City leaders issued a call Monday for developers to erect a new neighborhood north of downtown that links Hartford’s North End to its sweeping urban core along Main Street, and includes the city’s minor league ballpark as a centerpiece.
This is the second time Hartford officials have sought developers for the vacant land, which is composed of 32 properties across four parcels near the corner of Main and Trumbull streets. The project was previously awarded to Centerplan Construction Co. and DoNo Hartford, which had planned to build housing, office space and retail — including a grocery store — at the site, along with the new baseball stadium. But the developers were fired from the ballpark project last year after they missed two key deadlines to complete the facility. Centerplan has sued Hartford for wrongful termination, claiming the city made dozens of changes that caused the developers to miss the deadlines.
Arch Insurance, which guaranteed completion of the stadium, brokered a takeover agreement and hired contracting firm Whiting-Turner to finish the structure. After months of delays and cost overruns, the $71 million, publicly-funded Dunkin’ Donuts Park opened in April to much fanfare.
Last month, city officials also fired Centerplan and DoNo Hartford from the development around the ballpark.
Now, they’re looking for firms to come forward with plans for the area that include a blend of retail and housing.
“The city favors a mixed-use approach to the Downtown North redevelopment, anchored by residential buildings with lower-floor retail and/or office space,” city leaders wrote in the request for proposals. “Structured parking capacity will also be an important element in a successful proposal.” Developers have 88 days to respond, a wider window than the last request for bids, issued in 2014.
Then-Mayor Pedro Segarra and city development officials released the first query on July 1, 2014, and set a deadline of Aug. 1 for interested parties to reply. Centerplan and DoNo were selected on Sept. 2 of that year. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
US home construction reaches strongest pace in a year
Construction of new homes climbed 13.7 percent in October, the biggest jump in a year as builders broke ground on more apartments and single-family houses.
The Commerce Department said Friday that the monthly gain put U.S. housing starts at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.29 million units. That is the best pace for home construction in 12 months. Housing starts have risen just 2.4 percent year-to-date, largely because fewer apartment complexes are being built. Single-family house construction has driven much of the growth this year in a sign of greater demand from buyers amid a healthy job market.
But recent building trends reversed themselves somewhat in October, with most of the momentum coming from apartment construction. The building of multi-family properties jumped 37.4 percent in October. Construction of single-family houses increased 5.3 percent. Still, the building of new homes has done little to alleviate the growing shortage of existing homes for sale. This shortage has started to stifle the broader real estate market. Purchases of existing homes have fallen over the past 12 months, according to the National Association of Realtors. The decline largely reflects that there are 121,600 fewer homes on the market during the same period, a 6.4 percent decrease that new construction has been unable to offset.
"For a significant increase in new homes, municipalities are going to have to work harder to make more land available for building," said Robert Frick, a corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union.
Construction in the South rose 17.2 percent last month, a sign the region is regaining its footing after damage from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Home construction shot up in the Northeast due to ground breakings for apartments. Construction also increased in the Midwest but declined in the West.
Building permits, an indicator of future construction, rose 5.9 percent in October to 1.3 million. CLICL TITLE TO CONTINUE
ARTBA: House Bill “Dropped the Ball” on Transportation Tax Reform
A leading transportation infrastructure group criticized the House tax bill passed Nov. 16 for failing to address the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund in 2021 and the “$1,000 per year 'hidden tax' borne by every American household due to ever increasing traffic congestion on the Interstate highways.”
In a statement released following the House tax vote, American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) President & CEO Pete Ruane said, “The Highway Trust Fund solvency problem is a revenue problem, not a policy problem. It is a problem that rests squarely on the shoulders of the House and Senate committees charged with developing revenue and tax bills. Federal transportation tax reform should be a priority in this broad legislation. Thus far, the ball has been dropped.”
Ruane noted 253 House members—119 Republicans and 134 Democrats—signed a June 12 letter to House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Ranking Democrat Richard Neal (D-Mass.) urging a permanent trust fund solution be included in tax reform.
Ruane said congressional inaction on the trust fund “could tube President Trump's plans for infrastructure.” He noted that absent a permanent revenue solution, the federal highway program that provides more than half of the capital investments made by the state transportation departments each year faces a 40 percent cut in 2021.
As the tax bill process moves forward, “There is still time for Congress to do its job,” Ruane said. He urged President Trump to engage Congress in transportation tax reform now “to secure the down payment that will be necessary to make his infrastructure initiative successful.”“The strangling traffic congestion on the nation's Interstate highways has a very real and quantifiably negative impact on the nation's productivity and international competitiveness,” Ruane said. “It makes every product purchased by U.S. households and businesses more expensive than they need to be, causing a drag on the overall economy.”
He noted that as congestion has gotten increasingly worse over the past 20 years, federal investment in highway improvements has barely kept pace with inflation.
A study by the Center for Economic & Business Research using data from the Seattle-based company INRIX, which collects data from more than 180 million vehicles and devices out on the roads every day, found traffic congestion in the U.S. costs Americans at least $124 billion annually—the equivalent of about $1,000 per U.S. household.