MERIDEN — Heavy demolition of the former Record-Journal building began Wednesday morning with excavators clawing away at the rear portion that once held the newspaper’s mailroom and pressroom.
“I just drove by and saw the tractor,” said Lenny Scenti, who was watching the demolition over the fence on Crown Street. “That’s the mailroom they’re tearing out. That’s part of Meriden history going down the tubes.”
Scenti spent much of his life inside the Record-Journal mailroom, visiting his father, Leonard Scenti, an assistant manager who began working at the newspaper in 1968. He joined the same operation in 1995.“I’ve been doing papers all my life, I’m still doing papers,” Scenti said.
Scenti joined another former mailroom employee, Bob Kunze, who happened to be walking down Crown Street when he saw pieces of brick and concrete crumbling to the ground. Teachers from the preschool across the street huddled with their students and pointed to the excavators pulling the building apart. Workers from Manafort Brothers of New Britain sprayed water to control dust from the demolition and monitored the fence area.
“The demolition should be completed late August, early September,” said Public Works Director Robert Bass. “There will need to be some lane closures as the work gets closer to either Perkins Street or Crown Street.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Plans call for widening both Military Highway and Crystal Lake Road, which intersect near the entrance to the base, realigning the two roads, including a new traffic signal and creating a bike and pedestrian pathway.
The project has been years in the making — more than 30 years, according to Groton Town Manager Mark Oefinger, who said the concept has been kicking around since the early to mid-1980s. With the 1986 opening of the Submarine Force Library & Museum and the Historic Ship Nautilus adjacent to the base, "we took a two-lane road and made it a four-lane road without any significant improvements," he said.
The result is that Crystal Lake Road essentially has become a glorified driveway for the base, he said.
Currently, the two-lane Military Highway lines up with the main exit from the base. An example of why that can be a big problem: In June 2016, a New London man led police on a high-speed chase, which ended with him crashing his car into the base's main gate.
The project also will include the creation of a multi-use pathway for bicyclists and pedestrians along the south side of Crystal Lake Road. The pathway will extend from Crystal Lake Road and follow east along Route 12 until the intersection with South Pleasant Valley Road.
The improvements will provide greater capacity for vehicular traffic and ultimately resolve significant public safety and traffic management problems for the base, officials say.
The reconstruction project, which started in April, is primarily funded by federal monies, with the state and town each contributing 10 percent of total funds. The road improvements are expected to be done by late fall or early winter. The project is expected to shut down during the winter and resume in the spring, when it's anticipated that remaining work like sidewalks and landscaping will be completed.
Bob Ross, executive director of the state's Office of Military Affairs, would like to see Crystal Lake Road be renamed when the project is complete. Crystal Lake, which was located on the base, was filled in many years ago. Ross is proposing the town of Groton form a committee or hold a public competition to rename the road to something like "Submarine Capital Parkway" to reflect that "this is the new gateway to the Silicon Valley of undersea warfare." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Preston PZC approves plan of development changes, clearing way for final Norwich Hospital cleanup
Preston — The Planning and Zoning Commission Tuesday night unanimously approved amendments to the plan of development for the Thames River Design District that includes the former Norwich Hospital property, following a public hearing dominated by attorneys.
The plan approval was the last local step needed to free up a $10 million grant approved by the state Bond Commission Feb. 1 for the final cleanup phase at the property. The amended plan of development will take effect July 15, and the Preston Redevelopment Agency hopes to restart environmental abatement and demolition work on July 17 with demolition contractor Manafort Bros. Inc.
"Manafort is ready to go," PRA Chairman Sean Nugent said late Tuesday.
There are nine blighted buildings remaining on the property, and the PRA will work with tribal planners on the final demolition plan to prepare the property for development expected to start in late 2019.
Town Planner Kathy Warzecha said minor changes to the amendments mostly included clarifications, with the only significant change being to language covering plan review consulting fees the town may charge for future development proposals at the former Norwich Hospital property.
Attorneys for MGE, the PRA and the Planning and Zoning Commission all spoke at the hearing on the technical language in the plan of development.
The PRA previously had secured $15 million in state and federal grants and loans, with $2.4 million in local matching shares to clean and demolish 49 of the 59 structures on the 388-acre property. Town and tribal officials hope to preserve and redevelop the original Administration Building at the center of the main campus.
Construction is set to begin next month on the $100 million renovation of Weaver High School, a long-awaited project in north Hartford that alumni and neighborhood leaders have pushed as a resurgence of the school's deep traditions.
About $16 million has already been spent on design, demolition and other work in the first phase of an overhaul that will eventually feature three school academies in a four-story, 900-student Weaver campus, said Sal Salafia of ARCADIS/O&G, which administers Hartford's school construction program.
The cost for the high school, expected to be ready by August 2019, mostly falls on state taxpayers. One of the academies is a performing arts magnet school that enrolls city and suburban students under the Sheff v. O'Neill desegregation pact, and so the state has agreed to reimburse up to 95 percent of the Weaver project costs.
With the city of Hartford trying to avoid bankruptcy, that Sheff boost in state money is the only reason why the renovation is proceeding after the project stalled a year ago, school officials said.
And while many Weaver alumni called for a return to the school's roots as a traditional, comprehensive high school — and not dividing it into the smaller, career-oriented academies that arose a decade ago as a school-reform strategy — Weaver advocates say it is now or never to revive their beloved school with the distinctive "bleed green" spirit.
"I've been green for 49 years," said John Lobon, a 1968 Weaver graduate who played on the '67 undefeated Beavers football team. "And I'll be green until I die." CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE