STAMFORD — State officials remained mum Thursday on why the deal to replace Stamford’s crumbling train station garage with a $500 million office, housing, retail and hotel complex went sour.
Department of Transportation Commissioner James Redecker did not respond to a request for details about why negotiations with private partner Stamford Manhattan Development Ventures fell apart after languishing for three years.
One of the SMDV partners, L.P. Ciminelli Construction of Buffalo, N.Y., was named recently in a federal indictment in New York involving state contracts, kickbacks and extortion. Connecticut officials did not cite the Ciminelli indictment as a reason for the breakdown in negotiations. One of the original partners, Gilbane Development, backed out in 2013.
During an event in Bloomfield Thursday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Redeker and others did their due diligence with the developers, but could not finalize a deal.
“I think that people are acting in accordance with the best interests of the state,” Malloy said.
SMDV was headed by longtime Malloy contributer John McClutchy, a Darien millionaire and head of JHM Group developers. McClutchy’s other partners were Ciminelli Real Estate Corp. of Buffalo and ECCO III Enterprises of Yonkers.
Passenger criticisms
Train riders in Stamford have long chastised the project, saying it was designed to earn revenue for the state, not to improve parking at the train station, which is the livelihood lifeline for workers coming into Stamford or headed to jobs in New York City.
“The train station is one of the most critical assets in our community,” Stamford Mayor David Martin said Thursday. “So I applaud the state for making the decision to rethink the project.”
When the DOT announced Wednesday that the deal was dead, Martin said he had been given no details about the agency’s plans.
The DOT has said it could not disclose details about the SMDV project because the partners are private developers and their plans are considered proprietary. So commuters were left out of most of the planning.
On Thursday, though, a DOT spokesman revealed the site of the 1,000-space garage it plans to construct in place of the old garage, which has been falling down for years.
The new $53 million garage is to be built on South State Street, near the intersection with Washington Boulevard, now the site of a small surface lot, DOT spokesman Judd Everhart said. A pedestrian bridge is planned to go over Washington Boulevard and connect the garage to the train platforms.
The old garage is on Station Place, right across the street from the platforms. It will remain open until the new one is finished in 2021, according to the DOT.
As with the original project — a Transit-Oriented Development designed to tie new construction to transportation hubs — the DOT so far has not been forthcoming about its latest plans.
The state will retain control of the Station Place site once the old garage is torn down, Everhart said, and right now the DOT has no plans for another Transit-Oriented Development there. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
City Council designates preferred developer for former Meriden-Wallingford Hospital
MERIDEN — The City Council voted this week to designate 1 King LLC, previously identified as Diversified Financial Resources, as the preferred developer for the former Meriden-Wallingford Hospital.
Representatives from the development group say they are up for the challenge of converting the abandoned building off Cook Avenue into a mixed-use housing and commercial development.
“We’re looking forward to working with the city and having this facility operating as soon as possible,” said Thomas P. Brown, Diversified’s director and chief operating officer. “We don’t want to waste any time.” The 285,000-square-foot building has been vacant since the mid-1990s and city officials said despite clean up efforts in recent years, the condition inside has worsened as people continue to break in to steal pipes and vandalize the building. A recent tour of the former foyer revealed floors covered with bits of carpet, glass and other debris, graffiti coating the decaying walls and items such as a child’s Barbie Jeep and beer cans brought in from the outside.
The city acquired the building in 2014 through tax foreclosure with the goal of repurposing the property for economic development in the downtown transit-oriented district. Since then, the city has utilized grant money to conduct environmental and structural assessments
The city issued a request for qualified applicants to redevelop the site in August, with 1 King LLC being the sole bidder.
The Norwalk-based development company has previous experience rehabilitating hospitals and military bases, including the McClellan Air Force Base Hospital in Sacramento, California, the State of Michigan Asylum in Traverse City, Michigan and the Noble Army Medical Center in Fort McClellan, Alabama.
Brown has toured the building and said he can see its potential for redevelopment.
“It’s a neat building and it’s pretty interesting the way they added onto it over the years,” Brown said. “We liked the old corner building, the old Bradley nursing building (facing Cook Avenue). It has great architecture, beautiful points to it and we’re looking to keep that and just build around that so we feel it has good potential.”
The group will be exploring multiple uses for the building.
“At this point we’re working with our architects and our engineers and we’re looking at it as a mixed-use facility,” Brown said. “You really can’t put one tenant in there, the facility is just too large. We have a number of different uses in mind, but we want to make sure as we work with our architect and engineer that we’re using the space properly.”
Aside from the environmental clean up and gutting of the building necessary for redevelopment, other challenges include the many aging and broken windows that will need to replaced and securing the building from further break ins. On Tuesday, a local man was arrested after attempting to steal 60 pounds of scrap metal from the building, at least the second person caught trespassing on the property this month.
“It’s at a tough time with people living in there and tearing out pipes and everything else, so we need to get a good grasp on it so we can really have a game plan in front of us,” Brown said.
As per the resolution adopted by the City Council on Monday, the developer will have 180 days to come back to the council with a plan to develop the site. The City Council will also have the option of granting the developer an extension at the end of that period. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
The committee, along with its architectural firm, construction manager and school officials, will discuss detailed floor plan designs and site layouts, including playground areas and parking lots, the construction timeline and phasing plans. There also will be an opportunity for residents to ask questions about the project.
The Deans Mill project was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission this week. Plans for the school call for demolishing a large section of the school and building an addition for a total of 62,000 square feet.
The preliminary design for West Vine Street School calls for constructing an addition to create a 56,400-square-foot school that will accommodate students in prekindergarten through fifth grade, compared with the current kindergarten through second-grade configuration. PZC approval of the West Vine project is pending.
The project overwhelmingly was approved by voters in 2015. The 15-month construction period is projected to commence in April 2017 and be completed in July 2018. Last week, the town learned it had been successful in its effort to obtain waivers that will increase state reimbursement for the project from 25 to 32 percent, or about $20 million.
The project is designed to get another 50 years of life out of the two 48-year-old buildings. Neither school has received an update since they were built in 1967.
Trade workers supportive of proposed Dayville power plant
KILLINGLY – For the first time since the prospect of constructing a new power plant was raised in Killingly several months ago, supporters and opponents of the project on Thursday got to make their cases directly to the group of people who will decide if the proposal will move forward.
More than 400 people attended the first public hearing, held at Killingly High School, by the Connecticut Siting Council on NTE Connecticut LLC’s plan to build a 550-megawatt, dual-fuel, combined cycle power plant on Lake Road in Dayville.
As of press time, public comments were still being heard.
And unlike every local meeting on the issue so far, opponents of the plan were matched — or even slightly outnumbered — by supporters, namely the roughly 250 members of the Norwich-New London Building Trade group, whose roster includes carpenters, metal workers, plumbers and other workers who might be called on to construct the facility.
“Most of our group have worked on energy projects before,” Kevin Cwikla said. “There’s a demand for this kind of power and people need to work.”
While many members of the trade group were from other parts of the state, a few local workers attended to show their support.
“I’m really excited,” said Alicia Brunnett, a Killingly resident and iron worker. “This is going to do a lot of good for a lot of people. There are things about this project that worry me a little, but if they do it right, it’ll be good for everyone.”
The nine-member Siting Council, which conducted a site walk of the proposed plant location at 180-189 Lake Road earlier on Thursday, is charged with reviewing applications for, and placement of, power plants in the state. The body reviews evidence – including the kind of public comments made Thursday – before deciding whether to approve. The council will hold an evidentiary hearing on NTE’s application next month and is expected to decide the matter by February.
For months, opponents of the proposal have sounded warnings about possible environmental and health issues related to the project, while others have questioned the need for such a plant.
“There is already a cluster of eight of these kinds of plants within a 31-mile radius here,” Thompson resident Renee King said. “And there’s been no local air quality assessments conducted. This kind of project warrants such a study. Until then, we don’t know what effect this proposed project will have.”
Project developers said the air-cooled plant has the potential to develop and sell enough electricity to the grid to power 550,000 homes, will require hundreds of construction workers, lead to the creation of several permanent jobs and have the potential to bring in millions in tax revenue. The company hopes the three-year build will begin in 2017. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE