May 23, 2018

CT Construction Digest Wednesday May 23, 2018

MDC Digging Tunnel Under Hartford
NBC 30 VIDEO

The Haven developers submit site plan application to West Haven PZC; Simon Property Group also involved

WEST HAVEN — The developers of The Haven luxury outlet mall are moving forward with the 235,000-square-foot development, submitting an application for site plan approval to the city this week — with Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group joining The Haven Group as a partner in the project.
Simon, owner of the Clinton Crossing outlets in Clinton and the Crystal Mall in Waterford, is one of the largest shopping center developers in the world, with projects all over the United States, Europe and Asia that generate billions of dollars in sales, including the Copley Square Mall in Boston and Roosevelt Field on Long Island, N.Y.
The project currently is slated for completion in summer 2020 “and will transform West Haven into a retail and entertainment hub,” the developers said Tuesday in a news release. The plans filed with the Planning and Zoning Commission Monday call for 80 stores and five full-service restaurants “We are looking forward to bringing our extensive experience to this project in partnership with The Haven Group,” Danielle DeVita, executive vice president of Simon, said in the release. “We are also very pleased to be working with the City of West Haven on this one-of-a-kind luxury project.” Ty Miller, the Dallas-based president of the Haven Group LLC, said, “We are very excited to move this project forward after years of behind-the-scenes effort. Today’s submission represents our best proposal yet.”
The Haven Group, originally a partnership led by Miller and the late Sheldon Gordon, who died last September, is affiliated with the family that owns Highland Park Village in Dallas. Mayor Nancy Rossi, who watched the project begin to unfold during the administration of her predecessor, Mayor Ed O’Brien, said she’s pleased to see the application for site plan approval filed and believes The Haven has the capacity to be a major economic boost for West Haven.
“I’m very pleased and very excited that the first step is being taken for this project,” Rossi said.
“I do believe that this will definitely help the City of West Haven,” Rossi said. “It’s going to bring people to our city. Hopefully, people will go out to dinner” or enjoy the city’s shoreline while they’re in town, she said. Rossi also said The Haven has the capacity to spur other development in the fiscally constrained city.
Despite the change in The Haven’s development team, “They said that nothing has changed,” she said. In meetings since Rossi took office in December, “they kept stating that they were going forward with the project ... and I’ve been behind the project since I was on the City Council, so I’m very pleased about that,” Rossi said.
“This is a major step forward for a project of this magnitude, which lies along the eastern gateway to the city right off I-95 along the waterfront, making it a destination location that will complement three-plus miles of beaches,” Rossi said in the release. “This prime site is also minutes from the downtown business district, regional train station, and campuses of the University of New Haven, Yale University West and Veterans Affairs Hospital,” Rossi said. “Since taking office, my staff and I have done everything we can to assist the developers, and we will continue that effort until the project is complete. The Haven had been in the property acquisition stage for the past four years as the developers negotiated with 57 property owners — missing several of its own previous stated completion target dates — leaving many in West Haven questioning whether it would ever move forward and upset about all the boarded-up properties within the project area.
The transfer of the city-owned Bayview Park — which was developed in part with federal funds and consequently needed federal approval to be sold for development — was one of the issues that held up the process, officials have said. There are a total of 57 properties within the 24-acre project area, which is bounded by Main Street, First Avenue and Elm Street. The project includes what is now Water Street, which will be closed and eliminated as The Haven is built.
The Haven Group Executive Vice President Matt Armstrong has called The Haven “America’s first upscale waterfront outlet mall.”Gordon, Miller and O’Brien unveiled the project, a $200 million, “high-end” shopping center to be built in two phases, on June 10, 2014.
 In addition to 80 stores and five restaurants, the project would have a public waterfront promenade with a 200-seat amphitheater.Armstrong said last fall that at that time the developer had spent more than $30 million on the privately financed development, which he has compared to the top 20 percent of the retail stores that constitute Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley, New York, about 50 miles north of New York City. Armstrong has said The Haven would be the only direct-waterfront, luxury retail center in the country. It would pay $2 million in annual property tax and create more than $15 million in incremental sales tax for the state, he has said.
The Haven would provide 800 full-time and 400 part-time jobs, plus 800 construction jobs using all Connecticut-based contractors, he has said.

