MERIDEN — As the city gets ready to demolish the Mills Memorial Apartments, state Rep. Hilda Santiago will always be proud of her roots at the housing project.
“It's good to remember that a lot of people got their start at the Mills and have better lives now because of it,” Santiago, D-Meriden, said. “...I’m proud of having lived here and having experienced living in low-income housing because it was lifesaver for me, it was a lifesaver for my family.”
Santiago was one of several local officials and downtown stakeholders that attended a ceremony held by the city Thursday morning to mark the demolition of the Mills, which is set to begin next week and finish early next year.
Her mother moved to the Mills from New York City in the 1970s, when Santiago was in high school. Santiago returned to the Mills in the 1980s as a single mother raising two children.
She paid a $119 monthly rent by working a job across the street at Meriden Community Action Agency earning $4 an hour.
“That was basically the only place I could afford at that time to live,” she said.
At the ceremony, city officials touted the demolition — a culmination of eight years of planning by several local, state and federal agencies — as another key milestone in the city’s efforts to revitalize the downtown area near the new train station.
“This is truly a momentous day in the city of Meriden,” Mayor Kevin Scarpati said at the ceremony.
“It’s exciting to see the transformation that’s going on right before our very eyes,” state Sen. Len Suzio, R-Meriden, said. “...This marks the end of the Mills but a new beginning for the city of Meriden.”
The city plans to extend the Meriden Green onto the Mills property following the demolition, which will begin as early as next week and finish early next year.
Two new private housing developments — Meriden Commons I and II — are being constructed in the surrounding neighborhood and will offer a combined 151 mixed-income apartment units along with commercial space. Construction for Commons I was recently completed and officials held a groundbreaking for Commons II last month.
Economic Development Director Juliet Burdelski said spreading out low-income housing will benefit the downtown.
“A key goal of our redevelopment plan was to eliminate this high concentration of poverty in one spot, so this allows us to continue the decentralization of these low, low-income units,” she said. “It’s not good public policy to have so many low-income people in one area.”
About 60 Meriden Commons I units are income-restricted, meaning potential tenants can earn no more than 60 percent of the area median income. The remaining 15 apartments are market-rate units. Phase II will have 76 units with a similar income ratio.
“It’s better affordable housing,” Burdelski said about the new developments. “It’s not distressed, obsolete public housing.”
While many speakers looked ahead to the future of downtown Thursday, former Mills resident Emely Morales Varona looked back on the value the housing project had for her family and many others.
“The Mills has been a big pillar in this community even though we get a bad stigma as a resident here because it’s the projects,” said Morales Varona, who serves as the resident commissioner for the Meriden Housing Authority. “People underestimate our power, our potential. But you know what — many people here have become thriving community members.”
Santiago said seeing the Mills get razed will be bittersweet, but hopes decentralizing Meriden’s low-income housing will help end the poverty cycle.
In planning the demolition, the Meriden Housing Authority worked with tenants to find other housing locally and elsewhere, with assistance from other agencies.
“Just remember, this might be a physical building coming down, but in spirit, it’s always here,” Morales Varona said.
The city contracted with Bestech Inc., of Ellington, through a competitive bid process to demolish the Mills for $1.9 million. The city received $2 million for the demolition in 2016 through a municipal brownfields cleanup grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
The city has contemplated demolishing the Mills since the 1970s, but a concerted effort began about eight years ago, when a joint planning group formed between multiple agencies.
“It takes a long time,” Burdelski said. “You don’t just demolish public housing. People have rights under the Civil Rights Act, and I think we did it the right way.”
There Will Soon Be A 400-Foot Drill Making Its Way Underground From Hartford To West Hartford
After nearly two years of digging and blasting through bedrock with dynamite, the Metropolitan District boasted a significant construction milestone in the $2 billion Clean Water Project this week — the lowering and construction of a 400-foot-long machine that will dig a 4-mile long tunnel from Hartford to West Hartford.
Work started Monday and will continue over the next month to lower and build a boring machine that will build an 18-foot diameter tunnel — called the South Hartford Conveyance and Storage Tunnel — that will be used for sewer overflow storage before it is treated at the Hartford Water Pollution Control Facility.
