As the developer of the mixed-use Harbor Point complex that encompasses 100 acres across the South End, BLT is proposing as much as 1 million square feet of new buildings on the waterfront property. Potential developments could include a life sciences center, a corporate headquarters or a multipurpose hub with medical research buildings, apartments, a hotel and an e-sports arena, according to renderings posted on a website for the project.
BLT is willing to consider a number of scenarios including making an outright sale of the peninsula or retaining ownership and being the sole developer or co-developer of the site, according to Gary Greenspan, executive vice chairman of global brokerage at commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, which is jointly marketing the peninsula.
“We have not made a decision on what we want to do,” Greenspan said in an interview. “Speaking on behalf of BLT, they’re open to any structure that works for any potential tenant coming in… I think Stamford would welcome a good tenant or a good user that would be accretive to the continued growth of Stamford.”
Cushman & Wakefield is marketing the property with another commercial real estate firm, Binswanger.
“In our opinion, this is a site that has really very few, if any, equals,” Greenspan said. “It’s a piece of land on the water (in a city) that has been growing insanely over the last five to 10 years. It’s now become a little bit of refuge for companies that are looking to diversify out of one location into others.”
Any new development would complement the surrounding Harbor Point, which encompasses more than 4,000 existing or under-development apartments; more than a dozen restaurants; and a number of office buildings including an approximately 500,000-square-feet complex at 1 Elmcroft Road that stands yards from the peninsula.
BLT’s main offices are based at 1 Elmcroft.
“We have been rapidly developing Harbor Point for the last 12 years, transforming the former industrial area into a vibrant live-work-play master planned community and creating a thriving ecosystem for residents and businesses,” BLT Chairman Carl Kuehner said in a statement. “We are excited to see this premier site, the final piece of the puzzle for Harbor Point, come to life.”
Since acquiring the peninsula in 2008, BLT has eyed the land for major development.
But controversy has long overshadowed the land. BLT angered many residents and local officials when it tore down the peninsula’s boatyard in 2011, when it ended its lease with Brewer’s Yacht Haven West. In 2018, it opened the nearby Hinckley boatyard in the city’s Waterside section in a compromise agreement with the city’s Zoning Board.
But the rancor over the boatyard’s demise and other criticisms — a number of Connecticut Republicans, for one, decried the plan as corporate welfare for the world’s largest hedge fund by assets — led to Bridgewater’s decision in 2014 to abandon the project. The firm subsequently used state subsidies to help fund upgrades to its Westport offices.
Today, BLT and other key backers appear undeterred by the contention of the past decade. BLT’s press release for the project included laudatory statements from Gov. Ned Lamont and Stamford Mayor David Martin.
“Connecticut offers a plethora of advantages that corporations — large and small — recognize as beneficial to their bottom line, and we have what it takes to help them achieve their success,” Lamont said in his statement. “Stamford’s desirable geographic location coupled with the revitalization that’s taken place in the South End present boundless economic potential for those organizations who can recognize it.”
Martin cited Harbor Point’s transformation of the South End.
“Many long-term residents of Stamford can remember when the South End was one of the most depressed areas of our city but now it stands out as a shining example of what’s possible in Stamford,” Martin said. “The peninsula at Harbor Point provides many of the benefits of living in a modern city building off of the economic growth in our region."
Confusion over Winchester school project funding
Emily M. Olson
WINSTED — Gov. Ned Lamont’s recent mention of Winchester as being among the communities receiving state money for school projects created confusion after local officials learned the town’s project was not approved for funding.
The $17 million renovation of the shuttered Mary P. Hinsdale School is the only school project under way in the town and officials will be seeking state money to help pay the cost.
The State Bond Commission approved $200 million for school construction projects when it met July 21 and while the town of Winchester was noted by Lamont at the start of the meeting as among those included for state funding, it was not in fact part of the 2019 package, two officials said. The video of the meeting can be seen here.
The Register Citizen reported the money was awarded after the meeting.
Though Winsted applied for $7 million in state bonding to be used for a $17 million renovation plan for Hinsdale School, it may be months before the town’s school renovation project funding will be considered, because it must pass through the hands of the legislature first, state Rep. Jay Case said.
Winchester Town Manager Robert Geiger said he spoke with Case the day after the bond commission meeting and was told the funding was not yet approved.
“I came in this morning, and after speaking with our finance director, we watched the bond commission meeting (online),” Geiger said on July 22. “They were approving (school construction projects) for the previous year, 2019, not for this year.”