CRDA seeks eminent domain powers to acquire key XL Center block

Greg Bordonaro
CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth said he is asking his board of directors for eminent authority Thursday after several failed attempts to purchase the space, known as the "Trumbull Block," from Northland.
If approved, he'd have a six-month window to pursue that legal avenue, Freimuth said.
"The board is going to consider granting the authority to continue negotiating with Northland but have the eminent domain option in place," Freimuth said late Tuesday.
Meantime, Northland Principal Larry Gottesdiener blasted CRDA's attempts to pursue eminent domain. He said CRDA's multiple appraisals have led to inadequate valuations of the property and that Northland isn't interested in selling right now, particularly because there is no funding or plan in place for a long-term renovation of the arena.
"The appraisals are deeply flawed," Gottesdiener said.
Both Gottesdiener and Freimuth declined to disclose terms of any previous negotiations for the property, which fronts Trumbull Street and includes largely vacant retail space, office space and XL Center's atrium.
The complicating factor is that the city, state and Northland each control bits and pieces of the XL Center property and certain utilities and other internal systems are shared. Northland, for example, controls certain elevators and escalators key to the functionality of the XL Center and the nearby parking garage.
CRDA rents from Northland the rights to the use atrium space.
CRDA a few years ago recommended a $250 million overhaul of the XL Center, concluding that the building's functionality and ability to generate revenue are severely limited by its age, obsolete design, mechanical systems, limited footprint and fan amenities and narrow concourses.
But CRDA has been unable to secure that full allotment from the state legislature. State lawmakers, however, did grant CRDA $40 million last year for renovations. That money, which is in addition to the $35 million in renovations completed in 2014, could be used for buying Northland's Trumbull Street property.
Freimuth said that section of the building is crucial to the short-term operations and long-term redevelopment of the arena. The retail space, for example, includes a three-story, 192,000-square-foot parcel that would be needed to expand XL Center's current footprint. A 2015 study conducted by SCI Architects concluded that at least 100,000 square feet of additional space, including room for a second concourse, would be necessary to bring the XL Center up to modern-venue standards.
Freimuth said CRDA's board gave him the authority in February to negotiate purchase of the property. Meantime, CRDA is also seeking bidders to potentially buy the XL Center. An RFP was issued last month and bids are due by late June.
Northland's lawyer received word last week that CRDA may be pursuing eminent domain.
Gottesdiener said the agency is taking an unnecessary step and will simply waste XL Center renovation money on a prolonged legal battle. He said CRDA should treat Northland as a partner and work on future redevelopment plans together.
He called CRDA's attempt at eminent domain an "irrational business decision."

First ‘cohousing’ project in Connecticut comes to Bethany

BETHANY — Ground was broken Tuesday on the state’s first “cohousing” community, an environmentally friendly development of 30 small homes, a large common house and an organic farm on 33 acres where a former dairy farm sat on Meyers Road, off Old Amity Road.
“Rocky Corner,” as the development will be called, has been going through the approval process for years, with some town residents objecting because 13 of the homes will be set aside for those who meet the standard for “affordable housing” under state guidelines — which is much different than low-income housing, officials have had to explain.
The nonprofit developer, made up of future residents rather than a corporation, is Green Haven Inc. — and its President Dick Margulis describes the complex as “a neighborhood built on purpose.” Margulis stressed the only reason he has the title is because he works from home and is available to sign paperwork.
Margulis said there are already 148 cohousing communities built in the United States, 17 under construction, and another 140 in various stages of formation. There are 15 in nearby Massachusetts, but this is the first in Connecticut, he said.
While it may have been a rocky road getting to Tuesday’s ground-breaking — both literally and figuratively — there were no complaints, only kudos, from the engineers, planners and loan providers who were there and from First Selectwoman Derrylyn Gorski and even Connecticut’s commissioner of housing, Evonne Klein.
Klein praised the project, to which the state gave $2.6 million, especially the affordability component of some of the homes. Klein said her office is always looking for “different” housing concepts.
Gorski said this means the town has “official” affordable housing, although it already has housing that’s affordable. Gorski said she’s explained to many people that affordable does not mean low-income.“This allows us to continue our economic diversity,” she said.
Gorski said the project is a great example of “ how people can pull together and get something done.”
Conversation around the project began in 2006.
The years were filled with many meetings of stakeholders and hired experts, including David Berto, a creative housing expert of Housing Enterprises Inc. It was with Berto’s hiring that the project really started moving.
The small houses, beginning at 810 square feet, will have the basic rooms — living room, bedroom(s), kitchen and bathroom — but there will be a 4,500-square-foot common building for endeavors people don’t do all the time, such as throwing a big dinner. The building will have a commercial kitchen and there will be a few shared meals available every week.
He said the grounds will be kid and elderly friendly because parking is one spot, led to by a path.
He said there will be shared meals 2-3 times a week.
There will also be a shared organic farm on the compound, worked by residents, and plots available for residents who want a growing area for enterprise endeavors.
The homes are priced from below $200,000, depending on home size and income level.
A press release from Margulis, a New Haven resident who looks forward to residing with his wife at Rocky Corner, describes it this way: “Cohousing promotes close relationships amongst neighbors with an emphasis on sustainable construction and land use.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE