May 17, 2018

CT Construction Digest Thursday May 17, 2018


Fred Carstensen
Connecticut’s economy has been shrinking since 2008; it desperately needs to find a way back to growth. Long Island’s economy is choking because of the necessity of everything going in or out through New York City. An interstate collaboration to “bridge” the Sound might address both challenges.
Past studies – a half century of them! – highlighted daunting construction costs, insufficient traffic, inadequate toll revenue, and environmental issues to justify a crossing project. But given the large scale of the current Long Island economy, the chokehold of logistics requiring everything to navigate the New York City metro, and the challenge Connecticut is facing to restore economic growth (Connecticut’s economy, shrinking since 2008, is now smaller than it was in 2004), the question now is whether linking Long Island and Connecticut would be mutually beneficial.
That half-century of studies, including Gov. Cuomo’s latest one, looked only at the huge, intimidating costs, but failed to consider whether the broad economic benefits – opening up new opportunities for business creation and thus job creation, improved logistics for the Long Island economy, expanded markets, benefits to Connecticut businesses and communities, generation of new tax revenues, etc. – would make a Long Island crossing nevertheless beneficial for both regions. Would such a massive public infrastructure project pay for itself over time as a result of the broad regional benefits it would generate?
The best way to answer this question is to develop a comprehensive dynamic economic impact analysis, one looking out over a 25-year time horizon to project business growth, job creation, demographic impacts, incremental tax revenues, an analysis that the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis (CCEA) at UConn, in partnership with REMI Inc., of Amherst, Massachusetts, is undertaking. To begin to develop appropriate data, CCEA has already initiated an online survey of businesses. The survey asks, for example, how individual businesses would utilize cross-Sound access to expand their sales of goods and services or to project the benefit from lower transport costs for goods and services that previously had to be routed through the New York Metro area. CEA will also engage area Chambers of Commerce and economic planning groups to refine and enlarge understanding of the likely impacts.
Connecticut’s economy is in clear need of a powerful stimulus to break it out of the doldrums in which it now sits. Eastern Long Island is an unbalanced, heavily seasonal economy that pays a premium to import goods and services from or through Metropolitan New York. A Long Island Sound crossing would presumptively open up new opportunities for developing a more balanced regional economy for those communities, while significantly expanding opportunities for Connecticut businesses to provide an array of services – including shipments through Connecticut’s deep water ports – and goods that Long Island communities need. Linking the regions will thus generate broad benefits on both sides of the Sound. The fundamental question is whether net new benefits will be sufficient to justify the investment.
The emergent technology of electric autonomous vehicles (AV) points to an approach that would make the crossing both much less expensive and more environmentally friendly. A long tunnel has high ventilation costs and major vehicle safety concerns. With electrified autonomous vehicles, neither consideration will be significant. Autonomous vehicles will be widely used, in the opinion of many, within two decades. That is also a reasonable timeframe for the outreach, planning, legislative approvals, environmental impact statement, design, and construction of a tunnel project.
Non-AV electric vehicles could utilize lane guidance systems. Non-electrified vehicles could be carried on an AV flatbed. But these “non-conforming” vehicles will be increasingly rare in the overall vehicle mix over the years, and could be charged a differential fee to dissuade them from using the tunnel.
Businesses, including transit operators, relying on the connector across the Sound would purchase electrified AVs. Differential tolls should be used to incentivize and thus encourage growth-promoting and job-creating activities.
Creation of a joint effort to fund and manage this dynamic regional economic modeling is surely the best way to proceed. Initially, the objective is to begin this as a partnership between the CCEA-UConn, REMI, and a New York-based economics group, perhaps at SUNY-Stony Brook. If the analysis is persuasive, New York and Connecticut would then create an interstate compact to undertake the project; Congress approves such compacts – there are today almost 200. One of the most notable is the New York-New Jersey Port Authority. Such a legal framework would clearly facilitate completion of this project.


NEW BRITAIN - Mayor Erin Stewart and Economic Development Director Bill Carroll were on hand Wednesday morning as construction workers began dismantling the façade of a commercial building at 222 Main St., the former home of National Discount Stores.
The building, recently purchased by developer Daniel Czyzewski, will soon be transformed into luxury apartments on the upper floors with a restaurant on the first floor. The $4 million project is part of an effort to revitalize downtown.
“This is really going to solidify the ensured transformation of downtown into a place that it once was,” Stewart, said. “We are looking at it one development at a time.”
The five-story building, built in 1885, once housed also housed the B.C. Porter furniture store.
Christopher and Peggy Porter, formerly of New Britain, said Christopher Porter’s great-grandfather owned the building in 1889.
“People came from all over New England to buy their furniture,” Peggy Porter said.
The building was also used to store caskets, as B.C. Porter was also the owner of a funeral home in the city, Christopher Porter said.
“We are delighted to see the metal cover come down on one hand, because it’s beautiful underneath,” Peggy said.
However, Christopher said, the area needs more businesses, not apartments.
Czyzewski told The Herald he wants to restore the building’s original brick exterior, which is why he is having the metal sheathing removed.
He will start construction at the end of the year and said the project should be complete in two years.
Czyzewski is not new to building restoration in New Britain. He is the owner of Exclusive Developments LLC and Flip It Inc.
Denis Rivera of New Britain joined other onlookers at Wednesday’s event. He said changes such as the building renovation project are good for the city.
“At the end, this is going to attract more businesses, more people, more jobs and more tax money,” he said.

New Haven alders unhappy with language in final lease for school on SCSU campus

NEW HAVEN — The final language on the lease agreement with the state for construction of an elementary school on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University has riled some alders who feel it is confusing and should have been sent to them before it was signed.
Alder Sal DeCola, D-18, said the lease that was inked on April 24 and sent to the Board of Alders last week is confusing as to the life of the new K-4 lab school, which references razing it after 50 years.
It is currently in the pre-construction phase with contracts, including those to minority firms, being let to get shovels in the ground with some $3.5 million of the $45 million project already spent.
DeCola said he doesn’t remember the draft of the lease given to the alders talking about razing the school — 80 percent of which will be paid for by the state — after half a century.
An earlier draft did reference the 50-year term, but it was more clearly connected to the end of a memorandum of agreement on the role played by Southern and the New Haven Board of Education in the operation of the school.
Will Clark, chief operating officer for the New Haven school system, said the Board of Regents for Higher Education could not agree to a 99-year lease — which was in an earlier draft — and needed some assurance of control over the building on the Southern campus, if need be.
The final contract says the lease shall be 20 years, co-terminus with the Memorandum of Agreement.
The lease, according to the contract, will be subject to renewal by mutual agreement every 10 years, “not to exceed a total of 50 years.”
But it also adds that “this lease shall automatically terminate prior to the expiration of the term in the event that the lessee shall cease to operate the school at the premises.”
Clark said this is the key to the lease. He said the state is not interested in ending the agreement as long as the building continues to be run as a school. Clark said it can be renewed beyond 50 years if amenable to both sides.
As a non-lawyer, DeCola said it doesn’t say that to him. “It is not worded that way,” DeCola said. He said it should have come back to the alders and to the school board before it was signed.
“There was no transparency. We should have seen the final contract,” DeCola said. He said his intent is not to stop the school, although he was among the alders who voted against it, arguing that the city can’t afford it.
The alders in 2015 refused to approve the $10.6 million New Haven contribution to the Strong School replacement, killing the project that year. In 2016, however, enough alders reversed themselves to give it their approval.
DeCola, Alder Anna Festa, D-10, and state Rep. Al Paolillo, who was the aldermanic majority leader at the time, were among those who opposed the school because it added to the city’s debt load.
She said they argued that it didn’t make sense to build a new school and predicted the city would start closing schools because of its fiscal state. The school board voted on Monday to close two alternative schools and a magnet school
The lease is specific as to what happens once the agreement does expire.
It stipulates that the city would have to turn over the parking lot in its existing condition and “subject to any subsequent agreement between lessor and lessee” demolish the school; seed and cover the plot of land with top soil and remove the utility connections.
If the termination occurs before 50 years, the lease says the school will be turned over intact to the state.
The school will be a learning lab for the education department at Southern.It will also benefit the students and faculty at the elementary school with in-kind services from multiple academic departments at the university worth millions over the life of the agreement, Clark said.
He said this includes advice from experts on curriculum, social emotional issues, special education and early childhood education.
Festa also had concerns about the lease and who makes hiring decisions for the school. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Centre Square access road taking shape as granite curbing is installed

BRISTOL - Work is progressing on Centre Square, with the installation of granite curbing under way and gas line improvements and streetscape work planned for the next phase of the project.
“We are coordinating with Eversource to perform the gas line work,” said city Engineer Raymond Rogozinski. “The city has finalized its contract with Eversource and they are working to upgrade the gas lines for our new road as well as on Laurel Street and West Street.”
Rogozinski noted that with the curbing work now under way, passers-by will soon be more clearly able to visualize the roadway taking shape. The 1,000-foot Centre Square access road will begin at the intersection of North Main and Laurel streets and will cut through Centre Square to Riverside Avenue.
At the beginning of this month, Rogozinski said that utilities, conduits, a sanitary sewer system and a potable water system along with most of the electrical system were being installed in the road. This work is still under way but once it is complete, streetscape improvements will begin.
“There are still several streetscape improvements which we will be doing behind the curb line, similar to what you see on North Main Street,” said Rogozinski. “We’ll be putting down brick, decorative lighting and landscaping.”
Work also continues on the site of Bristol Hospital’s 60,000-square-foot, three-story Ambulatory Care Center. The area surrounding the grounds has been fenced off and the grounds themselves are being excavated, filled and leveled as utilities are installed. Once complete, the building will house houses services for cardiology, endocrinology and diabetes, neurology, orthopedics, rheumatology and urology.
The Centre Square access road and the Bristol Hospital Building along with the planned renovations and opening of a theater and art magnet school at Memorial Boulevard School, as well as the opening of Pint and Plate, are part of the city’s plan to revitalize its downtown area.
Brian M. Johnson can be reached at 860-973-1806 or bjohnson@bristolpress.com.