Geiger immediately called Case, who first said “Yes, Winchester got the money,” Geiger said. “I wanted to be sure, so I asked him to confirm it. He called me back and said we didn’t get it.”
Max Reiss, director of communication for Lamont, said, when asked about the bond meeting, that he did not know why the governor named Winchester. A message also was left seeking comment from OPM spokesman Chris McClure.
Case said he contacted Lamont’s office, also the day after the bond commission meeting, and was told by the deputy chief that all school construction funding requests are required to go through a legislative process for approval.
“We approved (projects) for 2019, not for 2020,” Case said. “The $200 million is for projects that are going on now.”
Case said that the bonding process has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. For a district to be considered for money for the next fiscal year, it must first hold a referendum and gain approval from residents, Case said. After the referendum, the district must file the construction project plans with the state Office of Policy and Management.
Because Winsted is a priority school district, meaning the schools are part of the state’s free and reduced lunch program, it is put on a list for a priority committee in the governor’s office, he said. That list is marked “preapproved.” If the school district is not a priority district, it likely waits longer to be considered. After being placed in committee in the governor’s office, the funding request is reviewed and sent to the state legislature. The legislature reviews it and votes on it, usually on the last day of the legislative session. The legislature then sends the funding request to the state bond commission to await final approval. Bond commission meetings are called by the governor’s office; there are no set dates for the meetings, Case said.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the legislature has not been in session and the process of reviewing funding requests for 2020 never happened, Case said.
Lamont and the bond commission’s approval of $200 million on July 21 was for 2019 projects and the money is part of “progress payments,” meaning that the legislature approved the funding last year, but the bond commission had not yet, Case said.
“The step where Winsted is right now, (waiting for the legislature) because of COVID-19, is usually done on the last day of our legislative session,” Case said. “We didn’t have one. We’re still waiting to do our session.”
The plan to renovate Hinsdale remains in place, but what the state decides could impact the cost, Geiger said.
“We could go ahead and borrow the whole ($17.43 million) but we’re not going to do that,” he said. “We still need to do the architectural drawings, so that when we do get the funding, we can pull the trigger on bids.
Winsted road project draws mixed reviews, with calls for making traffic one-way
Emily M. Olson
WINSTED — Whiting Street has many facets.
Some areas have repurposed factory buildings, while others have apartments or single-family homes. The street feeds onto Holabird Avenue and Route 44, and is often busy with traffic, making it difficult to cross. The roadway’s width also varies, from nearly 30 feet to 20 feet. Sidewalks are inconsistent.
A proposal to improve the street, to be funded by state dollars, drew a mixed response from residents and town officials this week. The Planning & Zoning Commission this week gave its approval for the 8-24, or municipal improvement, application, with a stipulation: That another meeting be held with all interested residents, including the Whiting Mills building owners and tenants, as well as emergency services, public works and the architects present.
Funded by a grant
Members of the Winchester Public Works Department presented designs for the project to the PZC. The proposal includes making the road 22 feet wide, curb-to-curb, installing sidewalks from the end of Whiting Mills to South Main Street (Route 44), improving the drainage, paving and a new bridge. Residents can see the drawings and other details of the proposal at https://rb.gy/nojqec.
The public works department is seeking “a positive referral” from the commission, using the state’s 8-24 application, which requires towns and cities to present plans to the public and the planning commission. Representatives from Weston and Sampson Engineers, including project manager Lisa Slonus, architect Ryan Chimeliewski and engineer Nick Palermo joined Public Works Director Jim Rollins for the presentation. The entire meeting was held on Zoom.
The project is supported by a grant of $500,000, administered by the state Office of Policy and Management and the state Department of Transportation, Slonus said. “The project is from the Responsible Growth and Transit Oriented Development Grant,” she said. “The funding focuses on the use and reuses of places where private and public investments have been made, to protect landscapes and landmarks and a better quality of life.”
According to Slonus, a study to develop the project began in 2019. The objectives of the improvements, she said, are to calm traffic, provide better road drainage systems and “better connectivity” for residents living in the area.”
Slonus also noted that the grant funding won’t be available forever. “There’s a limited amount of time to do the work, or the town will lose the money,” she said. The grant expires at the end of 2021.
Public input
Whiting Street may be best known for Whiting Mills, owned by Eva and Jean Paul Blachere, who purchased the Whiting Mills complex of historic buildings in 2004. Since then, the couple has gained approximately 60 tenants including artists, retailers and offices in the space. The American Mural Project, an ongoing public art installation founded by artist Ellen Griesedieck and overseen by Executive Director Amy Wynn, is also is housed in a brick factory building on Whiting Street.
A small number of residents, including those representing Whiting Mills, were disappointed to learn the street will be accessible to two-way traffic. A one-way traffic plan was preferred, especially by the owners of Whiting Mills, who say safety will be compromised, and that it prevents them from having more sidewalk areas and bringing in more tenants such as restaurants. The American Mural Project was also worried about the impact of traffic street if it remains two-way.
“We were very excited to see the project but we were surprised that Whiting Mills didn’t even get a mention,” Jean Paul Blachere said. “We thought we were important to the town.
“In previous meetings we were told we’d have a sidewalk on our side, and there’s no allowance for a sidewalk for people to come out of our building,” he said. “They’re being put in danger. What have we done to deserve that?”
“We’re excited to see something happen, but we’ve been waiting 16 years since we took over the building, and we need a sidewalk, all the way alongside our building to Holabird Avenue,” Eva Blachere said. “That was the understanding of this project.”
The road
Making the street 22 feet wide from one end to the other, Slonus said, is intended to calm traffic. “By constraining the roadway, or providing other elements along the road, (it will) force and encourage drivers to slow down,” she said.
Raised crosswalks, which almost resemble a low speed bump, are also part of the design. Slonus said these crosswalks are safer for pedestrians and also slow traffic. Some areas of curb would also have “bumpouts” which are intended to narrow the road and slow drivers.
The final design, Slonus said, will be completed this fall, then be sent to OPM and the DOT for administrative review. Bidding and construction will be done in 2021, with the project wrapping up in the fall of that year.
Planning & Zoning Commission Chairman George Closson brought up the issue of one-way traffic after the presentation. “We decided to go forward with two-way traffic,” Slonus said Commission member Willard Platt asked how large trucks would access parking lots with a narrower road, and wondered about school buses on the street, once the American Mural Project begins having large groups of school children visit the building.
“There’s going to be obstacles entering the mill; there’s going to be a lot of school bus activity,” Platt said.
“It would be good to review the flow pattern there,” Closson said. “Find out where the buses would be dropping (students off). That should be added as a concern.”
Closson commented again about making Whiting Street one-way.
“I was surprised to see a two-way street,” he said. “Why did you retain it?”
Rollins said local fire and ambulance groups in town insisted that the street remain two-way.
The Blacheres also asked again for a sidewalk directly along their mill building. “If we were able to have a sidewalk, we could attract retail or restaurants to Whiting Mills, that would improve the building even more, and the town,” Jean Paul Blachere said.
Rollins said that a residential street off Whiting near the Route 44 intersection would be impacted if the street were one-way.“Strong Terrace still needs a place to go,” he said. “We’d end up with a mutiny if they had to go down Whiting to Holabird to get out ... If you can rally around this idea, however, I’m happy to look at it again. I just don’t know if we’re going to get anywhere with it.”
“I want another public hearing on this,” Closson said. “It’s important to get this rolling.”
The commission’s approval of the 8-24 will be sent to the Board of Selectmen. Rollins said he will “get the players involved” for another discussion of the Whiting Street project. No specific date was set.
State office shuffle to save $7M; CRDA to redevelop Trinity St. buildings
Joe Cooper
tate officials say it will save more than $7 million in five years by relocating some 160 state workers mostly in downtown Hartford to newly renovated offices on Capitol and Farmington avenues.
The moves, led by the Office of Policy Management (OPM), Gov. Ned Lamont's budget office, and the Department of Administrative Services (DAS), will bring workers from adjacent buildings at 30 and 18/20 Trinity St. to either 165 Capitol Ave. or 55 Farmington Ave. beginning in September and through the start of 2021, DAS announced Tuesday afternoon.
The state is also shedding two leased offices at 330 Main St., which was recently acquired by a prominent Hartford developer-landlord, and 2275 Silas Deane Highway in Rocky Hill. Workers at the former offices will also be moved to Capitol and Farmington avenues.
A projected $7.1 million will be saved in operating and lease costs over a five-year period, DAS said, as it will also avoid the need to invest up to $80 million to rehabilitate the Trinity Street offices over the next decade. Instead, the Trinity Street buildings are expected to be transferred to the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) for redevelopment.
"Coupled with CRDA’s ongoing development of a new district garage as well as recent private acquisition of 55 Elm for residential/mixed-use development by the Spinnaker Group, the Trinity properties provide the next phase to rebuild the neighborhood along Bushnell Park, ultimately stretching into the south end of Hartford and the hospital district," Freimuth said.
DAS said 163 employees will be impacted by the upcoming moves in the following state offices/agencies: Office of Chief Public Defenders; Board of Firearms Examiners; Judicial Selectmen Commission; Office of the Child Advocate; State Contracting Standards Board within the Office of Governmental Accountability; State Elections Enforcement Commission; Department of Administrative Services Print/Mail services; The Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity and Opportunity; the Freedom of Information Commission; and Office of State Ethics.
Connecticut’s coffers have swelled — not shrunk — during COVID
Keith M. Phaneuf
State government’s coffers have swelled by hundreds of millions of dollars since the coronavirus struck in mid-March, despite warnings of a nearly $1 billion deficit just three months ago.
Connecticut’s rainy day fund, which stood at $2.5 billion when the pandemic struck, now approaches $2.8 billion, according to an ongoing review of thousands of state tax returns filed after July 15.
And while the legislature’s Office of Fiscal Analysis still expects Connecticut to exhaust most reserves over the next 11 months, they now project the state will maintain a modest, $250 million cushion one year from now.
That’s a far cry from two months ago, when Gov. Ned Lamont warned Connecticut might be broke by mid-2021 and potentially saddled with $500 million in operating debt. The governor hoped to avoid this debt by seeking concessions from labor unions, who declined, noting they provided givebacks in 2009, 2011 and 2017.
How has state government gotten richer since the pandemic began?
“That’s a fair question,” said Rep. Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, co-chairman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. “I think it’s a matter of us having a conversation” with Lamont’s budget office.
Administration officials and the legislature’s nonpartisan analysts both warned during a joint forecast three months ago that fiscal projections were little more than a shot in the dark.
Normally they project revenues each spring immediately following the April 15 income tax filing deadline. But there was almost no data available to budget agencies when they prepared their April 30 estimates.That’s because Lamont deferred that deadline to July 15 to ease financial burdens during the height of the pandemic.
Hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents were receiving unemployment benefits, many temporarily enhanced with emergency federal funds. Those benefits are subject to income taxation, but analysts also warned it’s impossible to predict how those numbers would trend.
How long would the federal government prop up these enhanced benefits? How many of these people would return to work as the pandemic eased? And what if the coronavirus worsens, taking unemployment with it, this fall or winter?
The update provided Tuesday to the finance committee, only the second since the post-July 15 analysis began, upgraded revenues for the just-completed fiscal year by nearly $640 million compared with an April 30 projection.
In fairness, roughly two-thirds of that is a phantom gain. Federal Medicaid payments expected in July simply arrived before the last fiscal year ended on June 30, wiping away a big chunk of the nearly $1 billion deficit projection from three months ago.
But other revenue growth isn’t tied to an accounting switch.Tax receipts accruing back to the just-completed fiscal year are running $200 million higher than expected. And based on that data, analysts also bumped expectations for 2020-21 tax receipts by $50 million.
Economists have said many investors sold their stocks in late 2020 amidst growing fears of a recession. And even more did so as the markets plunged in March, reaping big, one-time capital gains.
Still, OFA staff warned nothing is certain at this point. “Our FY 21 projections are preliminary and subject to significant change pending further analysis,” staff wrote in a memo to the finance committee.
Kosta Diamantis, the governor’s deputy budget director, also cautioned against the temptation to spend reserves quickly.
“While it may certainly appear as good news for our state, and testament to strong financial management, that we are able to … improve our estimates for the deposit into the Budget Reserve Fund, we cannot lose sight of the challenges that are ahead in FY21,” Diamantis said. “Uncertain times require we stay the course of fiscal stability.”
Connecticut’s coffers also are swelling, however, because the Lamont administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars less than originally planned this fiscal year, and legislators have been pressing all summer for more details.
The budget routinely tasks the Executive Branch annually with achieving savings targets through attrition or other efficiencies. The savings goal for the just-completed fiscal year was $209.2 million in the General Fund, which covers about 90% of all operating costs in the overall budget.
The Lamont administration estimates it saved $544.1 million.
The Appropriations Committee has been meeting since June with agency heads, particularly those whose departments returned large sums of money.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, who co-chairs the panel, said lawmakers are concerned, but aren’t drawing conclusions yet.“I don’t know that that’s fair yet,” she said, adding that a key meeting still must be held in August with Lamont’s budget director, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Melissa McCaw. “That’s why we have to finish our meetings with all of the state agencies.”
Osten added that some legislators are worried that more money should have been sent to social service agencies, other care providers, and to public colleges and universities to cope with the pandemic.
“I don’t think we can wait too long,” she said. “Clearly we have some concerns we have to address.”