The tunnel will have the capacity to hold about 42 million gallons of water, according to MDC Director of Engineering Susan Negrelli. The project’s total cost is anticipated to be $279.4 million. “When you’re coming up 91 and you get off the Brainard Road exit there, you see these two large, white barrels, so they’re about 20-foot diameter white barrels, it’s the front shield and tail shield,” Negrelli said. “What you can’t see lying on its side behind them is the cutter head. That’s the actual piece that ... will be the front of the machine, grinding the rock and breaking it up when the machine is in use.”Kenny/Obayashi, a joint venture of Granite Construction subsidiaries Kenny Construction and Obayashi Corporation, won the contract for the tunnel project and decided to buy the German boring machine, Negrelli said.
The cutter head weighs about 88 metric tons, and the heaviest piece is 168 metric tons, Negrelli said. The machine was purchased from a company in Germany.
“It was built in Germany, they also build these machines in China, I think there are some places in America here that are building them now,” Negrelli said. “From the company, it went on a boat up the Rhine River out to the Atlantic where it was loaded onto a large ship and it took about two weeks to cross the Atlantic into New York and then it got trailered up here to Hartford.”
When the electric-powered machine is turned on — a target date to flip the switch is late September — an estimated 70 feet of boring will be completed each day, meaning the machine’s work should take a year to a year and a half, Negrelli said.
With the boring so far deep underground, people shouldn’t be able to hear or feel the machine as it works its way from Brainard Road in Hartford to Talcott Road in West Hartford.
Construction work to close I-84 at exit 25 next week
WATERBURY – Interstate 84 is scheduled to close at Exit 25 for five nights next week while steel is erected for the bridge that carries Scott Road over the highway.
The work is part of the I-84 widening project. Traffic currently runs on a newly constructed side of the renamed Najla G. Noujaim Memorial Bridge. The old side of the bridge has been torn down and is being rebuilt.
The work requires I-84 westbound to close from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. on Sunday and Monday nights. In the eastbound direction, it will close during those same hours for three nights, Tuesday through Thursday.
In the westbound direction, traffic will be detoured off the highway at the Exit 25 off-ramp and will continue straight onto Plank Road and reenter the highway via the westbound on-ramp.
Heading eastbound, traffic will be detoured off the highway at Exit 25 and will continue straight onto Reidville Drive and reenter the highway from the on-ramp at Scott Road
If inclement weather causes the work to be postponed, the rain date will be the following night.
A law passed during the 2017 session of the General Assembly renamed the Scott Road bridge to honor the legacy of former state Rep. Selim Noujaim’s mother.
The cutter head weighs about 88 metric tons, and the heaviest piece is 168 metric tons, Negrelli said. The machine was purchased from a company in Germany.
“It was built in Germany, they also build these machines in China, I think there are some places in America here that are building them now,” Negrelli said. “From the company, it went on a boat up the Rhine River out to the Atlantic where it was loaded onto a large ship and it took about two weeks to cross the Atlantic into New York and then it got trailered up here to Hartford.”
When the electric-powered machine is turned on — a target date to flip the switch is late September — an estimated 70 feet of boring will be completed each day, meaning the machine’s work should take a year to a year and a half, Negrelli said.
With the boring so far deep underground, people shouldn’t be able to hear or feel the machine as it works its way from Brainard Road in Hartford to Talcott Road in West Hartford.
Construction work to close I-84 at exit 25 next week
WATERBURY – Interstate 84 is scheduled to close at Exit 25 for five nights next week while steel is erected for the bridge that carries Scott Road over the highway.
The work is part of the I-84 widening project. Traffic currently runs on a newly constructed side of the renamed Najla G. Noujaim Memorial Bridge. The old side of the bridge has been torn down and is being rebuilt.
The work requires I-84 westbound to close from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. on Sunday and Monday nights. In the eastbound direction, it will close during those same hours for three nights, Tuesday through Thursday.
In the westbound direction, traffic will be detoured off the highway at the Exit 25 off-ramp and will continue straight onto Plank Road and reenter the highway via the westbound on-ramp.
Heading eastbound, traffic will be detoured off the highway at Exit 25 and will continue straight onto Reidville Drive and reenter the highway from the on-ramp at Scott Road
If inclement weather causes the work to be postponed, the rain date will be the following night.