PORTLAND >> The Board of Selectmen voted this week to send a proposed $10 million bond issue to the voters in November. The selectmen voted 7-0 Wednesday to approve the proposed bond package, which includes $6 million in funding for the Portland Town Park, a proposed recreation/fitness complex off Route 17. In addition, the proposal also calls for spending $2.5 million for road repairs, $1 million for improvements to sidewalks within a half-mile of the town’s school, and $500,000 for infrastructure repair projects that includes new roofs and furnaces for the town garage and Fire Co. No. 2. But in many ways it was what didn’t happen that was more interesting.
A truncated Board of Selectmen created the $10 million proposal during an unusual late Friday afternoon meeting on Aug. 26. Three selectmen were not able to attend the session: Kitch Breen Czernicki, Kathleen G. Richards and Benjamin Srb. On Wednesday, during the regular selectmen’s meeting, all three said they wished they had been present so they could have had a hand in proposing items to be included in the bond package.
During the meeting, a few leaders, some of whom speak softly, continued to make using their microphones a matter of personal choice, causing the audience difficulty in hearing their comments.Specifically, the three selectmen said they had concerns about some of the items included in the road and sidewalk proposals and the catch-all $500,000 infrastructure repair package. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Hartford Radisson Hotel linked to E. Hartford casino proposal
The developer of a proposed $200 million East Hartford casino is looking to add the Radisson Hotel Hartford to his plans.
Developer Anthony J. Ravosa Jr., a member of Silver Lane Partners LLC, which has proposed the East Hartford casino at the former Showcase Cinemas site, said his firm has exclusive rights to broker a deal between the owners of the Hartford Radisson Hotel on Morgan Street and MMCT, the Mohegan-Mashantucket Pequot joint venture authorized to seek a site for Connecticut's third casino, to add a "non-gaming" hotel site to their casino proposal.
Ravosa said rights were negotiated between his organization and 50 Morgan Hospitality Group LLC, owner of the Radisson, along with parent company, Inner Circle Hotels of Orlando, Fla., a claim the property owner confirmed.
The legislature still has to weigh in on approval of a third casino in the state. MMCT spokesman Andrew Doba said Thursday there is no set deadline for the tribes' decision on where to locate a third casino.
"It's a very intriguing proposal, one that certainly merits full consideration as we continue to evaluate locations for the project," Doba said.
Ravosa said the hotel would be flagged with signage and lighting along the Hartford skyline as an "iconic, electrifying and striking Times Square-style landmark."
The property, already in the midst of renovations, could also be linked with shuttles to a third casino, and sits at the junction of I-91 and I-84, Ravosa said.
Property owner 50 Morgan Hospitality Group/Inner Circle is currently converting the hotel's top eight floors into approximately 100 apartments, while downsizing the configuration of the hotel to about 150 rooms, but it is early enough to modify those $6.5 million plans if necessary to fit in with the envisioned casino connection, Ravosa said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
3 Windsor Locks sites pitched for new CT casino
Three potential new sites for a third casino have emerged in Windsor Locks in close proximity to Bradley International Airport, with at least one on the property, according to the town.
Windsor Locks First Selectman J. Christopher Kervick said Thursday that the sites, which he declined to identify, are in contention as the two tribes that host Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino weigh proposals and negotiate with different parties.
MMCT, the Mohegan-Mashantucket Pequot joint venture, is seeking a site for Connecticut's third casino, but they still need final approval from the state legislature.
MMCT spokesman Andrew Doba did not immediately return a call for comment.
Kervick said that when the town agreed to explore and start discussions as a potential host community, "we left it open ended," and said the town would consider "any suitable site."
"We've contemplated other sites might emerge and they have," he said. "We seem to be in that flurry-of-activity period now and there's all sorts of negotiations going on. I've gotten calls from the developers or owners but didn't get confirmation until earlier this week that these negotiations have started and are under way."
The town is not yet a party to any active negotiations, he said.
In June, the Connecticut Airport Authority abandoned the concept of creating a casino inside its future transportation center, a rental car and mass transit hub to be built on the parking lot in front of the demolished Murphy terminal at Bradley International Airport. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Newington Panel Delays Decision On Town Hall Project
The town hall building committee this week tabled a resolution to solicit bids for an architect and a construction manager after members couldn't agree on what should be done to the building.
Chairman Chris Miner asked members to think about the options and try again at the committee's next meeting, in two weeks. Meanwhile, town Facilities Manager David Landgon ruled out a summer start for the project and was skeptical about a fall 2017 kickoff.
"That's pushing it," he said, when asked if work could begin a year from now.
After more than an hour of debate, the committee deadlocked over whether to only renovate town hall, which also houses the Mortensen Community Center, or to renovate it and reconfigure the interior. Originally built as a school, the 66-year-old building has wide corridors that officials say waste space. A reconfiguration would make the building more efficient, backers said.
But an interior reconfiguration would likely push the project over the $25 million limit imposed on the project by the town council. In addition, a simple renovation would not require an architect, officials said.
Miner emphasized the importance of staying within the $25 million this week but has said in the past that the committee will ask for more money if members conclude that a bigger project is needed.
Individual committee members offered other ideas Wednesday, including replacing only the building's mechanical systems and putting more money into the community center, and constructing a new community center on the site of the school bus garage. None appeared to get much traction with the rest of the committee.
Committee member James Marocchini continued to question whether it makes sense to spend $25 million and end up with basically the same building. Marocchini also serves on the town council and voted against the $25 million cap. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUEState Advances At-Grade, Or Partly Below Grade, Option For Replacing I-84 Viaduct In Hartford
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Thursday that the state is filing federal paperwork that essentially rules out the option of building an elevated highway or a highway tunnel through Hartford to replace the aging I-84 viaduct.
The environmental report the state is filing calls for an at-grade, or partly below grade, highway for about 2 miles through the city.
Malloy said there was no other viable alternative to a costly replacement of the half-century-old viaduct. "I don't think you can stop this [replacement]," he said. "This is going to fall down."
The state Department of Transportation has emphasized that the elevated highway remains safe for the near future but has projected it would require at least $2 billion to $3 billion in repairs between now and 2045 to stay in use. Even then, its fundamental safety flaws – which the DOT blames for an accident rate four times higher than comparable stretches of highway – would remain, engineers said.We need a modern, safer I-84," Malloy said. "Connecticut needs to confront about 50 years of under-investment in transportation."
Construction of the estimated $4 billion to $5 billion replacement would begin around 2021 or 2022, said Richard Armstrong, the project manager for DOT. This winter, the agency plans to update its cost projections and perform more extensive engineering to better determine the exact course of the new highway.
The state still has to come up with a way to pay for the work. Malloy's administration has been pushing for a so-called lockbox to protect any new transportation revenues and isn't eager to pursue new sources of funding – such as a higher gas tax, tolls or other measures – until that's in place.
Engineers say a new I-84 through Hartford would be safer and less prone to severe traffic backups caused by badly designed exits. The highway was intended to carry 50,000 vehicles a day but handles roughly 175,000 trucks and cars now.
Eastbound traffic is hampered by crisscrossing exit and entrance ramps, and westbound traffic must frequently change lanes to avoid the stream of sudden "exit notices" on the right and merging traffic from an on-ramp on the left.
Engineers say that a new highway would have shoulders for breakdowns or fender benders; in many spots, drivers in those situations currently have nowhere to go and must run the risk of leaving their car in a travel lane until help arrives. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUEConnDOT offers a plan, and a mea culpa, for I-84 in Hartford
Can the same state agency that bulldozed vibrant neighborhoods and bisected Hartford with the construction of I-84 a half-century ago knit the city back together?
With the release Thursday of conceptual plans to replace the I-84 viaduct, the Connecticut Department of Transportation says it intends to do just that, creating as much as 45 acres of developable land by burying the highway and relocating rail lines.
“Rebuilding a city, rebuilding a rail line and rebuilding an interstate highway as one project is a pretty phenomenal opportunity,” said James P. Redeker, the state transportation commissioner.
On a terrace overlooking I-84, Redeker and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the state is pursuing an option that would demolish the elevated highway and place I-84 at or below grade, taking advantage of topography to cover a new highway with platforms and buildings.
The useful life of the I-84 viaduct is coming to an end at a time when state and federal transportation officials are taking a broader view of the damage highways wrought on American cities in service of the automobile and suburbanization.
In Boston, the elevated Central Artery that once separate the downtown from the North End and harbor is gone, hidden in a tunnel. I-95 through Providence is being relocated, restoring access to the waterfront. A highway viaduct in Seattle is being demolished and replaced by a tunnel.
ConnDOT and the U.S. DOT missed an opportunity to undo some of the damage in Hartford, refusing to cover the “I-84 canyon,” a trench separating the downtown from the North End, when the highway was widened in the 1980s.
“It is a completely different mindset and, in part, a recognition of just how hard these projects have been on our big cities,” Redeker said.
Redeker said evidence of the new approach is that federal transportation officials now work closely with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, viewing the necessity of replacing America’s aging infrastructure as an opportunity to make amends.
Hartford, he said, is a prime example of “a city that was pretty much destroyed, split apart based on construction with very different rules, very different guidelines and a very different mindset. it was about highways, not about the economy and the urban area.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx estimated in a speech delivered in March that nearly a half-million people were displaced by highway construction from 1957 to 1977, many in poor and black neighborhoods.
One of them was the section of Charlotte, N.C., where Foxx grew up.
“The people in my community at the time these decisions were made were actually not invisible,” he said. “It is just that at a certain stage in our history, they didn’t matter.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE