North Stonington — After over a year of preparation, a bid package for the town's $38.5 million school building projects will be issued later this week.
The School Modernization Committee received permission from the state Department of Administrative Services late last week to issue a bid package. For towns seeking state reimbursement of construction costs, the department must review and approve all bid packages.
Mike Urgo, chairman of the modernization committee, said the town had been waiting for the final approval from the state before the bids could go out. That is because referendum language authorizing the renovation, which passed in 2016, specified that the town must receive confirmation that the state will fund the reimbursement of construction costs.
While the Department of Administrative Services has listed the town's renovation projects on its priority list, the state legislature ultimately funds school construction projects through its bonding legislation.
Paul Wojtowicz of Downes Construction, the construction manager of the renovation project, said there will be a pre-bid walk through of the town's schools at 3 p.m. Sept. 6. Bids will be due Sept. 21.
The project will address issues at both of the town's schools, including removing hazardous materials, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The middle and high school students will be moved into a new addition built next to the existing gymatorium across the street, ending use of a tunnel under Route 2 that poses safety concerns, and the elementary school will have a new dedicated cafeteria, among other upgrades.
As UConn returns, a chapter in Hartford's history is completed
For nearly a half-century, the University of Connecticut has had no place to call its own in the state's capital city. Today that changes as Connecticut's flagship university opens the doors of its new $140-million downtown branch campus on Prospect Street in Hartford.
The arrival of the campus, which comes after five years of false starts and setbacks, is a milestone for the university and the city of Hartford. A grand opening ceremony is scheduled for 10:30 a.m.
For UConn, it marks the institution's return from the suburbs into the heart of the city – where the school first opened its Greater Hartford branch in 1939. It moved to West Hartford in 1970.
The university, in the years since, had been able to continue to claim a "presence" downtown. Some of UConn's graduate business programs are housed in a space it leases in 100 Constitution Plaza, and the university's basketball and ice hockey teams play games in the XL Center every season.
But now, UConn will have a place to call "home."
"It absolutely does feel like a return," UConn President Susan Herbst said. "We have always had a presence in the city, but there is no comparison to relocating our entire campus there, because of the major new physical presence downtown and the fact that all of our academic programs, students, faculty and staff will be housed there."
"This is one of the most significant things UConn and the state will do in our lifetime," she added.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said its opening will be "one of the most momentous days in UConn history," while Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said it is "a tremendously significant development for not just the Front Street or Adriaen's Landing area, but for the entire city."
For Hartford, UConn's move means – at the very least – another vacant building is now filled and more foot traffic is coming to the Front Street District.
The Hartford Times building, which had been empty for more than a decade and a half, was incorporated into the façade of the new UConn building – a design crafted by Robert A.M. Stern, former dean of Yale's architectural school.
The university says more than 3,300 students are enrolled at the campus for classes this fall, with 200 full- and part-time staff joining them. City officials hope their arrival will spur greater economic development.
But the opening of the campus also is a symbolic end, perhaps, to a sweeping project that began two decades ago when one CEO's vision for redevelopment and a too-good-to-refuse offer from the New England Patriots collided at the desk of a governor looking for a win in one of Connecticut's urban centers. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Mandate relief must accompany municipal-aid cuts
In an awkward press conference earlier this month, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy stood side by side with the top lobbyists representing Connecticut's cities and towns, who haven't been shy this year voicing their displeasure with the Democratic governor's proposed cuts to municipal aid.
Mayors and first selectmen, of course, would like to be held harmless in Connecticut's ongoing budget battle, but that should not and cannot happen. For years, municipalities have avoided funding cuts while taxpayers have shouldered two major tax increases and state government has been forced to trim costs.
It's time for cities and towns to pay the piper.
Few realize it, but municipal aid is the single largest state expenditure, accounting for about a quarter, or more than $5 billion, of the annual state budget, according to Malloy's office. Most of that money funds education ($4.1 billion) while the rest underwrites local governments.
If lawmakers are going to realistically avoid another tax hike, which seems unlikely these days, they will need to take money out of that pot of gold.
So, while much criticism and blame for the state's budget crisis has been focused on the cost of state government's workforce, we must take a deeper look into the spending of cities and towns.
The issue, however, is not black and white. Blindly cutting municipal aid without loosening draconian mandates and labor laws will be counterintuitive, giving municipal leaders little wiggle room to shave costs and forcing local taxpayers to shoulder the burden in the form of higher property taxes.
