STAMFORD — Now shrouded in orange fencing, an Abraham Lincoln statue will soon be the beacon drawing residents to a new Veterans Memorial Park.The last piece of funding, $2 million approved by the state Bonding Commission, was recently forwarded to the city for the ambitious overhaul — a project driven by a grieving mother that for the last three years moved forward without all money secured.
The last tranche means the entire project, as envisioned in 2015 with a graded mound and prominent placement of long-screened monuments, will be open by 2019, said Rick Redniss, president of the Veterans Park Partnership, the nonprofit shepherding the project.
“Veterans Park has been neglected and talked about for many, many years,” Redniss said. “We can now do everything with the park that we want to do.”
Until the money was secured, the project had been scaled back with lower-grade lighting and sound systems, for example, Redniss said. But now, the new Veterans Memorial Park will be just as residents and veterans had envisioned.City excavators continued last week the delicate task of digging around ornate monoliths etched with names of Stamford veterans who died in action and the pensive Lincoln.
A window to the past
The dig alone will be a window into the land those veterans sought to protect.
The park as residents know it, four 22-foot granite monoliths surrounding a World War I “doughboy” was commemorated in 1977. It was build atop pavement laid where whole streets, homes and shops once stood — all razed during the Urban Renewal.
The park was always a park — triangular “Central Park” sandwiched between Atlantic Street, Main Street and Park Row — but before 1977, the city celebrated its heroes both there, and all around town, on wooden monuments that bore their names.
For much of its history, the focal point of old Central Park was a fountain dedicated on July 4, 1871 to commemorate the city’s first water main, which brought water downtown from Trinity Lake some 12 miles away, according to author Bonnie Bull in “Images of America: Stamford.”
The fountain came down decades later, Bull wrote. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Ansonia Riverwalk headed to Torrington
ANSONIA-On a sunny, humid Friday Donna Henry and her dog, Ryder find nothing more invigorating then a walk on the recently opened Pershing Drive section of the city’s Riverwalk.
“This is great,” said Henry, who walks to the new Pershing Drive entrance from her Bassett Street home. “I used to have to go all the way down to Division Street, now we can get on here and walk back. We do it about three-to-four times a week.”
And Henry can’t wait for the next segment to be built which will take the Riverwalk through Bridge Street down behind the Target Shopping Center where a Lighthouse with an observation deck will be built on levy.
“We’re going to call it Charger Point,” said Mayor David Cassetti. “It’ll be the beacon of the Valley.”
And if it were up to Cassetti there would be no stopping the Riverwalk’s extension “I want to see it go through Main Street or up Olson Drive through the Woodlot along Route 8into Seymour and eventually Torrington,” the mayor said. “There’s a pathway already near Haynes in Seymour.” Cassetti’s dream is not far-fetched That’s the plan according to Jack Walsh, a Derby historian and co-chairman of the Naugatuck River Greenway and Rick Dunne, executive director of the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments. “If everything is done in 20 years that would be remarkable,” said Walsh. “But this is not a pie in sky project.”
Dunne said pieces are already being built above the fish bypass at Tingue Pond in Seymour.
“We’re looking a building a pedestrian bridge across the river connecting it to Veterans’Memorial Park,” he said. Other sections in Beacon Falls, Naugatuck and Watertown are complete or nearly complete while Torrington and Thomaston are in the planning stages. Waterbury is about to embark on the construction of a major $10 million phase ot its first section of the Greenway.
Dunne said there are two ways Ansonia can connect to Seymour while going along Riverside Drive. It could be taken up through the Ansonia Copper and Brass property through Liberty Street up the North End and into downtown Seymour. Or they can go through the Woodlot up on Riverside Drive along the Naugatuck River past the former Rapp’s Paradise Inn.
Either route would require extensive use of roadway and sidewalks in order to reach Veterans’ Memorial Park in Seymour because of the lack of river access, Dunne said.“In our next long range plan we are looking at re-routing Route 334 which is Franklin Street,” Dunne said. “We’d like to take the Route 8 exit 19 at the old Rapp’s Paradise Inn down behind Franklin and connect it to Maple Street by way of Riverside Drive.”
How fast any of these proposals go depends on economic development and roadway projects which they prefer to “piggyback on>”
“Private developers love to build this kind of public walkway because it increases the value of their projects and often satisfies local conservation requirements..”
Both Dunne and Walsh said the Derby Greenway which runs from Division Street through the downtown to the Derby-Shelton bridge “is the most used greenway in the state.”
“Not only have studies shown the economic benefits are good but the health benefit (of people walking, jogging and cycling on it) is one of the largest impacts,” he said. CLICK TITYLE TO CONTINUE
Road repaving project to begin in Stamford
STAMFORD — More than two miles of Route 1 will be repaved next month by the state Department of Transportation.
The milling and repaving will start near the Darien border, and stretch past Washington Boulevard to Clinton Avenue, city Transportation Bureau Chief Jim Travers said. Work is planned for the overnight hours starting Sept. 5 and will last about a month, Travers said.
“Because Route 1 is so heavily utilized, (the state) took into consideration all of the volume of the road,” he said.
State projects earlier this year during daytime hours on Long Ridge Road, and other city roadways, prompted complaints from motorists whose daily commutes were lengthened.
Both sides of the Route 1 will be repaved — more than four miles of asphalt — Travers said, and the state will also repave some of Washington Boulevard, down to Station Place.
“This is a significant investment in Stamford,” Travers said.
The plan also calls for the state to skip swaths outside of active development sites downtown, he said. Private developers will be responsible for paving those stretches to meet state standards.
The state previously paved the entire roadway, including near active work sites, that then needed to be patched to repair the damage from the construction. The practice has long been a gripe of Zoning Board members and city officials.
But, with this project, Travers said the state will skip active sites, and the city will no longer accept spotty fixes.
“We're no longer accepting patches,” he said. "It has to be curb-to-curb restoration.”
Soon after the pavement is complete and temporary lines are drawn for drivers, Travers said the Traffic Bureau will look to slow traffic and create more attractive streetscapes.
“I’d like to introduce more on-street parking and more dedicated pavement markings,” he said. ”There is an opportunity to start changing the landscape.”
The state will also use high-visibility paint for final road linings, he said. Travers said he also plans to propose additional pedestrian crossings.
$200M+ Avon Village Center project advances
Gregory Seay
A Rhode Island developer says construction could begin as early as Oct. 1 in Avon's center on the initial phase of a long-awaited residential, office and retail complex that when fully complete will represent an investment "north of $200 million."
Carpionato Group, of Johnston, R.I., received unanimous approval July 31 from Avon's planning and zoning commission to commence with constructing the first of 11 buildings totaling about 300,000 square feet on 61 acres of Avon Village Center's 96 acres near the intersection of Albany Turnpike/Route 44 and Hopmeadow Road/Route 10.
In all, town planning and zoning officials say Avon Village Center eventually will boast about 170,000 square feet of retail; 17,000 square feet of office; and approximately 114,000 square feet of residential.
Carpionato Vice President Joseph Pierik said Thursday the town's approval was vital to the developer's efforts to attract potential anchor and other tenants to Avon Village Center.
Included in that first phase, Pierik said, is a 90-unit apartment community that will feature a range of unit sizes and rents. Also, office space will be above some portions of the ground-floor retail and restaurant spaces.
"We're optimistic to be in the ground on or about Oct. 1,'' he said of site excavations and infrastructure improvements that precede building construction.
Avon Village Center is an extension of some two decades of planning by Ensign-Bickford Corp., a historic Avon employer that sold the acreage to Carpionato in 2011, Pierik said. Ensign-Bickford is not a project partner.
Since then, the developer, whose extensive New England realty holdings include Connecticut properties, has been working with town planning officials to refine and implement its Avon Village Center vision, Pierik said.
"This project has been contemplated for over 20 years," he said. "... This is in the heart of Avon. It surrounds Avon Town Hall. It's prominently positioned off Route 44 and at the corner of Route 10.''
Hiram Peck, Avon's director of planning and community development, said Carpionato has worked closely with the town "to get the design and building characteristics to fit the unique Village Center character … ."
"The economic development implications for Avon and this region are huge," Peck said via email. "This … will allow residents and shoppers from this area to find things that they previously had to drive some distance to get. In addition, the restaurants and recreational and performance venues will also be a big boost to this area."
Carpionato has experience with a similarly ambitious development, The Chapel View, an approximately 1 million-square-foot mixed-use development in Cranston, R.I., whose tenants draw about 3,200 workers there daily, Pierik said.
Pointing to West Hartford's Blue Back Square, a successful urban mixed-use development in the heart of that town, Pierik said Carpionato and Avon envision Avon Village Center capitalizing on the surrounding bucolic vistas and greenspaces.
Recently, Carpionato relocated a portion of the town's East Coast Greenway closer to the town's offices and its village center, adjacent to the initial phase of Avon Village Center. Also planned is a specially designed, sustainable "waterfall park,'' Peck said.
Carpionato has hired, Pierik said, Manchester engineering firm Fuss & O'Neill to oversee infrastructure and other site engineering, and retained the services of Avon landscape designer Richter & Cegan Inc.
New Study: Opioid Crisis Bad for Construction Industry
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health recently released a report showing the impact that opioids have had on the construction industry.
According to the research, almost 25 percent of all opioid-related fatalities across four years happened to workers in the construction industry.
The Findings
The study looked at the state's death certificate data between 2011 and 2015 to see the number of opioid-related deaths in a variety of sectors, The Architects Newspaper reported. Some notable findings include:
- Just over 24 percent of deaths occurred to construction and extraction workers at a rate of 150.6 deaths per 100,000 workers in the state, and 1,096 fatal opioid overdoses out of 4,302 total industry deaths.
- The agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting fields held the second-highest death rates.
- Transportation, material-moving, maintenance and repair workers, along with those in the service industry also saw high death rates.
- There is a spike in opioid deaths in industries where work-related injuries or deaths are more likely. In these industries, workers are also more inclined to use prescription drugs to manage pain.
- The death rate is higher in industries that have less paid sick leave and less job security.
- Men have a higher opioid-related death rate than women.
The state's Department of Public Health said that it will have to conduct more research to find out if any of these findings are directly contributing to its opioid crisis, The Architects Newspaper reported. The report did say that Massachusetts plans to address the issue by putting both education and policy intervention programs related to overdose prevention into place, as well as improving workers' compensation programs.
In May, the Department of Public Health reported that opioid-related overdose deaths had declined by around five percent in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same period of time in 2017, The Architects Newspaper reported.