Cassandra Day
MIDDLETOWN — A walk through the new middle school, on track to be complete by August 2021, reveals the shell of a three-story building that will provide students with the latest tools in 21st-century learning.
Officials are thrilled the $87.3 million Woodrow Wilson Middle School project at 1 Wilderman’s Way is on schedule and under budget.
“This is the little engine that could, because it forged up the hill and it kept going, regardless of what they were faced with,” Middletown Common Council Majority Leader Gene Nocera said. “This has been an incredible team effort.”
About 140 workers from a variety of trades are doing work concurrently — in sections labeled A, B and C. That meant work needed to proceed at a rapid pace, Nocera said. “It’s an avalanche of stuff. Sometimes it’s like a blizzard coming at you.” “Things happen in sequence, so if you were to just build the building ground up, you’d start with steel, have the steel guy do his thing first, then the roofer or electrician;it would take forever,” said project manager Joe Vetro of Torrington-based O&G Industries.
All along, project principles have been working hand in hand with architect Randall Luther, a partner at TSKP Studio of Hartford.
“Randall and his team have an incredible vision of what this new school will look like,” Nocera said. The exterior will be brick and limestone to match the former Middletown High School across the street, now converted into apartments.
Sixth-grade students, who would have entered Keigwin Middle School, will be incorporated into the facility, which is divided up into three, three-story pods, or houses, where sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students will be mostly isolated from the others.
The design is much like the team arrangement of junior high schools.
Each group will proceed through the houses as they advance in grade, Vetro said. It’s meant to impart a feeling of progression.
The relatively small plot on which the facility is being built presented some problems, architect Luther said. “We couldn’t fit the building on the site without tearing down part of the school to start.” “We could barely fit the building in,” Vetro said. Hunting Hill Road, which passes by the middle school, was closed, and is expected to remain so during the week. Visitors will pass by a gated entrance to gain entrance.
The new complex, in conjunction with the athletic fields across the street, will convey a campus feel.
A problem presented itself one month into the pandemic: Once COVID-19 hit Connecticut, the governor said only construction projects already underway could continue.
The steel came from New York-based Schenectady Steel, where production was deemed nonessential by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, said Nocera, co-chairman of the Middle School Building Project committee, along with Councilwoman Jeanette Blackwell.
In mid-April, the city implored Connecticut leaders that leaving one-third of the steel standing indefinitely could present a safety hazard. The project eventually was allowed to continue.The council is expected to vote Aug. 3 on renaming the facility for the Beman family, abolitionists who were instrumental in the city’s participation in the Underground Railroad.
“We’re on the right side of history,” said Common Council Minority Leader Phil Pessina, who has come out in support of the new name.
“Our children, when they get into that building, yes, they’ll know it was formerly Woodrow Wilson (named after the 28th president, now regarded as a racist), but they’re going to learn about the family, the Beman Trail, and the historical perspective this building will represent,” Pessina said.
Those involved in the project understand former graduates feel they’ll lose a piece of their history if the facility is renamed, the councilman said. “But, we need to heal.”
The building will be entirely air-conditioned, with the HVAC system circulating fresh air; and full of skylights letting natural light in, with daylight sensors for cloudy days and evenings. Also, photovoltaic panels will offset energy use, Luther said.
The sun will shine through the three-story school and be visible all the way to the ground floor due to the open design plan.
Those standing in the hallway, which runs the length of the building, will be able to see through the entire facility and out the windows overlooking the old middle school and, on the other side, the new Pat Kidney Athletic Complex.
Pessina likened the setup to neighborhoods amid a larger backdrop of the city.
“You’re going to spend all three years in one little town,” Luther said, where there will be only 300 students per pod instead of 900 in total. The ascension from grade to grade will give students a sense of “graduating” to each floor.
Each house will be color-coded — red, orange and green — with graphic images exclusively for each.
The facility will include an innovation lab and STEAM classrooms, among other state-of-the art features. Instead of a cafeteria, the lobby serves that purpose.
“It’s all wide open. You can see other classes. It’s very transparent,” Luther said.
“I see it as a very holistic community because of the grades, mixtures. We, as humans, need to interact. We need to identify our strengths and weaknesses, and the educators will bring that out,” Pessina said.
“I really feel confident we got it right,” Nocera said.
Bristol's $3.6 million high school turf fields to be replaced
SUSAN CORICA
BRISTOL – With the synthetic turf fields at both Bristol Eastern and Bristol Central high schools are proving defective well before their 10-year warranty was up, both will be replaced at no cost to the city, according to Wyland Dale Clift, city corporation counsel.
The two fields together cost about $3.6 million and were installed during the summer of 2016. They were designed by Milone & MacBroom and built by Turco Golf, with material manufactured by Sprinturf.
There have been significant problems at both fields where “the synthetic turf and pad appeared to shrink and pull back from the protective nailer board, making the fields unplayable,” said Jeffrey Steeg, assistant corporation counsel, in a letter to Comptroller Diane Waldron.
Clift said at first Sprinturf was coming out to make repairs, but it wasn’t really solving the problem, so he got his office, Athletic Director Chris Cassin, and the companies together for discussions.
“We got them into a room a couple of times and everybody has come to the conclusion that it was the other guys’ fault. The really frustrating part is we will never really know whose fault it was without litigating this,” he told the Board of Finance on July 28.
As of July 27, Clift said, they came to a verbal agreement that the companies will completely replace both fields, with a new 10 year warranty.
“Once we get this down in writing the repairs will commence probably in about two weeks, starting with Bristol Central,” he said. “Bristol Eastern will involve some underlying drainage issues that need to be addressed, probably by November we will have that one replaced.”
Clift told the finance board the general contractor that did the original drainage work didn’t want to participate in the agreement. The finance board members approved his request for up to $70,000 to get another contractor in to fix the drainage at BEHS so as not to delay replacing the field itself.
Noting that he didn’t want to go into any details because of the sensitivity of the issue, Clift said he has “high confidence” the city will be reimbursed for the drainage repair cost.
After the meeting, Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu issued a clarification about statements made in the course of requesting of the $70,000 to facilitate the tentative agreement to repair the turf fields.
“No conclusions have been made regarding precisely what has caused the fields’ conditions to degrade over the winter seasons. Rather than dwell on supposition, the City is very grateful that most of the vendors contracted for the new fields have offered their expertise and materials to address the City’s concerns fully. We sincerely apologize if any of the statements made to secure funds from the Board of Finance have been taken to imply that fault was being cast towards any of the parties. These vendors graciously have stepped up to ensure that Bristol has the highest quality playing surface for its high schools’ fields,” her statement read.
At the same meeting finance board also agreed to waive bid requirements on the drainage repair. Roger Rousseau, the city’s purchasing agent, said Milone & MacBroom have already developed the designs necessary to do the repairs and recommended a list of four contractors with specific experience in this type of work.
Clift said the defective fields used a polished silicon product as infill to avoid using the usual crumb rubber, which is a suspected carcinogen. However, the silicon product doesn’t hold up well in parts of the country with cold winters which may have contributed to the field problems.
The replacement fields will use a new infill product called BrockFILL, made of organic wood fiver material, he said.
Cassin told the finance board he has spoken to a representative from Brock USA, which manufactures BrockFILL, visited fields that use it in Worcester, Summerville, and Marblehead, Mass., and spoken to an athletic director from North Kingstown, R.I., which also has a field with the product.
“Everyone has spoken very highly about the field and the product,” he said. “The ones in Summerville, Marblehead, and North Kingstown were all put in last year and have gone through a winter.”
Cassin said people he has talked to who are familiar with BrockFILL say, unlike some other organic infills, it doesn’t float if there is heavy rain and it doesn’t need to be kept at a certain moisture content.
“One of the factors they’re touting with this new product is it’s cooler compared to crumb rubber, which is a dark material and absorbs heat. Turf certainly gets a little hotter than traditional grass fields but these stay substantially cooler than the traditional crumb rubber,” he said.
Back in 2016, school and city officials said the new turf fields would provide better playability, even in inclement weather, and would be easier to maintain. The old fields were traditional grass and dirt, which mud, ice, and flooding often rendered unplayable.
The issue of the turf fields being defective was first raised to the City Council last year by then-Councilor Dave Mills.
Mill said the fields have had rips, which caused the material to pull away from the curbing that surround it by about 12 inches, with the gap filled with “stone dust or some type of material.”
“These are showpieces for our athletic department,” Mills said then. “They are wonderful fields that have gotten great use, but obviously they are not perfect and they should be. When you pay for a product you should get the product you pay for.”
Bristol Hospital's Emergency Center construction project on time, on budget
JUSTIN MUSZYNSKI
BRISTOL - Bristol Hospital’s Emergency Center construction project is still “on time” and “on budget” for a completion date that would coincide with the hospital’s 100 year anniversary in 2021.
There have been significant problems at both fields where “the synthetic turf and pad appeared to shrink and pull back from the protective nailer board, making the fields unplayable,” said Jeffrey Steeg, assistant corporation counsel, in a letter to Comptroller Diane Waldron.
Clift said at first Sprinturf was coming out to make repairs, but it wasn’t really solving the problem, so he got his office, Athletic Director Chris Cassin, and the companies together for discussions.
“We got them into a room a couple of times and everybody has come to the conclusion that it was the other guys’ fault. The really frustrating part is we will never really know whose fault it was without litigating this,” he told the Board of Finance on July 28.
As of July 27, Clift said, they came to a verbal agreement that the companies will completely replace both fields, with a new 10 year warranty.
“Once we get this down in writing the repairs will commence probably in about two weeks, starting with Bristol Central,” he said. “Bristol Eastern will involve some underlying drainage issues that need to be addressed, probably by November we will have that one replaced.”
Clift told the finance board the general contractor that did the original drainage work didn’t want to participate in the agreement. The finance board members approved his request for up to $70,000 to get another contractor in to fix the drainage at BEHS so as not to delay replacing the field itself.
Noting that he didn’t want to go into any details because of the sensitivity of the issue, Clift said he has “high confidence” the city will be reimbursed for the drainage repair cost.
After the meeting, Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu issued a clarification about statements made in the course of requesting of the $70,000 to facilitate the tentative agreement to repair the turf fields.
“No conclusions have been made regarding precisely what has caused the fields’ conditions to degrade over the winter seasons. Rather than dwell on supposition, the City is very grateful that most of the vendors contracted for the new fields have offered their expertise and materials to address the City’s concerns fully. We sincerely apologize if any of the statements made to secure funds from the Board of Finance have been taken to imply that fault was being cast towards any of the parties. These vendors graciously have stepped up to ensure that Bristol has the highest quality playing surface for its high schools’ fields,” her statement read.
At the same meeting finance board also agreed to waive bid requirements on the drainage repair. Roger Rousseau, the city’s purchasing agent, said Milone & MacBroom have already developed the designs necessary to do the repairs and recommended a list of four contractors with specific experience in this type of work.
Clift said the defective fields used a polished silicon product as infill to avoid using the usual crumb rubber, which is a suspected carcinogen. However, the silicon product doesn’t hold up well in parts of the country with cold winters which may have contributed to the field problems.
The replacement fields will use a new infill product called BrockFILL, made of organic wood fiver material, he said.
Cassin told the finance board he has spoken to a representative from Brock USA, which manufactures BrockFILL, visited fields that use it in Worcester, Summerville, and Marblehead, Mass., and spoken to an athletic director from North Kingstown, R.I., which also has a field with the product.
“Everyone has spoken very highly about the field and the product,” he said. “The ones in Summerville, Marblehead, and North Kingstown were all put in last year and have gone through a winter.”
Cassin said people he has talked to who are familiar with BrockFILL say, unlike some other organic infills, it doesn’t float if there is heavy rain and it doesn’t need to be kept at a certain moisture content.
“One of the factors they’re touting with this new product is it’s cooler compared to crumb rubber, which is a dark material and absorbs heat. Turf certainly gets a little hotter than traditional grass fields but these stay substantially cooler than the traditional crumb rubber,” he said.
Back in 2016, school and city officials said the new turf fields would provide better playability, even in inclement weather, and would be easier to maintain. The old fields were traditional grass and dirt, which mud, ice, and flooding often rendered unplayable.
The issue of the turf fields being defective was first raised to the City Council last year by then-Councilor Dave Mills.
Mill said the fields have had rips, which caused the material to pull away from the curbing that surround it by about 12 inches, with the gap filled with “stone dust or some type of material.”
“These are showpieces for our athletic department,” Mills said then. “They are wonderful fields that have gotten great use, but obviously they are not perfect and they should be. When you pay for a product you should get the product you pay for.”
Bristol Hospital's Emergency Center construction project on time, on budget
JUSTIN MUSZYNSKI
BRISTOL - Bristol Hospital’s Emergency Center construction project is still “on time” and “on budget” for a completion date that would coincide with the hospital’s 100 year anniversary in 2021.
Hospital officials are hoping in September to begin erecting the steel structure to a 12,500-square-foot addition, and by the fall, local ambulances should be using bays in their permanent home.
The construction site, which sits on Newell Road, is still undergoing underground electrical work. Thomas Roche, director of facilities and construction at Bristol Hospital, said some utility wires that run along the road, which is owned by the hospital, will be taken down for underground wiring - which he said is being done for aesthetics purposes.
Construction broke ground in February and has mostly remained on schedule. The renovations to the existing Emergency Center and a 12,500-square-foot addition are part of a four-phase, $15 million project.
Newell Road, which leads to the Emergency Center entrance, will no longer be a one-way road and will now circle in a U-shape off of and back onto Goodwin Street. The project’s architect, Ronald Goodin, of Phase Zero Design, said the U-shaped road will be much safer and better for ambulance drivers.
“This is a big project for this town, for this hospital,” Goodin said.
Goodin, who formerly worked as a VP of facilities in another hospital, has built a long-term relationship with Bristol Hospital, winning multiple project team awards in the process on previous endeavors. The outside area around the Emergency Center will give individuals a chance to get out of the hospital during what could be a very stressful time to take a breather in a relaxed environment.
The inside of the Emergency Center will also have as much of a calming effect as possible, he said.
“There’s going to be a lot of things that won’t make it look like an Emergency Department,” Goodin said.
The main area in the center will resemble a rotunda with a water wall near the entrance and high ceilings, giving it more of a “spa-like” feel, Goodin said.
“It’s just a very organic design,” he said, adding that the nurse’s station will take on a figure eight, allowing nurses to have visibility over all their patients.
“We want people to feel more relaxed and take the stress out as much as possible,” Goodin said.
Mary Lynn Gagnon, executive director of the Bristol Hospital Foundation, said fundraising for the Emergency Center project has raised “just about $3.9 million.” Though the goal has been to raise $4.5 million, the coronavirus pandemic has made that more difficult, causing several fundraisers to be rescheduled or canceled.
“One thing covid has taught us is how important the Emergency Center is,” Gagnon said, adding that the foundation will be reaching out to community members for help through a social media and a mailing campaign.
“This (project) is long overdue,” Gagnon said.
Apartments the likely target for redeveloping Trinity Street offices downtown
Joe Cooper
The state’s announcement Tuesday that it would hand over historic office buildings on Trinity Street to the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) likely means one thing for the quasi-public agency: more residential housing downtown.
“It’s likely those buildings will go to some sort of residential use, and be converted,” CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth said referring to state offices at 30 and 18/20 Trinity St., which the Lamont administration will shed in order to consolidate office space leases and save $7.1 million in five years by moving about 160 workers mostly downtown to renovated spaces on Capitol and Farmington avenues.
“It’s likely they will be redeveloped as part of a larger puzzle that includes the properties on Capitol Avenue around the corner,” Freimuth said of redeveloping the buildings as part of the nearby Bushnell Park South project.
Converting adjacent state offices on Trinity St. into apartments would continue an ongoing focus for CRDA, which is charged with revitalizing the city and in recent years has backed development of 1,500 or so units downtown. Another 400-plus rental units are expected to debut in 2020.
CRDA at that time would seek bids for redeveloping the Trinity Street buildings, the longtime home of the Secretary of the State and the Freedom of Information Commission, and additional land on Capitol Avenue and West Street.
“That’s the thought at this hour, but it’s still coming together,” he said. “It could go a variety of ways.”
[Read more: Hartford’s office market in limbo as COVID-19 uncertainty delays expansions, renewals]
New rental units on Trinity Street, Freimuth said, would compliment the mixed-use conversion of a historic office building at 55 Elm St. that has been used in recent decades by state workers, including the Attorney General's office.
“I imagine they would be [interested], though I haven’t spoken to them about it,” Freimuth said. “I think they [Spinnaker] have quite a bit to chew on with 55 Elm, as well as some land that’s around it.”
In the early 19th century, the 18/20 and 30 Trinity St. buildings served as one of the epicenters for the city's insurance industry.
The Orient Insurance Co. in 1905 built and launched the 18/20 Trinity St. office near the corner of Elm Street and across the street from the state Capitol. The building, designed by Davis and Brooks, originally featured a large dome, which was later taken down. It currently houses offices for the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, the Commission on Children, the Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission, and satellite offices for the Auditors of Public Accounts, among other state agencies, state records show.
The Phoenix Insurance Co. built the adjacent 30 Trinity St. office, and it was later owned and used by Hartford health insurer Aetna in the 1950s.
Neighbors challenge in court Enfield PZC’s approval of massive distribution center
Jessica Lerner
The construction site, which sits on Newell Road, is still undergoing underground electrical work. Thomas Roche, director of facilities and construction at Bristol Hospital, said some utility wires that run along the road, which is owned by the hospital, will be taken down for underground wiring - which he said is being done for aesthetics purposes.
Construction broke ground in February and has mostly remained on schedule. The renovations to the existing Emergency Center and a 12,500-square-foot addition are part of a four-phase, $15 million project.
Newell Road, which leads to the Emergency Center entrance, will no longer be a one-way road and will now circle in a U-shape off of and back onto Goodwin Street. The project’s architect, Ronald Goodin, of Phase Zero Design, said the U-shaped road will be much safer and better for ambulance drivers.
“This is a big project for this town, for this hospital,” Goodin said.
Goodin, who formerly worked as a VP of facilities in another hospital, has built a long-term relationship with Bristol Hospital, winning multiple project team awards in the process on previous endeavors. The outside area around the Emergency Center will give individuals a chance to get out of the hospital during what could be a very stressful time to take a breather in a relaxed environment.
The inside of the Emergency Center will also have as much of a calming effect as possible, he said.
“There’s going to be a lot of things that won’t make it look like an Emergency Department,” Goodin said.
The main area in the center will resemble a rotunda with a water wall near the entrance and high ceilings, giving it more of a “spa-like” feel, Goodin said.
“It’s just a very organic design,” he said, adding that the nurse’s station will take on a figure eight, allowing nurses to have visibility over all their patients.
“We want people to feel more relaxed and take the stress out as much as possible,” Goodin said.
Mary Lynn Gagnon, executive director of the Bristol Hospital Foundation, said fundraising for the Emergency Center project has raised “just about $3.9 million.” Though the goal has been to raise $4.5 million, the coronavirus pandemic has made that more difficult, causing several fundraisers to be rescheduled or canceled.
“One thing covid has taught us is how important the Emergency Center is,” Gagnon said, adding that the foundation will be reaching out to community members for help through a social media and a mailing campaign.
“This (project) is long overdue,” Gagnon said.
Apartments the likely target for redeveloping Trinity Street offices downtown
Joe Cooper
The state’s announcement Tuesday that it would hand over historic office buildings on Trinity Street to the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) likely means one thing for the quasi-public agency: more residential housing downtown.
“It’s likely those buildings will go to some sort of residential use, and be converted,” CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth said referring to state offices at 30 and 18/20 Trinity St., which the Lamont administration will shed in order to consolidate office space leases and save $7.1 million in five years by moving about 160 workers mostly downtown to renovated spaces on Capitol and Farmington avenues.
“It’s likely they will be redeveloped as part of a larger puzzle that includes the properties on Capitol Avenue around the corner,” Freimuth said of redeveloping the buildings as part of the nearby Bushnell Park South project.
Converting adjacent state offices on Trinity St. into apartments would continue an ongoing focus for CRDA, which is charged with revitalizing the city and in recent years has backed development of 1,500 or so units downtown. Another 400-plus rental units are expected to debut in 2020.
“That’s the thought at this hour, but it’s still coming together,” he said. “It could go a variety of ways.”
[Read more: Hartford’s office market in limbo as COVID-19 uncertainty delays expansions, renewals]
New rental units on Trinity Street, Freimuth said, would compliment the mixed-use conversion of a historic office building at 55 Elm St. that has been used in recent decades by state workers, including the Attorney General's office.
In the early 19th century, the 18/20 and 30 Trinity St. buildings served as one of the epicenters for the city's insurance industry.
The Orient Insurance Co. in 1905 built and launched the 18/20 Trinity St. office near the corner of Elm Street and across the street from the state Capitol. The building, designed by Davis and Brooks, originally featured a large dome, which was later taken down. It currently houses offices for the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, the Commission on Children, the Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission, and satellite offices for the Auditors of Public Accounts, among other state agencies, state records show.
The Phoenix Insurance Co. built the adjacent 30 Trinity St. office, and it was later owned and used by Hartford health insurer Aetna in the 1950s.
Neighbors challenge in court Enfield PZC’s approval of massive distribution center
Jessica Lerner
ENFIELD — An administrative appeal has been filed on behalf of the residents of the Misty Meadows neighborhood questioning the legality of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval of a 501,500-square-foot distribution center at 113 N. Maple St.
The appeal, filed in Hartford Superior Court by land use lawyer Kenneth Slater Jr., details how the PZC allegedly “acted arbitrarily, capriciously, unlawfully, and in abuse of the discretion vested in approving the application” and asks the court to order that the site plan approval of the application be rescinded.
During a 5½-hour virtual public hearing held on the matter on July 9, about 35 residents spoke in opposition of the massive 43-foot-high distribution center proposed by Adam Winstanley, owner of the Massachusetts-based real estate developer Winstanley Enterprises.
They expressed concerns over increased truck traffic, noise, the safety and wellbeing of students at he nearby Hazardville Memorial School, the impact on property values, and the unknown second tenant.
The distribution center is designed to accommodate two tenants — Agri-Mark, a Massachusetts-based company that distributes a wide variety of dairy products, and a second tenant that’s yet to be named.
“One of main themes of the complaint is … a rush to judgment, and approving a plan that in a number of respects was simply non-compliant,” Slater said.
While the PZC did hold a public hearing, Slater said the commission didn’t really give a fair process to the neighbors to be heard.
“They limited their time, and when they got to the end, normally they would give members of the public an opportunity to respond to things to the applicant said, having given the applicant over an hour of time at the beginning of the hearing,” he said.
Town Attorney James Tallberg and PZC Chairman Ken Nelson had no comment on the pending litigation, though Nelson mentioned he wasn’t surprised the residents decided to take legal action.
Winstanley could not be reached for comment.
The public hearing began by allowing the representatives from Winstanley Enterprises to speak for more than one hour, followed by members of the public being allowed to share their opinions on the project, most of whom vehemently opposed the large-scale project being built on a 71-acre parcel.
Afterward, the “floor was turned back to the applicant who provided rebuttal information and responses to comments made by the public,” during which the microphones and telephones of all participants of the public were muted by Nelson.
Slater and several members of the public utilized the virtual meeting function of “raising their hands” to request an opportunity to be heard, but these requests were ignored.
In addition, the public wasn’t given an opportunity to speak for a second or third time following the applicant’s rebuttal, only being allowed that one round of “time-restricted commentary” despite pending requests to be heard again, which the appeal states amount to a fraction of the time afforded the applicant.
Following the rebuttal, Tallberg then counseled the PZC against extending the public hearing and delaying the vote, even though Slater states in the appeal that the commission had more than 100 days before it was officially required to close the hearing and render a decision.
The PZC, Tallberg said at the public hearing, went above and beyond by holding a lengthy public hearing to allay some of the residents’ legitimate concerns, and the commission should move forward and make a decision to approve the application.
The administrative appeal also claims the PZC violated its own bylaws by continuing the meeting past midnight — a unanimous vote to approve the site plan application was taken shortly before 12:30 a.m. — and approving an application that failed to comply with zoning regulations.