NEW BRITAIN — More than $6.4 million in funding for projects in the city was part of $189 million in requests advanced by the State Bond Commission on Tuesday.
More than $4 million will provide for new housing units in New Britain through a Department of Housing request. A loan of $1.9 to Tunxis Road Associates, LLC, will help with the development of 14 apartments at 477 Columbus Blvd. The site, just north of the Ellis Street intersection, is vacant. Twelve of the apartments will be designated as “affordable.”
The loan will be provided interest-free for 30 years, with principal and interest deferred.
A $2.1 million grant-in-aid to the Friendship Service Center of New Britain will assist with construction of 11 units of supportive housing at 180 North St., a site sold last year by the city to the agency for $10,000.
City manufacturer Polamer Precision Inc. will be able to move forward with the purchase or upgrade of new machinery and equipment as it expands its facility on Alton Brooks Way, thanks to a $2 million grant-in-aid allocation. The company is expected to retain 100 jobs and create 200 new jobs within three years.
This is the first installment of an overall state commitment of $10 million, consisting of $9.5 million in loans and $500,000 in grants, which will be disbursed in five phases. The initial phase consists of a $1.9 million loan which will be provided at an interest rate of two percent for 10 years. The company will be eligible for loan forgiveness of $4.5 million if it creates the 200 jobs within three years and maintains them for two years.
A $100,000 grant is also being provided to assist with training of new employee.
“Polamer Precision has been a great neighbor and major employer in New Britain,” said state Sen. Terry Gerratana. “By supporting their growth we are ensuring hundreds of new, good-paying jobs in our city which will help put more people to work and generate new economic activity in the area.”
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Paving, lighting projects underway in Cromwell
CROMWELL >> The town is moving forward with a range of projects.
This week, crews from Tilcon were re-paving North Road and the North Road Extension, Spina told the Town Council during its regular meeting Wednesday.Tilcon will return to town, possibly as early as the first two weeks of August, to pave the entry roads and portions of the parking lots at both the high school and middle school, Spina said.While the exact timing of the work is tentative, Spina said the work will “definitely be done before the kids go back to school” on Aug. 31, Spina said. That work will cost $126,451, Spina said. Quality Associates, Inc., is the final stages of cleaning up the area where a new drainage system was installed from police headquarters running south across a portion of Pierson Park, Spina said. That clean-up – which will involve both repaving a portion of the police parking lot and laying sod on the field where the system was installed — is expected to be completed by Tuesday, Spina said. Once that work is done, work will begin on installing lights on the football field at Pierson Park, Spina said. “A purchase order was issued for the lights at Pierson,” Spina said. The work is expected to start the first week of August. The contractor doing the work, Musco Sports Lighting of Canaan, is aware of the necessity to have the lights installed by the start of the season in September, Spina said. The largest project currently facing the town – the reconstruction of roads and installation of storm drains in the Raymond Place neighborhood, is also proceeding, Spina told the council.
“We’ve advertised the project,” and the deadline for contractors to submit bid proposals is Aug. 3, Spina said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
N.Y. utility plans largest U.S. offshore wind farm
Uniondale, N.Y. — A New York utility plans to construct a wind farm off eastern Long Island that would be the nation's largest offshore wind energy project, three times larger than one due to go online this year off Rhode Island.
The Long Island Power Authority's board of directors is expected to approve the proposed 90-megawatt, 15-turbine wind farm east of Montauk at a meeting next Wednesday, the utility's chief executive officer, Thomas Falcone, told The Associated Press.
The U.S. lags behind Europe and others in development of offshore wind energy. Many wind farms in Europe are already producing hundreds of megawatts of power. The U.S. has seen other proposals for big offshore wind farms, but none have yet come to fruition.
"This is the first in New York, it's the largest to date, but we're looking at this and seeing a tremendous offshore wind resource that will be developed and it's not the last," Falcone said in an interview with the AP on Wednesday. "I think this is a very big step ... for New York, but also for the United States."
LIPA is awarding the project to Deepwater Wind, a private company that's already building the nation's first offshore wind farm near Block Island, R.I. That five-turbine 30-megawatt project is expected to go online later this year.
Exact financial terms between LIPA and Deepwater Wind still need to be negotiated, Falcone said, but he expressed optimism an agreement could be reached by early 2017.
Falcone said because the Long Island project is to be located in the same federally approved waters as the Rhode Island wind farm, he expected construction could be expedited and power could be reaching Long Island customers by the end of 2022. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Renovation of State Office Building Comes With Higher Costs
HARTFORD — State workers moving into an office complex downtown near the Connecticut River will settle into renovated space with a price tag more than double the initial estimate.
The cost for renovating and buying equipment for the two-towered complex at 450 Columbus Blvd. — bought by the state in 2013 as part of a broader plan to consolidate state workers from leased and other space to cut costs — jumped from an estimate of $48 million to $101 million by the time the space was ready for workers.
The state Department of Administrative Services said Wednesday that the cost of renovations to the former Connecticut River Plaza began rising after mold traced to leaking pipes, other plumbing problems and moisture trapped in cooling systems was discovered as work got underway.
"When we got in and started doing some of the interior renovation, we did discover mold," Jeffrey R. Beckham, a spokesman for DAS, said. "It was absolutely part of the mix of factors that contributed to the change in scope of the project." The matter had been complicated because the office complex, built in 1984 by former Whalers owner Richard Gordon, had been vacant for two years, Beckham said.
The discovery of the mold led to the gutting of all restrooms in the office complex and an extensive overhaul to the building's plumbing. Beckham said the state hired an environmental consultant to ensure there were no lingering mold troubles.
The issue is a sensitive one. People who previously worked in the building at 25 Sigourney St., a 20-story tower purchased by the state in the early 1990s, are among those moving to 450 Columbus. In the past decade, the state has spent millions to try to fix water leaks and mold troubles at 25 Sigourney, with mixed success. A portion of its crumbling parking garage was shut down. At one point, the Sigourney Street tower was labeled a "sick building." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
New Britain Firm Finalist For Farmington High School Renovations
FARMINGTON — A New Britain architectural firm is the finalist to complete renovations at Farmington High School.
Kaestle Boos Associates was recommended as the finalist for the job. Now, the Farmington High School Renovation Committee is conducting background checks and checking references on the company, said Meredith Trimble, the town council liaison to the committee.
The committee could vote later this month to hire the firm. In the meantime, a subcommittee was established and tasked with drafting and negotiating the eventual firm's contract, Trimble said.
Trimble said the committee is being "very careful to do an absolute, thorough, complete due diligence on their finalist," with the goal of "building a team" to facilitate the public input process.
"The public hasn't missed anything yet," Trimble said. "The committee is waiting to have this solid team in place, so we can utilize the resources of the architectural firm, in terms of their facilitation and communication skills." "There's no preconceived scope, there's no specific design" for the high school, she said. "What we are hoping that this team together can do is facilitate a really comprehensive, meaningful public input process, so that all the stakeholders — anybody who lives in Farmington — are very purposely engaged."
The town earlier this year set a tentative design deadline for December.
Applicants were required to address 20 objectives, including education, building and fire codes, Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and space needs, as well as air quality and improving energy use. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Audit points out shortcomings with state construction projects
HARTFORD — State officials are tightening up supervision of construction projects after an outside review pointed out shortcomings. The legislature's Auditors of Public Accounts found state procedures concerning change orders were not being followed by the Division of Construction Services of the Department of Administrative Services.
The audit report that was released Thursday also found no procedures in place to hold contractors and consultants financially accountable for botched jobs.
As a result of the findings, the oversight of change orders is being reinforced to ensure all the required approvals are obtained before additional work begins. The Division of Construction Services is responsible for administering most of the state's capital and planning projects. The volume of projects tripled in recent years from a historic average of $100 million a year to $300 million.
The division requires that management reviews and approves construction change orders before any additional work on a project is started. The number of supervisors who must sign off depends on the cost. An audit of 35 changes orders for eight construction projects totaling $1.8 million found 11 orders totaling $537,394 did not have the required signatures for approving the work.
Initially, the field auditors determined 20 of the change orders for nearly $1.3 million were incomplete and lacked approval signatures. Further review narrowed the list down to 11. Auditors Robert M. Ward and John C. Geragosian said the finding indicates that work on the 11 capital projects commenced before officials approved change orders.
In the case of signed orders sampled, the audit could not document the signing dates, indicating work may have started before the required approvals were obtained.
The audit stated that the lack of approval signatures and signature dates suggests a lack of control over the approval process. The report also said division management reportedly stopped collecting information on change orders that used to be compiled when the State Property Review Board required the data for preparation of its annual report. Division officials are updating procedures to see that change orders are signed and dated, the audit said. The division is also going to make better use of a computerized tracking system. The audit determined the division had no formal procedures for routinely reviewing project records to identify likely causes for state officials to pursue a claim against a construction consultant or contractor. It said this situation jeopardizes the state's ability to hold contractors and consultants financially accountable.
The town earlier this year set a tentative design deadline for December.
Applicants were required to address 20 objectives, including education, building and fire codes, Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and space needs, as well as air quality and improving energy use. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Audit points out shortcomings with state construction projects
HARTFORD — State officials are tightening up supervision of construction projects after an outside review pointed out shortcomings. The legislature's Auditors of Public Accounts found state procedures concerning change orders were not being followed by the Division of Construction Services of the Department of Administrative Services.
The audit report that was released Thursday also found no procedures in place to hold contractors and consultants financially accountable for botched jobs.
As a result of the findings, the oversight of change orders is being reinforced to ensure all the required approvals are obtained before additional work begins. The Division of Construction Services is responsible for administering most of the state's capital and planning projects. The volume of projects tripled in recent years from a historic average of $100 million a year to $300 million.
The division requires that management reviews and approves construction change orders before any additional work on a project is started. The number of supervisors who must sign off depends on the cost. An audit of 35 changes orders for eight construction projects totaling $1.8 million found 11 orders totaling $537,394 did not have the required signatures for approving the work.
Initially, the field auditors determined 20 of the change orders for nearly $1.3 million were incomplete and lacked approval signatures. Further review narrowed the list down to 11. Auditors Robert M. Ward and John C. Geragosian said the finding indicates that work on the 11 capital projects commenced before officials approved change orders.
In the case of signed orders sampled, the audit could not document the signing dates, indicating work may have started before the required approvals were obtained.
The audit stated that the lack of approval signatures and signature dates suggests a lack of control over the approval process. The report also said division management reportedly stopped collecting information on change orders that used to be compiled when the State Property Review Board required the data for preparation of its annual report. Division officials are updating procedures to see that change orders are signed and dated, the audit said. The division is also going to make better use of a computerized tracking system. The audit determined the division had no formal procedures for routinely reviewing project records to identify likely causes for state officials to pursue a claim against a construction consultant or contractor. It said this situation jeopardizes the state's ability to hold contractors and consultants financially accountable.