Centerplan
Construction Co., the fired developer of Dunkin’ Donuts Park, must pay $39
million to Arch Insurance, the company that guaranteed the stadium’s completion
after Centerplan was dismissed, under a decision issued by a federal court
judge Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant ordered
the payment as part of a lawsuit filed against Centerplan by Arch, which
brokered a takeover agreement and hired contracting firm Whiting-Turner to
finish the ballpark after Centerplan was ousted. The $71 million, publicly
funded stadium opened a year late.Arch’s suit alleged that Centerplan failed to reimburse the company for tens of millions of dollars in claims it has paid out. According to court records, Bryant awarded Arch about $33 million related to the construction and completion of Dunkin’ Donuts Park. She also awarded $5.2 million to the insurer for other developments Centerplan was involved in, including the Storrs Center Phase 2 project, a redevelopment project near UConn; a technology center project at Asnuntuck Community College; and a utility replacement project at Hammonassett Beach State Park in Madison.
The judge ordered Centerplan to pay another $2.3 million in legal fees and other expenses.
Bryant also found that Centerplan refused to make certain books, records and other financial documents available for review. The defendant failed to post cash collateral totaling more than $38 million that Arch was entitled to as part of its agreement with Centerplan, she wrote in her decision.
Officials with Arch declined to comment Thursday.
Centerplan was fired by the city in 2016 after missing two key deadlines to complete the ballpark. Hartford also ended an agreement with Centerplan that would have allowed them to build housing, retail and office space on properties surrounding the stadium.
The company sued the city for wrongful termination. It is seeking $90 million in damages.
Centerplan’s attorney, Raymond Garcia, downplayed the decision in the Arch case Thursday, saying he had expected the ruling.
“This amount is part of Centerplan’s claim against the city in the pending litigation,” he said. “There is nothing new.”
Centerplan’s suit against the city has slowly wound its way through the court system. Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher is weighing a motion for injunctive relief, which would permit the city to build apartments, retail and parking on the parcels near the stadium while the lawsuit is pending. Hartford officials have chosen a new developer, Stamford-based RMS Companies, to lead the new project.
Centerplan had placed liens on the properties, and the lawsuit has prevented Hartford from moving ahead with development.
“We are still reviewing how this ruling affects our ongoing litigation,” said Howard Rifkin, the city’s corporation counsel. “However, the court recognized that Arch’s investigation into the project was extensive and that there was no evidence whatsoever that Arch did anything in bad faith. Instead, the court recognized that the city made all of its required payments to Centerplan, but Centerplan improperly diverted some of those payments to other jobs, and characterized Mr. Landino’s statements as ‘conclusory’ without supporting evidence.”
In 2016, Centerplan also sued the Hartford Yard Goats and owner Josh Solomon, claiming that they had interfered in the company’s relationship with the city. Moukawsher dismissed the case in 2017.
Four I-95 spots in CT cited among nation’s worst highway congestion
Phil Hall, Westfair Communications
Fairfield County's notorious traffic jams along Interstate 95 received national attention, with three locations within a 21-mile stretch of the highway receiving ranking on the American Transportation Research Institute's list of the nation's Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks.
Stamford's stretch of I-95 was ranked 43rd and neighboring Norwalk was ranked 47th, while the intersection of I-95 and Route 8 in Bridgeport came in at 74th.
Three other Connecticut bottleneck junctions were also cited: Hartford's intersection of I-84 and I-91 was 14th, New Haven's intersection of I-95 and I-91 placed 56th and the Waterbury crossing of I-84 and Route 8 was 64th.
Click through the slideshow to see the worst bottlenecks in Connecticut, accordint to ATRI. Click here for the full report.
"ATRI's annual analysis is an excellent barometer of the value of highway investment," said Motor Transport Association of Connecticut President Joe Sculley. " The New Haven location, number 56 on this year's list (which used 2017 data), dropped 12 places from last year's list (which used 2016 data) after the complete implementation of the I-95/I-91 interchange and Q Bridge construction. The data show that highway investment equals improved freight flow for all the goods that Connecticut citizens demand on a daily basis."
Across the New York border, the interaction of I-95 and I-287 in Rye was the only Westchester location on the list, coming in at 83rd. I-95 was also the location of the top ranked spot for excessive congestion at Fort Lee, New Jersey.Phi Hall is a reporter for the Fairfield County Business Journal. For more of his work and that of the journal, please visit westfaironline.com.
Long Ridge Road to close this summer for bridge demolition
Ignacio Laguarda
STAMFORD — A major North Stamford thoroughfare will be closed for 20 days this summer, as the state is planning on replacing an old dilapidated bridge.
That so-called bridge is perhaps more aptly described as a culvert that lies directly under Long Ridge Road, just north of the intersection with Riverbank Road. Commuters who travel the narrow two-lane street every day have likely never noticed the 6-foot by 8-foot culvert buried under the roadway.
But state transportation officials are well aware of the water passageway and a recent inspection of the 1933 structure found it to be in substandard condition, riddled with cracks and no longer performing its main function of allowing water from the Mianus River to flow through.
The bridge replacement was meant to start last summer, but state budgetary issues resulted in the project being delayed until this year. Stamford’s transportation advisory committee met in June 2018 to discuss the project, but it was first presented to the public at an informational meeting in 2015.
At that time, Stamford engineers chose to do the bulk of the work over a two- or three-week period instead of spreading it out over multiple years.
“It was preferred that the work be completed in the shortest amount of time possible short of working around the clock,” wrote city engineer Paul Ginotti in an email from 2015.
The condensed schedule means Long Ridge Road will be inaccessible, from Erskine Road to Riverbank Road, during a planned detour, which can happen anytime between July 5 and Aug. 15, and is expected to last 21 days. Commuters and residents can also expect the road to be partially shut down at times starting as soon as April 1. As work commences, the road will be narrowed to one lane, with alternating traffic flow.
However, state Department of Transportation project engineer John Deliberto said the bulk of the work will happen during the detour when the road is closed.
He said “there’s very little work that can happen” before then but said workers may remove trees or do minor prep work in anticipation for the work-intensive detour.
During the estimated 20-day detour, New York-based contractor McNamee Construction Corporation will work double shifts to demolish the existing bridge and road and install a new precast concrete culvert and new roadway. The project price tag is $2.45 million.
Uniformed police officers will be stationed at the intersections of Long Ridge Road with Erskine Road and Riverbank Road during working hours. The detour will send northbound drivers onto Old Long Ridge Road, where they can reconnect to Long Ridge Road. Southbound motorists will be sent through Erskine Road and Riverbank Road to get back to Long Ridge Road.
Meanwhile, a bridge on Old Long Ridge Road just south of Hunting Ridge Road will be limited to one lane to limit the amount of weight on the bridge. According to the city, the Stamford manager of CTtransit was informed of the work and said the detour would not present a “significant issue” to the bus system.
As part of the contract, McNamee will be allowed to close Long Ridge Road to one lane for ancillary work, such as utility relocation, paving and landscaping. The contract runs from April 1 until mid-September.
Single lane closures will be restricted to certain times, including from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. during the workweek, and from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. on the weekends.
Upcoming developments to help define CT towns
Alexander Soule
With the approach of the spring construction season, projects are in varying stages across southwestern Connecticut that will help define municipalities and perhaps provide fodder for town and city leaders to reimagine moribund parcels that have evaded any impactful redevelopment.
The two biggest projects in the region are connected by the Route 7 spine of Fairfield County. In South Norwalk, Brookfield Property Trust is progressing toward its goal of opening the SoNo Collection mall in time for this year’s holiday shopping season, with the promise of more than 2,500 retail jobs.
And in Danbury, Summit Development plans to convert large portions of 1.2 million-square-foot Matrix Corporate Center into the Ridge at Danbury with a mix of offices, residences and retail. The Fairfield-based developer led a similarly challenging redevelopment of the former Readers Digest headquarters campus in Chappaqua, N.Y.
Across the region, other projects are proceeding that will help define their municipalities and the wider region, including a new and expanded headquarters being built in Stamford by Building and Land Technology for broadband giant Charter Communications; and early efforts to fill the waterfront Steel Point peninsula in Bridgeport.
On a town-by-town basis, Hearst Connecticut Media examines a dozen projects that will define neighborhoods and in some cases have a spillover effect in bringing additional development to the table, whether around the corner or across the region.Bridgeport — Dockmaster Building
More than three years after Bass Pro Shops held the first major grand opening at the Steel Point development, the peninsula’s second signature project is nearing completion: the Dockmaster Building, where Boca Mediterranean Oyster Bar is outfitting a ground-level restaurant that will open up to a marina and harbor views. It is a tenant out of central casting that Bridgeport envisioned in approving the redevelopment of Steel Point, with hopes that a mix of retail magnets and original venues will bring more residents and visitors with a spillover effect to downtown, helping to trigger additional redevelopment there.
Brookfield Village
After Rich Farm Ice Cream took space at the initial Brookfield Village building at the town’s historic Four Corners district, the town granted a six-month extension for Cold Spring, N.Y.-based Unicorn Contracting to begin work on two more pieces of Brookfield Village, with the original plan envisioning four buildings in all. If completed as planned, Brookfield Village will add 120 units of housing and more than 30,000 square feet of retail space to Four Corners
The Ridge at Danbury
Darien — Corbin District
In the past few years, David Waldman and Dan Zelson have transformed downtown Westport with their spectacular Bedford Square redevelopment of the town’s former downtown YMCA site, drawing a number of new retailers. A few exits down Interstate 95 in Darien, Baywater Properties hopes to pull off a similar feat with its proposed Corbin District development downtown, which would create a net gain of 30,000 square feet of new retail space and more offices, along with about 115 apartments. Construction is slated to begin by this summer.
Derby Downtown
With Derby’s economic developer likening it last year to “the first domino falling in place” for the struggling small city, approval was granted to convert Factory Street into a district tailor-made for millennials with 400 apartments and plenty of street-level space for restaurants and other ventures. Demolition work is to commence this year for Derby Downtown, with the development expected to take up to six years to complete.
Fairfield Metro
Nearly eight years after the Fairfield Metro commuter rail station launched service, progress continues on the town’s efforts to encourage development nearby. After the 2017 opening of the Trademark Fairfield apartments on Commerce Drive next door to the headquarters plant of Bigelow Tea, developers Abbey Road Advisors and Skala Partners are building a new apartment and retail building at the junction of Ash Creek Boulevard and Kings Highway.
Greenwich office conversions
In a town where heading into this year the buzz centered on a zoning change that could free up additional waterfront development, a few major projects proceeded converting underutilized office buildings into apartments, including developer John Fareri’s proposals for 500 and 585 W. Putnam Ave.; and separately The Mill offices in the town’s Glenville district.
Milford — Sears box
It is a problem Danbury Fair mall addressed successfully more than a decade ago, and the Connecticut Post mall in Milford itself last year: what to do with the space freed up with the closure of an anchor retailer? On the heels of drawing Boscov’s as a replacement department store for JCPenney, Connecticut Post must now deal with the newly emptied Sears space, with the opportunity to make a statement about its relevance in a retail sector in flux. Malls nationally have been repurposing anchor pads for diversified uses, with examples including the Paramus Park Mall in New Jersey recruiting Stew Leonard’s to open a grocery store in a former Sears space.
Norwalk — SoNo Collection
Envisioned initially by a local developer as a glassy new district with offices, apartments and a hotel at the junction of Interstate 95 and Route 7, under Brookfield Property Trust the SoNo Collection mall instead is pushing ahead with what some have speculated will be the last new mall in America. In addition to its anticipated completion date, two more big questions remain for the project: will other Norwalk retailers benefit by the influx of thousands of visitors each day, and will the SoNo Collection suck air out of the region’s other malls and shopping districts as retailers flock to the new venue?
Ridgefield — Schlumberger site
In a first act of Ridgefield’s long-running conversion of the former Schlumberger campus for new uses, the town hit on a success with A Contemporary Theater of Connecticut, created with the premise of “bringing Broadway to Ridgefield” including the Steven Schwartz musical “Working” now being staged through March 10. More than 15,000 people have seen shows at ACT of CT.
Stamford — Charter HQ
In Stamford girders are going up for the headquarters of the company some 24 million people use for broadband access. Amid skepticism as to Connecticut’s appeal as a corporate destination, Charter Communications has offered up a triple play of sorts in moving to Stamford in 2012 from St. Louis under CEO Tom Rutledge; doubling down for a new building next to the city’s train station; and then adding a second office to accommodate an anticipated expansion.
Trumbull senior living
If not on the gargantuan scale of Matrix Corporate Center, the former UnitedHealthcare offices at 48 Monroe Turnpike was the biggest property listed for sale in eastern Fairfield County. After multiple years languishing vacant following UnitedHealthcare’s move to Shelton, the property was taken last year by local developers Senior Living Development and Silver Heights Development for a planned conversion into an assisted living center, including suites for people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The project took a needed second step forward in January after the town approved a zoning change.
Wilton Heights
For many drivers heading north or south on the Danbury Road, Wilton Center remains a mostly hidden enclave of shops just west of the busy Route 7 roadway. The town hopes to create a new retail district on Route 7 called Wilton Heights at the site of the current Crossways Plaza at 300 Danbury Road. The ownership team is being represented by Paxton Kinol, a principle with Greenwich-based Belpointe Capital whose projects include the Waypointe district opposite I-95 from the SoNo Collection mall site; with a Wilton Heights’ limited liability company listing as its principle Clay Fowler of Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.
Includes prior reporting by Ken Borsuk, Donald Eng, Jordan Grice, Barry Lytton, Michael P. Mayko, Paul Schott and Pat Tomlinson.
State DOT proposes replacing culvert underneath Wharton Brook Connector in Wallingford
Lauren Takores
WALLINGFORD — A proposal to replace the culvert that runs underneath the Wharton Brook Connector would have minimal impact on traffic, the wetlands and the local bat population, state Department of Transportation officials said.
DOT engineers and representatives from CME Associates, Inc., an East Hartford-based engineering firm, presented a preliminary design for the $910,000 project Wednesday at a public information session at Town Hall.
The Wharton Brook Connector (Route 702) runs east-west from Route 5 to exit 13 on Interstate 91. Each side has two travel lanes and carries more than 15,000 vehicles daily, according to the DOT.
Wharton Brook, the waterway, bisects and flows south underneath the roadway through an asphalt-coated corrugated steel pipe culvert.
Installed in 1965, the culvert is 262 feet long, 13 feet wide and 15 feet tall, with concrete headwall and wingwalls on spread footings. There’s 15 to 18 feet of fill above the culvert.
The DOT routinely inspects bridges and other structures for deficiencies, and ranks them on a scale of 1-9, with 9 being the best.
The latest inspection of the Wharton Brook Connector bridge culvert was in 2017. The DOT ranked the overall structure at 4, or poor and structurally deficient.
The steel pipe is showing extensive rust along the waterline and loss of asphalt coating below the waterline.
The cutoff walls and wingwall footing are exposed. There’s also stream bank erosion upstream.
The plan is to remove sediment buildup from inside the culvert, fill pipe perforations with grout, install concrete lining to pipe inverts and high concrete baffles to reduce flow and aid fish passage, and install rounded stone riprap to eroded footings, cutoff walls and stream banks.
Water would be diverted through 5-and-a-half-foot pipes within the culvert.
The project is scheduled to begin is spring 2021 and conclude in the fall.
Work would not impact traffic or adjacent properties, since all work would be performed in the state right-of-way.
The project needs state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection permits only, and won’t have any oversight from town land use departments.
Environmental impacts include protections for federally listed animal species and Northern Long-Eared bats.
Temporary access roads would be built for construction crews, and the affected wetlands would be restored with shrubs and trees.
Rob Baltramaitis, town engineer, said Thursday that DOT engineers met with town staff about their plans.
“I think this is going to go unnoticed for the most part,” he said. “It’s basically replacing the bottom of the culvert. It’s not an open excavation.”
Baltramaitis said he had concerns about the construction access roads, which at first were meant to be left in place so DOT crews could access the site in the future to maintain the culvert.
“The concern I had at that time was not turning the roads into a convenient dumping ground for people to dispose debris,” he said. “They’ve since added gates to prevent that.”
Anyone who wishes to give input on the project can contact Dobie Kania, project engineer, at Dobieslawa.Kania@ct.gov or call the state DOT information line at 860-594-2000.