NORWALK — While the Connecticut Department of Transportation has zeroed in on its preferred design for the Walk Bridge replacement, Eversource Energy has yet to reveal how it plans to replace its power lines atop the bridge.
State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, indicated Friday that nearly a dozen options are under consideration.
“Right now, they have about 11 different options and they’re going to narrow it down to about three or four in the next month, and then they’ll start giving people options as to what might work or what might not work,” Duff said. “They’ve pretty much thrown everything out on the table, from an engineering standpoint.”
Frank J. Poirot, Eversource Energy spokesman, said the transmission lines located above the railroad right-of-way are 115,000-volt lines. To provide continuous electric service to Norwalk and surrounding area customers, Eversource must remove and relocate the lines before the DOT begins work on the new bridge. Once a route is selected, the company will file its proposal with Connecticut Siting Council and secure applicable environmental permits prior to construction.
“We are in the process of exploring potential route options for our transmission lines,” Poirot said Friday. “Once we have firmed up the best potential route options we will be meeting with the city to discuss them further.”
Jackie Lightfield, Norwalk Center Task Force chairwoman, said the city’s Department of Public Works presented to the task force in August one option being considered by Eversource.
“I believe they were talking about coming up Meadow Street and coming across the river and then back up into East Norwalk. It was a draft,” Lightfield said. “They were talking about unipoles and going in our urban areas.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Plainville moves forward with new design for bridge
PLAINVILLE — The Tomlinson Avenue Bridge over the Quinnipiac River may soon be on its way to rehabilitation.
The town recently agreed on a new design plan after a previous one raised concern by the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) several years ago.
“We have to start rebuilding because it’s in poor condition,” said Town Manager Robert Lee.
He said the state has rated it as in poor condition since 2005. Around that time, the town started looking at funding to fix the bridge and was able to secure federal funds through the state.
The initial design did not permit fish to pass under the structure and into the nearby pond.
According to the DEEP, fish need to have the ability to travel without isolation from one end of a stream to another.“That’s not possible now,” said John Bossi, town engineer.
The current bridge, built in 1967, also has a flooding risk. Rehabilitation of the bridge will ensure that it doesn’t flood upstream or downstream.
“We have to make sure it holds up to condition for the next 50 years,” Bossi said.
The new design will consist of a two cell precast concrete box culvert, square concrete boxes, that will support aquatic life.
The plans need to go through DEEP once again for approval as well as the town’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses commission. The funding will be 80 percent from the state. The town will pay 20 percent, approximately in the range of $250,000.
Lee said the town may be able to use the funds leftover from the last bridge project. The bridge construction will be added to the budget as a capital improvement project in fiscal year 2019 with expected construction to begin in the spring of 2018.
“We’re trying to keep up with improving our infrastructures,” he said.
Lee said the next bridge to look at in the future may be the Shuttle Meadow Bridge.
MERIDEN — Officials will recommend that the city designate Diversified Financial Resources LLC as the preferred developer to transform the former Meriden-Wallingford Hospital into a housing and commercial development.
Police escorts helped guide Diversified Financial Resources staff and city officials through the dark corridors of the abandoned hospital Thursday morning, despite the thick moldy air, broken glass, scattered debris and evidence of vandalism.
“You have to look past all that debris to see the beauty there,” said Economic Development Director Juliet Burdelski. “The developer that put in the proposal is very interested and they can see beyond the scary stuff.”
The representatives from Diversified Financial Resources, based in Norwalk, declined to comment on the project. The firm has experience rehabilitating hospitals and military bases.
The 285,000-square foot building at 1 King Place has been an eyesore in the Cook Avenue neighborhood since it was left vacant in the mid 1990s. The city purchased the building in 2014 to facilitate redevelopment.
City officials said it’s difficult to keep people out of the massive building.
“We’re doing our best to try and keep that building secure, but obviously there are people getting in,” Burdelski said.
Nowhere is the vandalism more evident than in the building’s lofty foyer, which had been mostly cleared when city officials toured the building in 2014. Despite more recent clean up attempts, conditions have worsened, said City Planner Bob Seale. Colorful graffiti coats the brick walls, which have holes knocked through in places, and broken glass from the large windows high above covers the ground mixed in with shreds of carpet, twisted metal and other debris. Among more unusual objects is a child’s “lifesize” pink and purple Barbie Jeep with a fire extinguisher shoved through the trunk and a rusted old hospital intercom system. Vegetation pokes through the rubble in some places and beer cans among the debris hint at recent activity.
On Oct. 1, police arrested Eugene Robitaille, 32, after a neighbor saw him exiting the hospital pushing a large metal rack, according to police spokesman Sgt. Christopher Fry. He faces third-degree burglary, criminal trespassing and sixth-degree larceny charges.
Fry is uncertain if anyone is squatting in the building and was unable to characterize how often police make arrests for trespassing on the site.
While the foyer is bathed in natural light from the overhead windows, the remainder of the building has no electricity and snaking through the labyrinthine hallways with flashlights is difficult. The air is thick with the smell of mold and shreds of ceiling dangle above amid exposed pipes and metal. As the flashlights bounce throughout the pitch-black halls, glimpses of graffiti are revealed, including an elevator door scribed, “going up?” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
The commission voted 5-1 Thursday to approve the Costco plans, which call for a 138,000-square-foot building, 644 parking spaces and an eight-pump gas station, with no diesel fuel, on a 14.7-acre parcel on Flanders Road.
The Costco project is part of a commercial and residential development on the south side of I-95 near exits 74 and 73 that Simon Konover of West Hartford and KGI Properties of Providence have been planning for about a decade.
During Thursday's meeting, the commission asked questions about the exact distance between the proposed gas station and the town's mapped aquifer protection zone and what safeguards would be in place, given the proximity to the protection zone.
Michelle Carlson of BL Companies in Meriden said the site's three 30,000-gallon underground tanks, which would be about 300 feet from the town's aquifer protection zone, would be double-walled with a monitoring system, and the piping would have three levels of protection.
She outlined a list of safety features for the gas station that she said are designed to meet or exceed federal standards for underground storage leak prevention and detection.
The site also will have three monitoring wells, at the request of the town.
The town had adopted updated aquifer protection zones in 2013, based on new state guidelines.
The Day reported that the proposed gas station, which would have fallen within the town's previously larger aquifer protection zone, is on top of the sandy soils of the aquifer but outside of the portion of the aquifer that directly supplies the town well.
On Thursday, Chairman Matthew Walker said that the location of the gas station was on many people's minds and was a "big consideration" for the public and the commission, but Thursday's presentation illustrated that it would be outside of the town's mapped, updated aquifer protection zone.
Walker said the system's safety features — such as alarms and surveillance — are impressive. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE