Patricia Daddona
Waterbury-based Webster Bank is suing Centerplan Construction Co., the former builder of Dunkin' Donuts Park, for allegedly partially defaulting on three separate loans totaling more than $10.2 million.
According to the affidavit accompanying the complaint filed in Superior Court, Middletown-based Centerplan owes more than $3.3 million on its $4.2 million term loan; more than $499,600 on its $2 million construction loan; and more than $2.1 million on a $4 million revolving loan associated with work at the ballpark. In total, the bank says it is owed about $5.7 million.
The lawsuit also cites CC Haddam LLC and Centerplan CEO Robert Landino.
Webster Bank is seeking money damages, legal fees, interest and other remedies the court may deem appropriate.
On June 6, the city of Hartford fired Centerplan, saying it had lost confidence in the company's capacity to finish the ballpark in time for the 2016 baseball season. Following a countersuit, the parties now are in mediation, and the city has hired Arch Insurance to guarantee completion of the ballpark. Arch, which has hired another contractor, also has sued Centerplan.
The Hartford Yard Goats, the minor league team slated to call Dunkin' Donuts Park home, played its entire 2016 season on the road but is currently selling tickets and hiring game-day workers for the season. The team is expected to host its first home game on April 13.
Centerplan attorney Raymond Garcia declined comment on behalf of both companies and Landino.
Lucas B. Rocklin, the bank's New Haven-based attorney, could not be reached for comment.
Natural gas provider expands service to Hebron
Patricia Daddona
East Hartford-based Connecticut Natural Gas, a subsidiary of Avangrid Inc.,will expand in the town of Hebron, continuing an ongoing push to add natural gas capacity in central and eastern Connecticut.
The company expects this spring to start construction on an approximately 8-mile natural gas main that will serve the regional high school and middle school, two elementary schools and all of Hebron's municipal buildings. The gas main will also allow customers along its route to opt in.
Hebron voters overwhelmingly favored the project at a town meeting on Feb. 2. The new gas main, expected to be complete this year, will extend from the gate station on East Street to Main Street and up Gilead Street.
A year of expansion has been in the works for CNG and its Orange-based sister company, Southern Connecticut Gas. The two Avangrid companies built 37.5 miles of new distribution main in 2016.
And since 2014, they have added approximately 34,500 new commercial and residential natural gas customers. SCG added Essex and Deep River to its service territory in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Hundreds Of New Windows Needed At Hartford Apartment Tower
The first tenants in downtown's 777 Main apartment tower moved in 20 months ago, and now the building is 95 percent leased.
But the place, surrounded by scaffolding on street level, still looks like a construction zone.
The staging hasn't been removed because the developer confirmed he is replacing "hundreds" of the original 1,900 windows in the tower damaged during the $85 million conversion of the former bank building into rentals. And the troubles are tangled up in long-running legal wrangling between the apartment developer and the general contractor over who is responsible and who should pay for the new windows.
"We've left up the scaffolding as an extra precaution," Bruce Becker, the project's Fairfield-based developer, said. "I don't like having it there. But safety has to be the priority."
The scaffolding obscures the storefront of Blue State Coffee, which opened in September, 2015, just a few months after the first tenants moved into the tower.
The staging has hurt the cafe's visibility and its goal of becoming part of the community, said Carolyn Greenspan, Blue State's chief executive."We do think it's an issue," Greenspan said. "It's not helping to let people know that we are there. It's not welcoming the way we want to be with the scaffolding there."
And you can't see that CVS is outfitting a space in another space on the ground floor.
In the apartments above, window replacement started in November and has been done mostly as apartments have turned over to new tenants. If tenants were in the middle of a lease, they were relocated to a furnished apartment elsewhere in the tower. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE