MERIDEN — While the Meriden Green serves to beautify the downtown area, it’s easy to overlook the park’s intended purpose as a flood basin.
After heavy rain, like the city experienced Tuesday and Thursday, Harbor Brook, which runs through the 14-acre park, swells and overtakes small foot bridges that span the brook, as well as nearby sidewalks.
The $14 million park, engineered by Milone & MacBroom Inc., is intended to flood in order to prevent more widespread flooding in the downtown area. Since the 1860s, the city has been hit with a 100-year flood a total of 11 times. The most recent flood, in 1996, caused $12 million in damage downtown. The one before that, in 1992, caused $14 million in damage, and was heavy enough to submerge vehicles and street signs in some parts of the downtown. This historic flooding has largely been caused by an overflowing Harbor Brook swollen with rainwater.
The Meriden Green project was designed as a detention basin to address chronic flooding, including a worst-case scenario.The Silver City Bridge, which spans the park, was designed to evacuate people from Pratt Street to State Street during a flood.
“If it does get a 100-year flood all of this would be under water, up to four or five feet under the bridge,” Matt Sanford, senior environmental scientist for Milone & MacBroom, previously told the Record-Journal. “If you had to get people across to the train station, or the other side of town, this is what it’s designed for. Many people aren’t aware of that.”
The Meriden Green project utilized federal brownfield cleanup, flood control grants, and state and local transportation funding. Meriden-based LaRosa Construction Co. served as the project’s general manager.
Other aspects of the park may not stand out, but were incorporated to help during flood conditions. Natural round rock lines in the channel help handle the brook’s velocity. Plantings allow for a clear sight line across the park. A two- to three-foot high riparian zone provides a natural bank along the brook.
Sanford said the park should be mostly self-maintained, “but the city is going to have to clear debris, remove garbage specifically after rain events.”
City workers and residents did just that last week after heavy rain and winds caused debris and a trash container to become stuck under a foot bridge.
“You’d be surprised at what goes down that brook,” said resident Sharon Milano, who along with other volunteers helped clean the park.
The city is now looking to continue the Harbor Brook flood control project. The next phase will widen and deepen more than a mile of Harbor Brook in the area between Coe Avenue and the Cooper Street bridge. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
No hands were raised and no one approached the microphone.
The meeting adjourned, with the question of whether to approve the proposed Property Disposition and Development Agreement sent to an April 18 referendum. On the second agenda item at Thursday's town meeting, residents did vote to extend the referendum hours to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Town Hall.
“I asked four times,” Congdon said of the lack of discussion. “What else are you going to do?”
After the adjournment, however, resident Robert O'Neil attempted to ask about police and fire protection for what is proposed to be a $200 million to $600 million development of sports, entertainment, resort and residential facilities. But the meeting already was adjourned, Congdon said.
This was the second time residents gathered for a town meeting discussion on the proposed sale of the former Norwich Hospital property to the Mohegans and adjourned after only several minutes.
The proposal also has been in the news since last May, when the PRA and tribal leaders first announced they had negotiated a memorandum of understanding to guide the contract negotiations. Both urged residents to come out and vote at the April 18 referendum.
In January, the tribe unveiled conceptual master plan maps depicting a 40-acre theme park, indoor water park, marina, synthetic skiing, an outdoor adventure park, sports training complex, large sports-themed retail store, three hotels, senior housing and time share units.
As far as police and fire coverage goes, Congdon said town officials approached the negotiations as they would have with any tax-paying private developer. As with any project — hotel or commercial facility — the developer would not be expected to provide its own police and fire coverage. Those services are the responsibility of the town, to be paid for through property taxes. The same will be true for the gaming authority's projects, Congdon said.
The agreement lays out a property tax phasing schedule in which developments would be taxed at a percentage of their total value for the first seven to 10 years. For example, a project component valued at between $10 million and $45 million would be taxed at 75 percent of assessed value for the first seven years. Projects valued at more than $45 million would be taxed at 60 percent of assessed value for the first five years, gradually increasing to full taxes after 10 years.
Tribes vow to 'guarantee' CT third casino's slot revenue
The Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes sent a letter to state leaders Thursday offering to guarantee slot revenue to Connecticut if the legislature passes the bill authorizing a third casino in East Windsor.
"With the development of a third casino operated jointly by Mohegan and [the] Pequot[s]," the letter states, "we are committed to guaranteeing our existing slot revenue arrangement with the state and are proposing compact amendments that will ensure those revenue streams are preserved. SB 957 does not jeopardize this revenue sharing, because it is expressly conditioned on approval of the tribes' proposed compact amendments."
If the bill is passed, the tribes would build a $300 million gaming and entertainment facility in East Windsor. The casino would pay a 25 percent tax on its slot machine revenues and a 25 percent tax on its table game revenues, "on par with Massachusetts tax rates," the tribe notes.
The table game tax rate would be split, with 10 percent of the revenue going directly to the state and 15 percent going to support state tourism initiatives, they added.
According to the existing compact, both tribes' casinos -- Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino -- provide 25 percent each of their slot revenue to the state. Combined, in past decades, they have contributed more than $7 billion to the state, the tribes said.
The tribes' aim in building a third casino is to stem the competition from MGM Springfield, which is under construction and scheduled to open in the fall of 2018.
Another competing bill in Connecticut would open up the site selection process beyond just the tribes.
Plans for major development at former New Haven Coliseum site delayed, not dead
NEW HAVEN >> Remember the LiveWorkLearnPlay project with its 1,000 units of housing, 40 businesses and a hotel? It’s still alive, albeit much delayed, thanks to revisions that no longer require that major distribution and transmission lines be moved, a complicated dance that conflicted directly with planned highway improvements and added $15 million to the cost.
Working out the issue took three years and involved extensive talks with energy regulators, while leaving open the possibility that the city, in the end, would be stuck with some or all of the costs.Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson last July said that Max Reim of LWLP had agreed to redesign the $400 million project, approved in 2013, to push it forward. He now has a proposal that moves the planned 4.5-star hotel to the corner of State Street and Water Street Extension, rather than locating it a block away. The apartments, which include 450 units in phase one, will be located on Orange and George streets. The public plaza and retail sites remain, but an office tower has been dropped. Nemerson also said a major investor in the project, Romy Karam, is back in the deal, now that it has been revised. He said Reim and Karam had been in arbitration for a year. The economic development administrator said the proposed hotel is curvalinear with a formal, “bold” presence as it faces the medical center and the highway and a welcoming pavilion from the other side. Nemerson said eliminating the need to move the utilities should now move up the highway work where Orange Street will be connected across Route 34 with the help of $21 million from the state and $7 million from the city. “We had two projects in the same place which meant you couldn’t start moving the highway until you had buried the new wires. It was a nightmare,” Nemerson said of the complications of the site that have been solved by moving the hotel.
LiveWorkLearnPlay had previously announced it had a deal to bring a Hyatt Hotel to the site, but with the new configuration, other hotels are interested in being the one to locate there, Nemerson said. The revised development plan have to be formalized and re-submitted to City Plan, while the state has to sign off on it before the highway project can commence. The state Department of Community and Economic Development has to be comfortable that there will be a hotel on the site, if it is investing in the next step of the Downtown Crossing, which is reclaiming Route 34 for developable land and connecting streets Gov. Dannel P. Malloy made construction of the hotel in the first phase one of the conditions for the state highway money.Nemerson has asked Reim to finish the new plans by July for the next set of approvals. Reim could not be reached for comment. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE