BRIDGEPORT — It must have seemed like a reasonable solution.
Besides being a target of resident complaints about unhealthy dust from mounds of crushed material stored there, O&G Industries’ concrete recycling operation sits on prime East End commercial property.
The highly visible Seaview Avenue site is near Interstate 95 and the waterfront Steel Point redevelopment, where the massive Bass Pro outdoor retail store opened last fall and a luxury movie theater and hotel are planned.
So, at the urging of then-Mayor Bill Finch’s administration and some business leaders, O&G agreed to move to a West End lot in the shadow of a massive trash-to-energy plant. Who would care?
“O&G agreed to move because they were asked to by the city,” said the Torrington-based company’s attorney, Ray Rizio. He added the proposed location on Howard and Wordin avenues is “very industrial and beat up” and the immediate neighbors are all similarly in light industry.
That was months ago, before ex-Mayor Joe Ganim, in power from 1991 until 2003, ousted Finch and returned to City Hall. Now opposition to O&G has become the latest cause celebre in Bridgeport.
Some West End residents and others in the adjacent South End and Black Rock neighborhoods are up in arms. And a politically savvy Ganim seems, for now, to be taking their side against the move.
“It’s nothing the city could really support until they can show they can be a good and responsible neighbor and corporate citizen in Bridgeport,” said Av Harris, Ganim’s communications chief.
Meanwhile, since Ganim returned to office with the help of East End political operatives, the city has been more aggressive at O&G’s current site. After over two decades of operation, zoning officials determined the company does not have the proper approvals to operate and in April ordered O&G to cease and desist.
Around that time Ganim held a press conference there to criticize the mounds of material.
Rizio appealed to the Zoning Board of Appeals and recently lost. As a result, the Ganim administration saw an opportunity to begin fining the company $100 daily for blight.
“O&G, like any other business, has to follow guidelines and laws and does not have carte blanche wherever they locate to be irresponsible and cause health issues for the neighbors,” Harris said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTIUNE
Time-lapse DOT video: Fast work on new Rte. 8 bridge
So, that’s how they did it.
A time-lapse video filmed and produced by Peter Venoutsos of the state Department of Transportation shows the demolition and replacement of the Lindley Street bridge on southbound Route 8/25 this summer.
The video shows the use of design and build construction that reduced the demolition and replacement of four bridges from two years to just one summer. Part of the technique includes building prefabriacted sections of the bridge off site and having large trucks hauling them to the site when the older bridges had been demolished. Huge cranes then placed the pre-fab sections into place.
The project cost more than $35 million and only caused traffic shifts and lane closures for a month; two weeks each on the north and southboard sides.
The video tells the whole story and captures the precision-work job the Manafort Construction Company, not to mention the support crews provides by state/local police and all who made the project a success.
The video - five minutes and 16 seconds long - has some music to help move it along.
If you got kids who love big trucks and construction, this video could inspire them to become road builders.
One cool part of the video comes at 3:15 where the large trucks haul bridge sections through Bridgeport streets to the bridge site.
Enough of the words!
Check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubSXdDinnOE
Loper Street subdivision construction starts next week in Southington
SOUTHINGTON — Construction is expected to begin early next week on a 72-lot subdivision on Loper Street approved by the town earlier this year.
AAA Denorfia Building and Development bought the 44 acres of land from the Griffin family for nearly $6 million. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved an open space subdivision for the property, which means about 15 acres will remain undeveloped. In return, the configuration allows higher density than usually allowed.
Equipment moved to the site this week. Work is expected to begin early next week.
House sizes will range from 2,400 to 2,800 square feet and range in price from $440,000 to $500,000.
Tony Denorfia, owner of Denorfia Building, expects the new homes to attract second-time homebuyers in their 30’s or maybe those in that same demographic looking to upgrade from a rental. In previous developments, about 80 percent of buyers were already town residents.
“Most people who live in town want to stay in town,” he said. “It’s mostly people who are moving up from something smaller.”
Decades ago, more first-time home buyers were in their early 20’s, had less income and would settle for a modest home. Denorfia said those types of starter homes wouldn’t sell to the contemporary generation of home buyers.
“They want the granite countertops, they want hardwood on the first floor,” he said.
The town made an offer on the property, owned by relatives of Ann Griffin Egan, but town officials said Denorfia made a better offer.
At a recent PZC meeting, officials stressed that the question was whether to grant Denorfia approval for an open space subdivision rather than the conventional one that he was allowed. When the issue was framed that way, neighbors who had come out to oppose development said they preferred building in a way that left a third of the site undisturbed. CLICK TITLE TO CONTIUNE
He said the master plan will be much like the project he has already described during public hearings for the Greenway Development District _ a medical, research and residential campus on 70 acres of the farm property off of Jerry Browne Road.
If built as envisioned it would be the most expensive project in the town’s history,
The commission will also have to hold a public hearing on the master plan application. If the master plan is approved, Lattizori will need to obtain site plan approval from the commission.
“We are incredibly pleased by the Commission’s unanimous vote of approval and are excited about the opportunity to discuss making this project a reality. This development is the product of a year long community outreach program whereupon we tried to address the community’s needs and concerns while also enhancing the development’s potential to add to the grand list by using smart growth principles, which allow for a majority of the property to be preserved as open space,” Lattizori said after the commission’s approval of the floating zone.
During the public hearing on the text amendment, the application was met with widespread support from Stone Ridge residents, town officials and business owners, a contrast with the opposition that previous commercial proposals for the site faced.
Lattizori has said the project would become the town’s biggest taxpayer, generating $1 million a year in tax revenue as well as 360 jobs, as opposed to the 36-lot subdivision that was approved for the site and would have created no net increase in tax revenue or jobs. It also may bring natural gas service to town. CLICK TITLE TO CONTIUNE
Schultz Corp. completes bridge replacement in just 9 days for Conn. DOT
CTDOT says the project involved replacing a bridge built in 1920 with a 12-foot wide by 6-foot high precast concrete box culvert and joined segments, with the bottom of the culvert being covered in 2 feet of “natural stream bed material.”
Rather than the traditional accelerated bridge technique of building a new bridge next to the one being replaced, with the new bridge slid into place, the Route 147 project used culvert segments made off-site and then set in place when the old bridge was taken down. United Concrete Products of Wallingford, Connecticut, made the box culvert.
The project on Route 147 in Middlefield was completed between July 10 and July 19.
“This is another example of the innovations we are able to utilize as we maintain our road and bridge network in a state of good repair,” says CTDOT Commissioner James P. Redeker. “I want to commend our contractors and our own field staff for another great ABC success.”
CTDOT says the project cost $892,000, and includes two 12-foot-wide lanes and 4-foot shoulders for each direction. The project also involved repaving 1,000 feet of roadway on both sides of the bridge.CLICK TITLE TO CONTIUNE