That would be another negative blow to the state's business climate and encourage more people to pack their bags for greener (or warmer) pastures.
Malloy has proposed cutting municipal aid by $476 million this fiscal year and recently announced millions of dollars in further cuts to many school districts in order to restore some funding for health and human services.
While we agree with the governor's cuts, they must be accompanied by true and meaningful municipal regulatory relief. Local governments, like the state, are hamstrung by generous and stringent union contracts that must be curtailed or renegotiated if we are to find true financial savings.
For example, it can be difficult to regionalize and consolidate the costs of certain services because employees are protected by collective bargaining.
There are also plenty of costly state mandates cities and towns are forced to comply with that must be reformed.
Municipalities have long argued for curtailing the state's prevailing wage law, which requires municipalities to pay a certain level of wages and benefits on new construction projects.
In January, during the very early days of this year's prolonged budget debate, Malloy did offer some reforms.
For example, his initial budget proposed to increase the prevailing wage threshold for the first time since 1991 to $1 million for new construction and $500,000 for remodeling and to eliminate the requirement for superintendents in small school districts and communities.
Those are meaningful first steps, but we haven't heard much about them actually becoming reality. A major challenge, of course, is that teacher and municipal labor unions are a major and influential special interest at the state Capitol. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Gilbane Receives Project Team Award
Gilbane Building Company was recently honored by the Connecticut Building Congress with a first place Project Team Award in the new construction category for the Hartford Hospital Bone and Joint Institute project in Hartford. Gilbane was also recognized with an award of merit in the K-12 Schools category for the Francis T. Maloney High School in Meriden.
West Haven celebrates ground-breaking for new high school
WEST HAVEN >> The resurrected $130 million project to rebuild and renovateWest Haven High School got its official start Tuesday as officials from the city, its contractors, state representatives and some students used golden shovels to toss some earth — although demolition work to prepare for the project has been going on all summer.
Ground-breaking for the long-delayed “renovate as new” project to build a state-of-the-art West Haven High took place in front of the school’s main entrance on Circle Street.
“It’s a very, very proud moment in my administration,” said Mayor Ed O’Brien at the start of the ceremony. “What a great time to be ... in West Haven.”
After much work to get the designs right, “we have a project that’s within budget” and ready to begin, he said.
O’Brien said later that “it’s important to have a school that’s state-of-the-art — and it’s long overdue.”
Project Manager Richard Snedeker of the Capitol Region Education Council said that by the time the project is completed, “every space” within the high school “will be renovated or brand new.” The completed school is likely to draw students who might otherwise leave to attend magnet schools back into the school system, he said.
“This is a project which I’m so excited about,” said Superintendent of Schools Neil C. Cavallaro. “It’s been nine years in the making” and “something that we’ve thought about. ... We knew that we were losing students to other school districts, to the magnet programs, and, frankly, we were on the verge of not being able to compete.
“The state-of-the-art facility that we’re going to be building here is going to be good for not only our students and our staff, but for the entire community of West Haven,” Cavallaro said. “I think it’s going to give us a whole new image.”
He thanked O’Brien for his commitment, and said, “I’m just so, so excited that we’ve been able to put this project together.”
Cavallaro said school officials plan to keep reassuring parents and students “that they’re going to keep getting the first-rate education that they’re entitled to” while the project is going on.
The state’s reimbursement rate for the project is 75.36 percent, with the city paying just less than 25 percent. State officials have worked closely with the city and its team to get the details right.
The City Council recently approved a $133.25 million bonding ordinance to finance West Haven’s portion of the cost.
The new school was designed by Antinozzi Associates of Bridgeport to accommodate 1,450 students. The plans include renovating about 98,000 square feet of the existing building, demolishing the remainder, and adding more than 168,000 square feet of new construction.
The total finished project will be 265,959 square feet, with a cutting-edge media center, advanced STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — classrooms and laboratories and upgraded public areas for both the school’s use and the community.
It also will offer enhanced access, better security and lower maintenance and operating costs, officials have said.
The project’s construction phase will consist of three major “subphases” to allow the school to offer a full academic curriculum throughout the project.
Gilbane Building Co. of Glastonbury is the project’s construction manager, with Amar Shamas serving as the project executive. The Capital Region Education Council of Hartford is overseeing the construction financing, with Elizabeth Craun serving as the construction program manager.
Other speakers at the ground-breaking included state Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, state Rep. Dorinda Borer, D-West Haven, and state Rep. Michael DiMassa, D-West Haven. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE