CT Construction Digest Wednesday September 30, 2020

Construction underway for new sports fields in Milford

Sandra Diamond  MILFORD — There’ll be many happy sports players come winter, when construction on two large turf fields in Milford will be completed. One of the fields is at Jonathan Law High School, on Lansdale Ave., and the other is by Foran High School, on Foran Road.

Construction on both projects broke ground over the summer. Together, they cost approximately $5 million.

“With the completion of these fields, our youth and adult athletic facilities outdoors should be well positioned for generations to come,” Milford Mayor Benjamin Blake said.

Fields

At Jonathan Law, there’ll be a brand new turf softball and baseball field, as well as a multi-purpose field to be used for sports such as soccer, lacrosse and football. Construction, which began a month and a half ago, is expected to be competed by the end of fall.

On the other side of town, on French Drive next to Foran, two new multi-purpose fields are being built.

“Last year, we put in a turf softball field that was named in honor of Danni Kemp, who was a Foran High School softball player who lost her battle with cancer,” Blake said. 

“It was done in time for the 2020 softball team to play,” he added.

However, due to the pandemic, the team only got to play once, in an exhibition game.

“There is a brand new softball field that has almost never been played on,” he said.

Next to that field, “we are installing two multi-purpose turf fields, which will be 120 by 65 [feet], and striped so they can accommodate youth soccer, football, and lacrosse,” he added.

A part of the construction project involves drainage.

“That field has notoriously been wet,” Blake said. “The last couple of seasons, they could not play due to drainage.”

While some sewer line work was involved with the construction, including the replacement of a sewer line, starting Monday, construction will start in earnest, according to Blake.

Advantages of turf fields

Blake spoke of the advantages of turf fields versus grass fields.

With a regular grass field, play should be moderated, and they are affected by rainy weather conditions. According to Blake, the benefit of turf fields is they can be played on seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and not get “beat up.”

“Turf fields have a lot more playability on them and can sustain a lot more use,” he said.

New London’s choice of salt will not help reduce pile at State Pier

Greg Smith   New London — The city plans to buy about 2,000 tons of treated road salt in preparation for winter but it won’t be coming from the massive salt pile, owned by DRVN Enterprises, at State Pier.

DRVN has a Dec. 31 deadline to remove or forfeit the salt and equipment to the Connecticut Port Authority. But, unlike in past years, the company was not the low bidder for the region in a bidding process conducted by the Capitol Region Purchasing Council, which is run by the Capitol Region Council of Governments. New London is a member of the purchasing council, which is open to all municipalities across Connecticut.

The low bidder was Champion Salt, whose local operation is located at the Port of New Haven’s Gateway Terminal. Gateway also was running State Pier until the state opted to forgo regular cargo operations in advance of the $157 million conversion of the pier to accommodate the offshore wind industry.

Champion beat out DRVN and two other companies, Cargill Inc. and Morton Salt Inc., with a low bid for the region’s salt needs. DRVN was outbid in three of the six designated regions in which it placed bids. Cargill was the low bidder in four of the regions and Morton Salt in two. Eastern Salt Company Inc. also entered several unsuccessful bids.

New London Public Works Director Brian Sear said the $63.86 cost per ton of salt offered by Champion in Region 3 is lower than he's seen in past years and in his opinion the company has a superior product, less sticky, compared to some others.

The City Council recently approved buying up to 2,000 tons for a total cost of $127,720. The city is not obligated to buy salt it doesn’t need, however, and can order more as needed. The city typically uses between 1,600 and 1,800 tons of salt a year.

“The last couple of years we’ve engaged DRVN Enterprises,” Sear said. “This year they were not the low bidder for our region.”

DRVN, meanwhile has a Dec. 31 deadline to move its estimated 90,000 tons of salt off of State Pier or the salt will be forfeited to the Connecticut Port Authority as part of an agreement signed in August.

As part of the agreement, DRVN may be asked to provide the port authority with an action plan for removal of the salt and has agreed “to participate, and to cause any lender holding a security interest in the DRVN Salt ... to participate, in good faith discussions regarding the removal of the DRVN Salt ...”

Connecticut Port Authority Board Chairman David Kooris said the authority does not want to be in the salt business. “We’re very hopeful that DRVN sells their salt at CV (Central Vermont Railroad) Pier before year's end or finds an alternative location to store it,” he said. Options for the Connecticut Port Authority would be to sell it directly to a salt company or transfer it to Gateway Terminal in New Haven, one of the limited number of local facilities that could accommodate the salt. A move to New Haven, Kooris said, was “not inevitable.”

DRVN’s president, Steve Farrelly, had lobbied for extra time to be allowed to sell the salt and has said the success of his business hinges on access to the port. Farrelly, whose company revived salt imports to State Pier in 2014, was not immediately available to comment for this report.

With the recent loss of rented space near the city’s Public Works facility, Sear said the salt will be stored in a temporary salt shed to be constructed on the former basketball courts of the city-owned property that is home to the vacant former Thames River Apartments on Crystal Avenue.

It’s unclear how many other local municipalities use the CRPC for their salt contract this year.

Jessica Muirhead, senior project manager for CRCOG, said the Capitol Region Purchasing Council conducts competitive public bidding processes for some common commodities and services, including treated road salt. 

For commodity bids, such as treated road salt, individual CRPC members make their own awards from bid results. The CRPC does not award contracts centrally, she said. New London participated in the most recent bidding process for treated road salt, for which the contract period is July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021.

Groton, New London, Norwich to receive grants for school improvements

Kimberly Drelich  Groton, New London and Norwich are slated to each receive grants of $477,647 to improve their schools, state legislators announced Tuesday.

The state Bond Commission authorized on Tuesday $30 million in funding for the state's 33 Alliance Districts to use towards eligible projects, such as improvements to heating and ventilation systems, communications and technology systems, lighting, driveways, parking lots, athletic fields, roof repairs and security equipment.

“It’s really a wonderful step forward for the schools,” Groton Superintendent Michael Graner said.

State Rep. Christine Conley, D-Groton, said in a statement that she is delighted that Groton's school district will receive the money. "This grant will go a long way in ensuring the schools in Groton will remain superb for the foreseeable future," she said.

"This aid illustrates Connecticut's continued commitment to educational excellence," state Rep. Joe de la Cruz, D-Groton, said in a statement. "I am thrilled that the Groton and New London school systems have secured the funds needed to make crucial improvements to their campuses."

Kate McCoy, executive director of district operations and magnet pathways for New London Public Schools, said the district is thrilled to have the opportunity to use the grant to address facility needs.

Norwich school district officials are meeting with the principals to determine the top priorities for the funding, Assistant Superintendent Tamara Gloster said.

Graner said his district greatly appreciates the additional support the state provides for districts that are educating some of the state’s lower socio-economic students. He said he will brief the Board of Education next week on the grant but most likely the district will use the funding to improve its telecommunications system.He said the telephone and intercommunications system at Central Office and a few schools are in need of upgrades. The funding would enable the district to have a very reliable intercom and phone system, which would improve both safety and efficiency of operations.

Conley said Groton initially was not included as part of the Alliance Districts slated to receive funding, since the funding was being divvied up based on an older list. She said she and de la Cruz worked to make sure Groton and Thompson, the two newest Alliance Districts, were counted.

Conley said Alliance Districts are always in need of funding for building upgrades, but especially in these times when school systems are spending money on personal protective equipment and facing challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. With limited funds, it’s a concern that the districts may not be able to do some of their building upkeep, so grant funding is more necessary.

Southington project would pit solar energy against farmland

Don Stacom  SOUTHINGTON — About 30 acres of lush hayfields in Southington have become the center of an unlikely struggle between green energy and farmland preservation. Verogy LLC wants to cover the property with solar energy panels, promising a 4.7-megawatt system that would produce enough electricity to power more than 1,100 homes.

But owners of the nearby Karabin Farms warn that the loss of high-quality hay they grow there would be a massive business setback for one of the only fast-growing farms in Connecticut.

The matter is likely to be decided this winter or in early spring by the Connecticut Siting Council, the state board that determines where power facilities can be built. So far, the town of Southington as well as a state environmental panel have joined the owners of Karabin Farms in raising objections.

“Both the preservation of farmland and development of renewable energy sources are essential to the state’s future,” the Council on Environmental Quality wrote in a recent letter.

The issue affects other towns in the state. In the past year, state government acquired a little under 780 acres for open space and farmland preservation, the environmental quality council wrote. But it is at risk of trading off hundreds of acres at the same time, the council wrote. Private businesses have targeted more than 540 acres of Connecticut farmland for solar energy facilities in the past year alone.

In Southington, Verogy wants to use about a third of Karabin’s 100-acre leased land along East Street. It would be enough to support a project offsetting the equivalent of 6,455 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, or about as much as created by 15.7 million of passenger car travel a year, Verogy said.

But while many solar proposals involve unused farm acreage, Verogy’s plan would consume about half of the usable land where Karabin grows hay. Farm owners Diane and Michael Karabin leased the property as a supplement to their own 50-acre tract about a mile away, and use the hay to feed their herd of 70 cows.

Their lease with the Catholic Cemeteries Association of the Hartford archdiocese began six years ago, and the Karabins said they relied on verbal assurances of long-term extensions when they sank hundreds of hours of work into reclaiming the land from invasive species of vines in 2014. They also bought a new tractor and baling machine, and expanded the cow herd.

“We have probably the most diversified farm in central Connecticut,” Michael Karabin said. “We have maple syrup, greenhouses with bedding plants, a mum field and poinsettias, 8 acres in vegetables, 6 acres in fruit trees, pick-you-own apples and 10 acres in Christmas trees.”

They also raise cows, chickens and turkeys.

The Karabins said they’re talking with the town of Southington to sell the development rights to their own 50-acre property, which would protect it against homebuilders or others for the future. But they’re frustrated that the state might provide aid for that deal, but at the same time OK development of the 30-acre parcel nearby that directly helps keep their farm on solid financial footing.

The Catholic Cemeteries Association did not return a message on Monday.

The Connecticut Siting Council has 180 days to reach a decision in the matter.

State looks to overhaul environmental cleanup laws

Michael Puffer WATERBURY — Gov. Ned Lamont and leading state officials touted a major overhaul to the state’s environmental cleanup laws Tuesday, using crumbling and graffiti-stained buildings at a former industrial site off South Main Street in Waterbury as a backdrop.

The proposal, which may be ratified by state lawmakers during a special session that kicks off this week, would replace the state’s 35-year-old Transfer Act. Officials say the complex and cumbersome law has made developers shy away from properties across the state.

“It’s the right thing to do because the Transfer Act has been incredibly ineffective going back 35 years,” said David Lehman, commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development. “We can’t afford to be ineffective. We can’t afford to have over 4,000 brownfields in the transfer process and only 1,000 of them got cleaned up.”

The legislation would set into motion sweeping changes in rules governing which properties require costly environmental studies and cleanups, and when.

These changes are the product of years of work by state lawmakers and officials, as well as negotiations with environmental groups.

Lamont was also joined by Mayor Neil M. O’Leary, State Sen. Joan V. Hartley, D-15th District; State Rep. Ron Napoli, D-73rd District; State Rep. Geraldo Reyes Jr., D-75th District and Katie Dykes, commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

The Transfer Act targets any sites where more than 100 kilograms of hazardous waste was generated in any one-month period. Any property making the list requires an expensive environmental survey at the point it is sold or otherwise transferred.

Any pollutants discovered have to be cleaned in a process directly overseen by private environmental consultants and audited by the state.

Property buyers and sellers work out among themselves who pays the bills. Cleanup costs can reach six or seven figures.

Officials say the uncertainty that comes with the act has soured many potential developers. Many have proven unwilling to wait for environmental tests to determine if costs make their plans untenable.

“It’s a little bit proving the negative or guilty until proven innocent,” Lamont said Tuesday while standing on the former Anamet industrial complex on South Main Street. “It gives great hesitancy to buyers – makes it more difficult to sell, more difficult to upgrade and turn a facility like this into another great advanced manufacturing site, which it should be.”

A 2019 study by the Connecticut Economic Resource Center estimated the Transfer Act, over five years, had cost the state about 27,000 jobs and $178 million in recurring state and local tax revenue.

Connecticut and New Jersey are the only states that pursue cleanups under a Transfer Act system. Officials say they plan to adopt a “release-based” system modeled after Massachusetts. There, property owners are expected to clean up any spills or pollution they discover that top allowable thresholds.

State officials say they’ll retain the rights to order investigations when harmful pollution is suspected. In Massachusetts, buyers and banks order environmental studies without state mandate, not wanting to unwittingly take on the liability for past pollution, said Graham Stevens, DEEP bureau chief for water protection and land reuse.

“We believe market forces will be the right driving factor for the initiation and completion of cleanups,” Stevens said.

Stevens said the changes called for in the pending legislation will allow more than 40, state-employed scientists, geologists and engineers currently dedicated to cleanup work to focus on the highest-risk properties. They’ll no longer be tied up worrying about the complexities of corporate and real estate law, he said.

Hartley noted only about a quarter of 4,200 properties that have entered environmental review under the Transfer Act since 1985 have been signed off as “clear” by the state. Hartley, co-chair of the General Assembly’s Commerce Committee, was a prime figure in pushing reform of the law, seen as crucial for her district.

CT Construction Digest Tuesday September 29, 2020

W.I. Clark's Team Blue Crushes Connecticut With Kleemann Line

In 2013, W.I. Clark acquired the Kleemann line of aggregate and recycling products when the Wirtgen Group brought the products to the United States. W.I. Clark had already been a Wirtgen Group dealer for milling machines, Vogele pavers and Hamm compactors. The dealer also represents John Deere (of which the Wirtgen Group is a subsidiary) construction and industrial equipment in the state of Connecticut

"W.I. Clark had sold aggregate equipment for many years, but having the Kleemann products allowed us to sell to all applications in that business," said Mark Brester. Brewster had been a main line salesman for W.I. Clark since 2002 and took on responsibility for aggregate and recycling equipment in 2017. "The Kleemann product line is in a league of its own and put us in a position to have the equipment the premier aggregate producers in the state of Connecticut need in their operations as well as the Connecticut's recyclers."

As W.I. Clark has always known those customers have a different set of demands and needs that need to be addressed.

Aggregate producers and recyclers not only have their own language, but they also had a very unique set of circumstances unlike a contractor with a fleet of equipment. A contractor who owns a fleet of 25 machines can certainly be hurt by one machine going down, but it is unlikely that it would stop the entire operation. However, an aggregate producer/recycler can have its entire business come to a screeching halt when its machine is not running.

According to Brester, "That puts the demands on the dealership to a whole new level. Our technicians need to be trained well. Our parts department has in stock the right parts and to source immediately those parts they need not in stock. When we sell a piece of equipment, it has to be the right piece of equipment for the application at hand.

"We needed everyone involved in the Kleemann product to be a product specialist, so we came up with the concept internally of ‘Team Blue," consisting of individuals within W.I. Clark who would receive specialized training and would be ready to react when the Kleemann customer needs us."

Team Blue at W.I. Clark

• Mark Brester, aggregate/production class equipment specialist
• Mike Greenwood Sr., assistant service manager/Kleemann tech advisor
• Geoff Bleiler, rental manager
• Russell Hansen, service administration
• Mike Greenwood Jr, field service technician
• Jeremy Kastelli, field service technician
• Kyle Levesque, shop service technician
• Mike Lallier, shop service technician/screeners
• Chuck Bakutis, Kleemann parts inventory management

Here are three different examples of how W.I. Clark's Blue Team has come through for aggregate customers. One recycling, one screening and one rock crushing.

JRD Properties

JRD Properties is recycling 50,000 yds. of material just off I-84 in downtown Waterbury, Conn.

This giant pile consists of a mixture of rock, dirt, asphalt and concrete and other debris that is being recycled into a 1-1/2-in. minus product and then sold locally. The area is extremely tight on space and a traditional recycling spread made up of a jaw, cone and screener just would not fit.

To make it work, Mark Brester of W.I. Clark, and the rest of Team Blue at W.I. Clark installed a Kleemann MR110 track-mounted impact crusher. This single machine takes up far less real estate, yet does the job that required three machines in the past.

The Kleemann MR110 Impactor features include:

• an independent pre-screen that effectively removes fines to by-pass the rotor. This frees up the rotor to crush what's only needed. The pre-screened fines and crushed material can blend back together underneath the crusher box. This improves machine throughput, wear life and fuel efficiency.
• The diesel/electric power (versus diesel/hydraulic) operates at a consistent rpm and constantly adjusts the amount of material being fed to the impactor box to optimize productivity and keep operating costs as low as possible.
• The classifier sizes everything discharged from the Kleemann (here 1-1/2-in. minus) and recycles anything larger back to the impactor.
• The Kleemann impactors use a material flow design concept where each component gets wider as it moves through the machine. This reduces potential blockages and maximizes material flow for optimum performance in these types of applications.
• As much as all users are careful, every crushing operation will have uncrushables fed to the system. When the MR110 rotor is immediately stopped from spinning at 1,700 rpms, the energy is relieved by a "blowout" plate. This is easily and quickly replaced and the customer is back to work minimizing very costly repairs.

A Kleemann stacker was added to the spread to lower significantly the customer's overall operating costs

JRD Properties partnered with S & S Asphalt Paving in certain aspects of this project. Bill Kirhoffer was the key person who fed the impactor daily.

"The operator in this type of setup is a huge part of the operation," