EAST HAMPTON >> There is a definite sense that the renovation of the high school is rounding the far turn and heading for the homestretch. The project is 80 percent complete, the owner’s project manager told the School Building Committee on Thursday.
As welcome as the words of Chuck Warrington of Collier’s International were, the location of the meeting presented dramatic proof of the progress that was made over the summer.The venue of the meeting was the team-based teacher learning laboratory that has been christened “TBell.” The tiered seating room, which is located off the main corridor of the high school, has quickly acquired cache as the most-sought-after meeting room in town. In the company of Robert Hart, Collier’s assistant project manager, Warrington reviewed the status of the $51 million project. “The kids are back in school now,” Hart said, and “they have all their desks and chairs.”
The biggest item (that is missing are conference tables, Hart said. “A couple of our vendors have been a little bit more difficult to work with,” Warrington said, although “most our vendors are pretty good.” Apparently, the key to ensuring prompt action by a vendor is “having a (vendor) project manager on site,” Warrington said. “That’s a necessity.” There are two complications, however. One was “an unfortunate accident” involving a teacher. The teacher, who was entering the building on Monday, “tripped over a strike plate” embedded in the floor and pitched face first onto a bare concrete floor, building committee member Stephen Karney told his colleagues.“She went down hard,” Karney said, adding the woman “didn’t even have a chance to put her hands out” to cushion the blow when she struck the floor. The teacher was taken by ambulance to the Marlborough Medical Center, where she was admitted and treated for a concussion, Karney said.After the meeting, Principal John Fidler said the woman is a special education teacher who, while “still suffering from headaches ... is anxious to get back to work.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Many projects in the works for Meriden
MERIDEN — Components of the city’s revitalization plan for downtown are coming together at different rates. As 24 Colony St. nears completion and readies for tenants, other proposed developments are in the process of applying for financing or still in the design phase.
“It’s a comprehensive plan and all of the pieces are really interlocking, so it may not be as easy for the public to see the process because a lot of it is behind the scenes,” said Economic Development Director Juliet Burdelski.
New City Manager Guy Scaife is impressed with the scope of the plan.
“This is a colossal amount of development that is all in close proximity and so it is clear that there is a lot of work in front of us, a lot of coordination, but the opportunity is immense,” he said.
1. 24 Colony St.
The mixed-use complex will be the first major housing development to be completed. Construction is expected to finish by the end of the year.
“All of the major construction is completed, now they are doing fit outs on the inside, brick work on the outside,” said Burdelski.
The $22 million project consists of 63 apartments and 11,000-square-feet of retail space.
Of the 63 units, 90 percent will be affordable or low income and only six will be market rate. Twenty-four are Mills replacement units.
Developer Westmount Management Group is in the process of pre-leasing apartments and tenants will be moving into the building in January.
2. The Mills/Meriden Commons
The Mills apartment buildings could be demolished as early as spring of 2017 if the Housing Authority is able to relocate the remaining tenants, Burdelski said. So far 24 units have been vacated and tenants in 116 units need to be relocated. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
WALLINGFORD — The proposed addition of two generating units at a privately owned power plant could increase the town’s tax revenue by over $1 million.
Wallingford Energy already has five generating units located on 8.5 acres on John Street that the company leases from the town. Town Assessor Shelby Jackson said the five units generate about $1.3 million annually in personal property tax revenue for the town. The addition of two more units will generate $1.2 million more in annual tax revenue, Jackson said.
While the town’s Electric Division isn’t affiliated with the power plant, the town has worked closely with Wallingford Energy in planning for the new generators, Public Utilities Director George Adair said. Wallingford Energy is funding the entire project. Wallingford Energy submitted development and management plans to the Connecticut Siting Council on Sept. 9, according to Melanie Bachman, the council’s executive director. The generators, each of which will produce about 50 megawatts, will contribute electricity to ISO New England, a nonprofit power grid operator that centrally dispatches over 30,000 megawatts of energy annually to the New England region.
The two new generators are described as “quick-start” generators with the capability to achieve full load output within 10 minutes. Standard generators generally take hours to reach full output. The new generators will provide quick-start capacity to southwest Connecticut, a congested area in the New England electrical system.
The generators can act as reserve sources during high-demand periods, Bachman said.
The Siting Council will review the proposed development and management plan at meetings Oct. 13 and 27, Bachman said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Solomon and the team, doing business as Connecticut Double Play LLC, also on Thursday mounted special defenses that claim the developer, whom the city has fired, caused its own problems and delays at the unfinished stadium. They state they "could not have interfered" since Centerplan failed to meet its own obligations under contract with the city.
The claims in the case in Hartford Superior Court are detailed in documents on the judicial website.
"In fact, substantially all the changes to the contract documents were made by … Centerplan with the intent to lower quality and reduce costs in what proved to be a failed attempt by them to complete construction," the defendant states.
As the contractor, Centerplan was responsible for leading construction at the ballpark in time for the 2016 baseball season. That did not happen and the team was forced to play the entire season on the road. Since the season ended, an architect's report has detailed a wide variety of structural defects and deficiencies at the stadium, the Hartford Courant reported. The ballpark is projected to cost more than $71 million.
Centerplan has sued the city of Hartford as well as the team and its owner, a dispute that is in court-ordered mediation.