Strong
transportation support is very important at the Bond Commission meeting next
week. The agenda is packed with transportation funding. Additionally,
there will be opposition to the $10 million for the study to provide accurate
information on tolling.
Bond Commission Meeting
Legislative Office
Building 300 Capitol Ave., Hartford
(there is plenty of parking this time of year)
Room 1E
10am
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
When
it comes to the tolling:
- A
study and accurate information on tolling in Connecticut is important
- Several legislators complained that there was a lack
of information during the last legislative session
- All
funding options should be on the table until Connecticut’s transportation
funding shortfall is addressed
- Connecticut needs a long-term user-based funding
stream to support its transportation needs
- Connecticut should be planning now for the future
United Rentals sees soaring profits in second quarter
By Paul Schott
United Rentals, the world’s largest equipment rentals company, saw profits and revenues rise in the past quarter, according to its latest earnings report released this week.
Second-quarter profits jumped to $183 million, nearly double from a year ago, reflecting the U.S. tax reform passed last year. Revenues for the past three months reached $1.89 billion, up 18 percent from the same period in 2017.
Equipment rentals accounted for 86 percent of total revenues. The equipment category’s revenues rose 19 percent year-over-year, totaling about $1.63 billion.
“We were very pleased with the momentum of our business in the second quarter, as strong gains in volume and rates helped drive better than 11 percent growth in ‘pro forma’ rental revenue,” United CEO Michael Kneeland said in a statement. “Importantly, demand remained robust across our construction and industrial verticals in both the U.S. and Canada.”
Acquisitions play a crucial role in United’s growth. The company announced this month it planned to acquire liquid-management firm BakerCorp International Holdings for approximately $715 million.
Last October, the company completed the $1.3 billion acquisition of Miami-based Neff, one of the largest U.S. equipment-rental firms.
The region, which the US. Geological Survey calls the “Western Connecticut Uplands,” contains exposed rock that originated from the continental shelf and former deep ocean basin sediments. Further, crushed stone and construction sand and gravel provide the most commercial value of any other mineral in the state, according to the state Office of Policy and Management. Their latest report shows there are seven quarries in Litchfield that produce nearly 1,765,000 metric tons of crushed stone.
The abundance of stone in the area provides material for local construction companies such as O&G Industries Inc. Since 1998, the company has operated the Burrville #4 Quarry, which covers more than 194 acres. The location is on Winsted Road between Burr Mountain and Highland Lake roads.
Connor said excavation work has not been done at Quarry #4 site for about two years. However, the proposal for the site plan shows that O&G proposes to relocate a primary crusher to a lower elevation of the property.
According to quarry equipment companies, a primary crusher, or jaw crusher, can weigh up to 77 tons. It will take up to three years, the application notes, to finish the work required to prepare the new site for the massive machine. It could then be two more years before the move is completed, the company states.
Restoration of the summit area cannot begin, O & G wrote, due to the “top-down method of excavation.” Access to material “down to the proposed final grades,” cannot not be accomplished, it said, within the five acres required by city regulations. To access the remaining material, the company requested approval to excavate an area covering 35 acres.
Allowing a larger excavation area, has been “historically granted in previous approvals,”the application says. Faroni could not be reached for comment about the exception.
The Burrville #4 Quarry is located within 100 feet of 31 properties. One of the neighbors, Margaret Centrella, of Highland Lake Road, said on Thursday that she “doesn’t really notice the noise.”
The quarry is also located within 500 feet of the Winchester town line, the application shows. Town Manager Robert Geiger said there have been no recent complaints from residents about noise or vibrations from blasting. In addition, he said O&G “usually maintain a pretty neat property.”
Conditions of the site plan approval include restricting operations to the hours of 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and not working on Sunday. Blasting is allowed between 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. It is not permitted on weekends or major holidays.
The company is required to notify adjoining property owners 72 hours before blasting operations begin.
CT gained 6,100 jobs in June
Connecticut employers added 6,100 new jobs in June, paced by gains in manufacturing and construction. The unemployment rate eased to 4.4 percent, the state labor authorities say.
The state's preliminary estimate Thursday for last month counted 1,698,800 nonfarms jobs, a 0.9 percent gain from the jobs-count in June 2018, the state Department of Labor said. The agency also revised upward by 2,000, to 6,100, the count of jobs the state added in May, following on losses in April and March.
Unemployment in the state was 4.5 percent in May and was 4.7 percent in June 2017.
"June's increase of 6,100 jobs overcame the entire decline we saw in March and April," said Andy Condon, DOL's research director. "Our three-month average job growth has once again turned positive. The seasonally adjusted year-over-year job gain of nearly 15,000 jobs is very encouraging, but this number can be volatile. Our average annual gain for the last 12 months is 5,300, still ahead of last year's pace. Construction and manufacturing are now the fastest growing sectors in the state's labor market – a very good sign."
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy hailed the latest state jobs report as further evidence that Connecticut's job-creation efforts are gaining more traction.
"Our efforts to create jobs and economic opportunities are working," Malloy said in a statement. "Over the past two months, Connecticut has added more than 12,000 jobs. ... Coming on the heels of announcements by major companies that they will relocate to and expand in Connecticut, this jobs report is proof that we are moving in the right direction."
The Connecticut Business & Industry Association, too, cited the higher job count as a positive. However, Pete Gioia, who is retiring as CBIA economist, sounded a cautionary tone, noting Connecticut's 4.4 percent jobless rate is still the highest in New England.
"We had a very strong jobs report last June, but then we saw big losses in the second part of the year," Gioia said in a statement.
Other concerns include the shrinking labor force, which will put pressure on the state's ability to sustain job growth, Gioia said.
Hartford's Swift Factory Renovation Aimed At Providing Jobs For Neighborhood
Kenneth R. Gosselin
A $34 million renovation of the long-vacant M. Swift & Sons factory in Hartford is now under construction and will bring jobs and new businesses to the Northeast neighborhood.But after years of planning, a challenge remains: fully selling the neighborhood of African-Americans and Latinos on the food business and incubator project.
“Looking at the trends around the nation, gentrification was a big issue, a concern that this would drive up property values, tax rates, people would start to lose their houses,” said John J. Thomas, coordinator of community outreach in Hartford for the factory’s developer, New York-based nonprofit Community Solutions.
“And another group of people who don’t look like us or have our narrative come in here and pretty much create a prosperous environment was a real big issue and continues to be,” Thomas, an African-American and lifelong neighborhood resident, said. The nonprofit’s vision for the 65,000-square-foot factory on Love Lane is for area residents to come in at the entry-level and then learn skills that could help workers move on to better and higher-paying jobs or perhaps start their own businesses. One anchor tenant, Bear’s Smokehouse Barbecue, will hire workers to prepare food for its restaurants and another tenant, an indoor hydroponic farm, will train employees to grow food.
The Swift redevelopment is expected to be completed by the end of next year and eventually create about 150 permanent jobs.
Thomas said the redevelopment isn’t aimed at white suburbanites or tech hipsters who have flocked to gentrified neighborhoods in cities across the nation, often pushing long-time residents out in the process.
“It would be better if we created our own hipsters,” Thomas said. “Our motto is development without displacement.”Community Solutions decided to focus on food because the nonprofit believed a job path for local residents existed in that industry.
The Northeast neighborhood has a 26 percent unemployment rate, according to U.S. Census figures.
One key reason it took eight years to reach construction is Community Solutions needed to build bridges with the neighborhood. But finding the right tenants and signing leases — needed to obtain financing — also stretched out the timeline.
Two years ago, when Community Solutions landed Bear’s as a tenant, it marked a big step forward for the project.
Bear’s owners Jamie and Cheryl McDonald have made it a practice to hire Hartford residents — including some from the Northeast neighborhood — as well as ex-offenders. Bear’s also offers a minimum wage of $15 an hour, well above Connecticut’s minimum of $10.10.
“This will be a true food manufacturing facility with skilled positions people can train for and then take those skills anywhere,” Jamie McDonald said.
Bear’s plans an investment of between $1.5 million and $2 million to outfit and buy equipment. Bear’s will occupy portions of three floors as it consolidates its food-preparation commissary in South Windsor, employing about 30 to start with plans for more hiring. The aim is to develop the operation to also accommodate future sales in grocery stores and online, McDonald said.
The hydroponics farm, which will be the largest tenant, is expected to focus on producing greens such as lettuce, spinach and collards, again with entry level jobs that offer the opportunity for training.
Community Solutions declined to identify the farm’s operator, but a source familiar with the project said the tenant is San Mateo, Calif.-based Crop One Holdings, the same company that the city of Hartford recently signed a deal with for property on nearby Homestead Avenue.
McKenna said the converted factory also will have food business incubator spaces.
“So the person who gets a start at Bear’s has an idea to start a business. There’s a little kitchen space they can rent and develop a business a little bit and keep the business in the area,’’ McKenna said.
Tied to the incubator space, Swift also will have office space for rent that will cater to local entrepreneurs and businesses “that need a place to start and grow their businesses,” McKenna said.
Steve Harris, a lifelong neighborhood resident and former city firefighter, said neighborhood doubts are rooted primarily in the length of time it has taken to get the project into construction.
“It’s been so long,” Harris said. “It’s almost like, “Well, we want to see some boots on the ground. We want to see some people going to work.”
Initially, Harris said, he, too, wondered if the project was so much “pie-in-the-sky.” But as he learned more and talked with Thomas — hired by Community Solutions because his lifelong connection to the neighborhood — he grew more comfortable.
Community Solutions was a nonprofit focused on improving the lives of the impoverished and not a developer looking to make money and just move on, Harris said. The group was founded by West Hartford native Rosanne Haggerty.
Haggerty drew national attention for her work renovating the dilapidated Times Square Hotel in New York for supportive housing with Common Ground, another nonprofit Haggerty founded. Haggerty also completed the renovation of 410 Asylum St. in downtown Hartford into mixed-income workforce housing.
The factory was donated by the Swift family to Community Solutions after the state kicked in a $600,000 grant to clean up further contamination on the site. Previously, the family had donated parking lots on the property to Habitat for Humanity where houses were later built.
The factory redevelopment got a boost in 2015 from being the centerpiece of a 3-mile swath designated as a federal “Promise Zone,” qualifying the project for additional funding.
Harris said Community Solution also was willing to tackle a redevelopment in the middle of what is known as “Five Corners,’’ where five streets converge. Harris said it is a ‘tough spot” that has seen its share of trouble.
Earlier this month, a father of two who had just been diagnosed with cancer was gunned down on Love Lane, a short walk from the factory.
Harris believes the redevelopment will give the neighborhood hope as a “bigger safe space and I think a beacon of hope. A beacon that everyone hasn’t written us off. There are still some people that see that potential, willing to take that risk.”
The Swift project drew on more than a dozen funding sources, with major contributors including the state Department of Economic and Community Development, the Capital Region Development Authority and Boston Community Capital.
In addition to the main factory, the project includes two houses. One, the original factory building, built in 1887, would ideally be used for an arts space; the other, a larger house constructed in 1914, could focus on health, both clinical and social factors that play into health: a person’s environment, habits, housing and employment status.
Community Solutions is pledging not to leave the neighborhood once the Swift project is completed, expected by the end of 2019.Wooster Square housing, retail project moves aheadAt the City Plan Commission meeting Wednesday, an excited Darren Seid of Epimoni and Peter Antoniou of Adam America said they closed on the $10 million deal Tuesday to take over the project to build 299 units of housing with some 6,000 square feet of retail space at 87 Union St.They started their due diligence on the purchase last fall to purchase the large project that originally had been put together in a joint venture by Petra Development and Davis Adam Realty Co. Antoniou took the helm, Seid said, working on the details and talking with City Plan staff since then to move it along until the deal could be closed.
The project is one of two large housing plans popular with the Wooster Square residents that will connect the neighborhood with downtown.
It also was a source of continuing disappointment that the owners of the nearby Strouse Adler “Smoothie” apartment complex continued to litigate in what was widely viewed as a tactic to stall the plans long enough that their new competitors would give up.
Seid said Antoniou has been aggressively working with the city to be ready to move on it once they took title.
Seid said on its face the project basically is the same except for the retail, which will be grouped along Olive Street for a bigger impact.“They had a nice plan. We tinkered with a couple of things to hopefully make it a more marketable product,” Seid said.
The development will be a mix of studios, as well as one- two- and three-bedroom apartments and townhouses, in addition to the retail and parking for 206 vehicles. “Every amenity under the sun” is also part of it, Seid said.
The proposal was always referred to as 87 Union St., but the development actually is bound by Olive , Union and Fair streets. On the north side, there is an adjacent property owned by Spinnaker, the developer that has proposed some 200 units of housing.
Spinnaker, which took over the former Comcast property on Chapel Street, continues to be held up in litigation with Philadelphia-based PMC Property Group, which owns the Strouse-Adler Smoothie apartments at 78 Olive St.
Seid said they will have ground-floor units on Fair Street — townhouses — and some “gorgeous unique units” that will front on that street.
Seid said it is has been great working with New Haven officials.
Seid said the Petra partnership sold the project to them, with all the needed city approvals in place, when they couldn’t get it going fast enough, hurting their equity.
Attorney Carolyn Kone said the last court challenge by PMC against her client was thown out when the court ruled PMC had no standing to bring a suit, as they were physically too far from Smoothie than were the Spinnaker plans. Spinnaker has also continued to win the court challenges.
Antoniou said on the retail end, clustering it gives them more options and there is a possibility that the proposed retail in the Spinnaker plan could locate close by.
Both companies are located in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as New Jersey. This is their first venture in Connecticut and Seid said they are looking at other properties here.
They expect to start construction immediately and “take it to the finish line,” Seid said.
City Plan on Wednesday extended the construction time so the developers won’t have to come back again.
U.S. DOL Seeks Comments on Proposed Railroad Construction Equipment in Cranes, Derricks Construction Standard
Pursuant to a settlement agreement from September 2014 between OSHA and the Association of American Railroads (AAR), OSHA today published a proposed rule regarding railroad construction equipment provisions in the Cranes and Derricks in Construction standard. OSHA's proposal will maintain safety and health protections for workers, and address employers' compliance burdens.
The final rule for Cranes and Derricks in Construction was published August 9, 2010. AAR filed a petition challenging certain requirements affecting railroad roadway work equipment. OSHA and AAR negotiated a settlement agreement that requires OSHA to propose a rule that will provide clarifications and exemptions affecting work on or along railroad tracks.
Comments to the proposed rule can be submitted electronically at http://www.regulations.gov, the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Comments may also be submitted by mail or facsimile. See the Federal Register notice for details. Submissions must be received by September 17, 2018.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to help ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance.
For more information, visit www.osha.gov.