction work at the intersection of West Main and Burritt streets in February 2015. The bridge project — which will be completed in the summer of 2017 — is currently at the end of phase one.
Phase one entailed replacing a portion of the nearby bridge heading westbound. Because of the work, that part of West Main Street narrowed from three lanes to two lanes. The second phase of the project — which will begin shortly — will replace a portion of the bridge heading eastbound. The third phase will replace the middle of the bridge, which was built in 1930. Juan Ruiz, project engineer for the state DOT, said the bridge "is very old and antiquated. We are bringing the bridge into the 21st century. It will have a new deck, new roadway and new sidewalks."
The entire project is about $6 million and is being paid entirely with federal and state dollars. All local businesses are remaining open during the construction. At left, the construction on West Main Street near the int3ersection with Burritt Street.
 
 
MIDDLESEX COUNTY >> Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has awarded $7 million in grants for 38 projects to build, expand or enhance greenways and multi-use trails in more than 27 communities across the state — including $2.1 million for those in five Middlesex County towns. Grantees include the following area locations: Middletown: $103,197 for the North End Peninsula Landfill Reuse Trail, a 1.25-mile long, 6-foot-wide stonedust trail across a closed landfill with two kiosks, six benches and wayfinding.
Portland: $685,932 for the Air Line State Park Trail Extension, a 2.27-mile extension of this trail with a 10-car parking lot.
East Hampton: $583,800 for the Air Line SPT Phase connection to Portland to extend the trail from Phase 1 funded by the last grant round. Killingworth: $52,000 for the Sheldon Park accessible trail, a complete, 860-foot-long-by-5-foot-wide paved trail through Sheldon Park to provide opportunity for people who cannot negotiate the rocky, uneven woodland trails to walk or ride in fresh air and participate in community activities Portland: $685,932 for the Air Line State Park Trail Extension, 2.27-mile extension of this trail with 10-car parking lot. The Connecticut Greenways Council is an advisory committee for grant selection and recently met to select the first round of grant recipients under the new program.  CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

East Lyme Inland Wetlands Agency approves Costco application

East Lyme — The Inland Wetlands Agency approved a permit Monday for the construction of a Costco at the Gateway Commons site near Interstate 95.
The agency's approval is the first step as the developers seek permits from the town to install the big-box store for the retail phase of the commercial and residential development.
An application from Gateway Development and Costco Wholesale Corp. would next proceed to the Planning Commission and then to the Zoning Commission.
The developers are proposing to build an approximately 138,000-square-foot Costco building, along with a gas station, parking area and access drives, according to their application.
They intend to develop roughly 12.5 acres of a 14.7-acre site on Flanders Road.
The application includes an operations and maintenance plan for the gas station and a storm sewer system with two stormwater management basins.
Most of the site currently drains to the Pattagansett River, according to a project summary prepared by the project engineer. Another portion, on the northeast side, drains to a wetlands system along I-95, which takes water under the highway through a culvert, according to the document.
In response to questions from the commission on Monday, soil scientists for the developers and a representative for Costco outlined the infrastructure to collect stormwater and the monitoring system for the tanks. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Glasgo Dam repairs on schedule

GRISWOLD - Eight months after beginning much-needed repairs to Glasgo Dam, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says the project is expected to be completed on time. “This is a significant state project and it continues on schedule. There are no new or unusual issues and we’re looking toward the end of the year for the project to be done,” DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain said. The state Bond Commission awarded $5.8 million for the dam repairs in July 2015. Schain said the mild winter has offered few hiccups to the work and completion of repairs is expected to be done by December. The 146-year-old Glasgo Dam is classified by the state as a “high hazard dam.” The work is aimed at repairing the dam’s spillway, constructing a higher capacity outlet structure to eliminate public safety risks, fixing the gates used to draw down the water and repair the access road leading up to the pond for recreational use. To do this, DEEP had to drain Glasgo Pond between 18 to 20 feet in September 2015.  Jennifer Perry, supervisor of engineering services, said so far workers are in the process of moving the right side of the dam in order to create a new drawdown structure. “This gives us better capability to manipulate the water levels of the pond,” Perry said. “The old drawdown structure was very difficult to manipulate.” The improvements are designed to make the dam withstand even the unlikeliest and most catastrophic of storms, DEEP has said. In October 2014, DEEP conducted an initial 5-foot drawdown of the pond to evaluate the condition of the dam. As a result, many private wells around the pond went dry. Residents were given two weeks notice of the drawdown, which they said didn’t give them enough time to find a backup water source. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

DOT Creates Website For Walk Bridge Replacement

NORWALK — Once workers begin replacing the 120-year-old Walk Bridge in two years, the country's busiest commuter rail line and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor trains will have to run on just two sets of tracks instead of the usual four.
The state recently created a website — www.walkbridgect.com — to explain how it's trying to plan construction with the least disruptions to rail passengers, South Norwalk residents and businesses, and Norwalk River boat traffic. Deterioration of the bridge's mechanical systems caused it to freeze in the open position repeatedly in 2014, creating havoc for tens of thousands of commuters and Northeast Corridor passengers when trains could no longer cross the Norwalk River.
The state transportation department wants to entirely replace the 560-foot bridge, which was designed to swing sideways to open.
The chief reason for replacing it is the worsening condition of the system that moves it. Engineers say it has long outlived its expected lifespan; the bridge was designed when Grover Cleveland was president and first operated partly on steam power.
At the same time, Amtrak, Metro-North and the state all see a new bridge as helping to shore up the coastline stretch of the Northeast Corridor against future hurricanes or flooding. After storm Sandy extensively damaged mass transit systems near the coast in New York and New Jersey, federal railroad officials have campaigned to strengthen vulnerable infrastructure points along the Northeast Corridor. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Workers Start Laying Down Sod On Hartford Ballpark Field

HARTFORD — You can talk all you want about electrical wiring, plumbing and steel framing at Dunkin' Donuts Park, but once the sod starts going on the field — as it did Monday — the new stadium really starts looking like a ballpark.
Even Jason Rudnick, a principal in the stadium's developer, Centerplan Cos., could see that.
"It's perception," Rudnick said Monday, during a tour highlighting the grass going in. "There's a lot of stuff going on heading to the completion of the park. But optically, this is one of the things — along with seats — that people associate with a ballpark."
Over three days, workers will put down about 90,000 square feet of Kentucky blue grass — roughly 2 acres — on the field where the Double A Eastern League Yard Goats are scheduled to play their first true home game May 31. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE