RIDGEFIELD — Aided by a light winter and pushed by robust demand, developers of an age 55-plus housing development on Sunset Lane are scrambling to finish the first phase of their project in time for residents to move in this July.
When completed, the “Coach Homes at Ridgefield” will include 54 units - nine townhomes and 45 condos
Before the first homes are even finished, soon-to-be residents are itching to move in.
Martin Handshy, a longtime Ridgefield resident and president of developer Charter Group Partners, said 51 of the units have been sold or are under nonbinding agreements with potential tenants, a rarity considering buyers have yet to see the homes.
“The response has been absolutely overwhelming,” Handshy said from his sales office just steps from where workers were busy insulating the first three townhouses. “In my experience. . . I’ve been building since 1982 . . . it’s unheard of. Most of the time, people want to see what they’re buying.”
But Christine Robertson, who chairs the town’s Commission on Aging, said that Ridgefield’s aging population needed more developments like the Coach Homes, which will allow only residents over age 55. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Rail construction scheduled for downtown Wallingford
WALLINGFORD – Construction on the New Haven-Springfield rail project is scheduled for this weekend along Hall Avenue and Quinnipiac Street near the train station.
Work will begin Friday at 10 p.m. and continue until 6 a.m. Sunday. Residents should be aware of increased construction activity in the area. Officials will be on site to guide traffic.
The work includes improvements to drainage systems and rail beds in preparation for a second track to be installed on the line next to the existing train platform. After preliminary work is completed, the concrete train platform will be removed and a temporary platform put in place by Sunday.
The rail project is expected to be complete by 2018 and will upgrade lines from New Haven to Springfield, Massachusetts.
MOHEGAN — Leaders of the Mohegan Tribe were on hand for a special ceremony Wednesday to mark the “topping off,” or completion of the exterior of the tribe’s $130 million Earth Hotel project.
The 400-room hotel is scheduled to open in the fall, with interior work still to be completed. A large red crane still towers over the top of the building. Wednesday’s symbolic milestone included the placing of the final piece of exterior glass onto the building, followed by a short tour of the interior. Aided by two workers, the crane carefully lifted the final window into position on a top floor corner of the 13-story hotel. Tribal leaders say the hotel project is designed not only to create 1,000 jobs, but to recapture the almost 500,000 room nights turned away in 2014, as well as battle increased competition from future casino projects in Massachusetts and nationwide. The Earth Hotel room rate will be about 25 percent lower than those now offered in the Sky Hotel, casino officials said. “We’re at 98 percent occupancy at this 1,100-room hotel as it is,” Mohegan Tribal Council Chairman Kevin “Red Eagle” Brown said, referring to the nearby Sky Hotel. “We’ve always had the demand to have more rooms on the property. Now we’re beginning to meet some of that unmet demand.” The new hotel will help the tribe recapture some 125,000 of the room nights it loses each year to local hotel operators, Brown said. Groundbreaking on the Earth Hotel was in March 2015, followed by pouring of the concrete foundation in June. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE