Interstate 84 five-year photo project by Steven Valenti and Jim Shannon
Ken Dixon: Gray Bridgeport and CT’s bright Oz
Ken Dixon
STAMFORD — I’m seasick. Or rather, sick of seeing.We’re somewhere that appears to be a netherworld; the intersection of a suburban, litter-free hipster Brooklyn and an artist’s version of a future Bridgeport Harbor, without the asthma inducements of that city’s huge, belching PSEG power plant.
I’m getting a tour of a place called Harbor Point, in a vestigial location I grew up calling the South End. It seems to be a crane operator’s dream, as yet another apartment building is under construction. I could call it a neighborhood, but to me, a neighborhood has to have some kind of soul beyond fresh paving, silver buildings and conspicuous consumption.
We have a good view of the latest building binge, up here on the rooftop of a watering hole named for a threatened marine mammal. But aren’t we all under the gun, in a way? Judging by the singles-bar vibe, I think a more likely moniker for this place would be What’s Your Sign? But I suppose it’s nice to see some millennials in the wild who seem able to talk face-to-face, challenging their texting skills and social isolation.
Next to the construction site is a raised, fenced-in swath of bright green, with people relaxing in beach chairs. It’s a late summer afternoon and they are enjoying the private backyard of their adjacent apartment building.
The members-only lawn is as big as a soccer field. On closer inspection, it’s phony grass, which may say all you need to know about this neighborhood of over-priced rentals and what some call a lively nightlife.Around the corner is an Austrian-style pastry shop. Huh? Across the way is a burger joint. McKinsey & Company, the rogue consultants, has an outpost nearby, of course. A row of maybe 25 high-end motorcycles, immaculate Harleys mostly, are parked outside a Mexican restaurant.
Having grown up in Stamford, I know the mile-long gut of water — where the Rippowam River meets West Branch and the harbor — used to be the city’s old manufacturing and shipping heart. There are a few barges filled with sand parked along the river, but mostly it’s multi-million-dollar yachts that are tied up along the banks. Across the channel to the west is Davenport Street and Southfield Avenue and the rows of lower-profile apartments that have literally taken over this part of the city during the last decade, and where only a few houses remain in this massive urban makeover.
To the left a half mile or so is the East Branch, which narrows to the old waterway that gave Canal Street its name, back when Yale and Towne, the famous lock innovators and manufacturers, started business here in the years after the Civil War. One-bedroom lofts in their old factory now rent for $2,400 a month.
There are thousands of new to newish apartments in the South End. In the drive here, after passing Holy Name Church, I totally lost any sense of where I was, until Washington Boulevard literally petered out at the corner of South Pacific Street, and there was the Oz-like Harbor Point.Stamford, with its nice parks, walkability and proximity to New York, is Connecticut’s fastest growing city with more than 130,000 people now.
It seems logical, what with the endless apartment construction, the yuppies walking their wire-haired coco spaniels, the Austrian pastries.
So why can’t Bridgeport, gritty, racially and ethnic diverse Bridgeport, finally turn the corner and get a piece of this action? Seaside Park and Beardsley Park formed the core of what was once called The Park City.
Well, maybe Bridgeport can start by finally and completely abandoning hopes for a damn casino and focus on some real economic development.
Maybe the Bridgeport Police Department can finally, after 10 years of various types of obfuscating mayors, adopt some real transparency.
Maybe the troubled city’s schools, where every kid is entitled to a free breakfast and lunch under federal income guidelines, can finally turn around, despite a revolving door of superintendents and an historically dysfunctional Board of Education.
One of Bridgeport’s saving graces over the last 40 years has been its ability to retain the distinction of having the state’s largest population. Stamford, with lower taxes and a 21st Century quality of life, is breathing down Bridgeport’s neck.
Developer with plans for Howard Street apartments pulls out
Greg Smith
New London — Plans for the 202-unit residential complex on Howard Street, first pitched in 2016, are officially dead.
Developers of the multifamily housing project called Shipway 221 have notified the city’s development arm, the Renaissance City Development Association, they are unable to bring the project to fruition.
A development agreement between Shipway and the RCDA was set to expire on Aug. 30.
Mayor Michael Passero, in a statement released Friday, said Shipway has offered plans, surveys and market studies to any future development approved by the RCDA.
RCDA Executive Director Peter Davis has said interest in the parcel, land that was formerly home to Hughie’s restaurant, remains high.
Your Money, Your State: The $92 million Field of Nightmares
Bill Cummings
When the $92 million Rentschler Field in East Harford opened in 2003, the future seemed bright for the state owned, 40,000-seat football stadium.
Bruce Springsteen played the venue the first year, followed by the Rolling Stones and The Police. The University of Connecticut’s football team was the main anchor and predictions of overflowing parking lots and spin off development filled the media.
Today, the stadium is perhaps the state’s most visible example of good intentions gone awry.
Although Rentschler hosted more than 150 events last year, those events were decidedly small.Aside from six UConn football games, the schedule typically included high school proms, charity balls, minor soccer and lacrosse tournaments and Pratt and Whitney programs for its nearby factory.
The building runs deficits most years and this year — for the first time — the state had to directly bail out the stadium with a $200,000 payment.
“There are a lot of things that are a challenge,” said Michael Freimuth, director of the Capitol Region Development Authority, which runs the stadium. “You try to mitigate costs, but security is increasingly a bigger cost and the world has gotten crazier about what it takes to get people through the door.”
With no major musical acts since 2007, Rentschler has been bleeding money. An examination by Hearst Connecticut Media of 14 years of annual audits revealed more than $13 million in deficits between revenue and expenditures.
This year’s state payment of $200,000 helped cover a $550,000 deficit.
Most years, the deficit is papered over by a $250,000 subsidy from UConn that’s required if the facility fails to break even, along with revenue from parking fees, rent from cell towers, naming rights, surpluses from better years, myriad small events and occasional soccer and lacrosse tournaments.
UConn football attendance has dwindled, leaving less than 10,000 die-hard fans per game scattered among 30,000 empty seats.
The Hartford Athletic, the city’s professional soccer team, left the stadium this year for a renovated Dillon Stadium in Hartford that holds just over 5,000 people.And the nearby Xfinity Theatre lures away the big musical acts, along with the casinos in Eastern Connecticut.
The event schedule for the remainder of the year is hardly impressive. Beyond the usual six UConn football games, the schedule includes several 5K runs and a truck convoy to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation.
Patriot born
The story of Rentschler Field — officially known as Pratt and Whitney Stadium — is a cautionary tale of how taxpayer dollars don’t always guarantee success.
The stadium was born out of the failed effort in the 1990s to bring the New England Patriots to Hartford, a consolation prize of sorts from former Gov. John Rowland years before he landed in jail for corruption.
The state was prepared to sell $250 million in bonds to build a Patriots stadium in downtown Hartford, near I-91 and the Capitol exits.After the Patriots backed out, Rowland sold bonds to build Rentschler and moved the field to vacant land near Pratt and Whitney in East Hartford.
The land surrounding the stadium is owned by the United Technologies Corporation, the parent company of Pratt and Whitney, a defense contractor.
The plan was to fill the area with a mix of stores and apartments to compliment the stadium. A Cabella’s settled near the stadium, but the surrounding acreage remains vacant and dreams of shopping centers faded.East Hartford Mayor Marcia Leclerc said numerous plans came and went to develop the UTC property.
“The town rezoned the property from a heavy industrial to a design development district, which allows for flexibility in uses allowed and placement and design of buildings,” Leclerc said. “As the development of this site was beginning to take shape, in 2008 and 2009, the recession put an indefinite hold on their plans.”
She said Cabela’s opened in 2007 with state and local assistance. A few years later, new plans for an outlet mall were drawn up, including restaurants and housing, but that idea also fizzled.
“The developer’s financing ultimately did not come together by the deadlines and the project was abandoned by UTC,” Leclerc said. “The town is hopeful that in the future we can continue to work with UTC to develop the property.”
Freimuth also pointed to outside economic pressures as the reason promised spin off development never materialized.“I don’t have all the answers,” Freimuth said. “For a long time, (development) was pursued. Football stadiums are not economic spinoffs. They don’t generate the action other types of facilities (such as an arena) do.”
UConn’s stadium
The reality is the field was primarily built to house UConn’s football program.But that relationship with UConn, which helps keep the stadium afloat, has hindered efforts to fill it, Freimuth said.
The reason is the lease with UConn. Aside from paying a $172,000 per game fee and the $250,000 subsidy to offset losses, the lease stipulates that the stadium cannot book events that don’t break even.
“In some ways, it restricts what you can do out there,” Freimuth said. “You really can’t experiment because you can run the risk of losing money. You have to have guarantees in place.”
He said without that restriction, it’s likely higher profile events and more revenue could be brought to the venue.
“We could make more risk assessments and produce more revenue,” Freimuth said. “But fundamentally, UConn is the primary tenant. And its responsible for up to a $250,000 loss.”
Stephanie Reitz, a UConn spokeswoman, said the school since 2014 paid the stadium about $8.1 million, including game rent and the $250,000 subsidy.
Reitz referred questions about lease restrictions and the stadium’s future to the CRDA.
It also doesn’t help that UConn’s football program is struggling.
In 2013, games averaged 22,000 fans, but by 2019 attendance had dropped to an average of 9,800 per game.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association reports UConn football attendance decreased by 48 percent since 2008, when fan support peaked at over 39,000 per game.
Football is the university’s most expensive team, costing over $15 million a year to operate. Ticket sales are trending downward, from $3.3 million in 2017 to $2.4 million in 2018.
The fact that UConn won only one football game last year has not helped fill seats.
‘Critical moment’
Leclerc said the state’s payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to the town is shrinking.
“The town doesn’t collect taxes on the land because it is owned by the state and will receive only $69,000 in PILOT funding this year, compared to over $1.2 million in 2008,” Leclerc said.
Freimuth said the loss of the Hartford soccer team is a blow and conceded the stadium’s future is uncertain.
“There are so many competing things to do,” Freimuth said, referring to other entertainment options. “You have to appeal in ways you once didn’t have to.
“The use is evolving. The reduction in attendance (at stadiums) is a national thing. The building is getting older and the expenses are not going to disappear. It’s a critical moment, no question.”
Asked if taxpayers will increasingly be called upon to subsidize the aging and struggling facility, Freimuth offered a frank assessment.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said.
Town halts guardrail upgrades after complaints about looks
WILTON, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut town has halted guardrail improvements following complaints about the look of new steel barriers on some residential streets.
Wood and wire guardrails traditionally have lined the roads in Wilton, a Fairfield County town on the line with New York state. First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice imposed a moratorium on upgrades this month after residents raised issues with the aesthetics of the steel replacements.
"We're trying to be reactive to complaints," said Chris Burney, director of the town's public works department.
The town had been installing steel guardrails in sections, such as along bends and near culverts, on two roads where the old guardrails were showing their age. The moratorium will provide an opportunity to conduct engineering studies and assess alternative guardrail styles and whether guardrails are even needed on those roads, Burney said.
While the roads in question are under the town's jurisdiction, Burney said the town also needs to be mindful about liability issues in the event something goes wrong if it chooses not to follow the state-established standards.
The state considers upgrades to meet the latest standards necessary any time improvements are needed beyond repairs from a crash or something similar, Department of Transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick said."If you decide to rebuild your kitchen, you have to bring the plumbing and electrical up to code," he said. "The same thing happens with the road."Requirements vary by setting, but the standards call in most cases for metal beam-style guardrails, Nursick said.
On occasion the state has received complaints about the aesthetics of metal guardrails it has installed on state-administered roads, he said. There was a time when the state tried to accommodate such complaints by using a steel that took on a weathered look, but he said officials have since done away with that because of concerns about rust.
Construction of retaining wall in Thomaston may not happen until 2021
KURT MOFFETT
THOMASTON – The replacement of a retaining wall on South Main Street may not actually start until the spring of 2021.
This is what state Department of Transportation officials told nearly 20 residents at a meeting Thursday night in the Lena Morton Art Gallery at Town Hall. Project Engineer Jacob W. Platt said the project could begin in either the fall of 2020, as the DOT originally had reported, or the spring of 2021. He said it will take three to four months to complete.
The need to replace the wall is due to the collapse of a 15-foot-by-10 foot section of the original stone wall in November 2018. A temporary cinder block wall was installed for safety. DOT officials said they do not know how old the original wall is because its construction predates mapping.
A retaining wall is essentially a structure that is designed to keep a dirt slope from collapsing. The wall on South Main Street is in the center of town, but in an awkward spot. The land on top of it narrows when traveling in a northern direction and slopes downward.
A house that sits on this land with an address of 25 Center St. must be demolished because the work on the retaining wall will destabilize the foundation beneath the home, said Matthew Geanacopoulos, the DOT’s right-of-way expert. A nearby shed also will need to come down, but the house in front of 23 Center St. will remain.
The DOT also must obtain construction easements for neighboring properties at 9, 19 and 27 Center St., and another for 82 South Main St.
Traffic will need to be rerouted during the wall replacement. Both South Main and Elm streets, which are nearly parallel, will be reduced to one-lane roads in the areas immediately around where the wall is. Motorists will be directed to drive north on South Main Street and south on Elm Street.
The project is estimated to cost $750,000, but the state is covering all of it because Main Street is also Route 6, a state road.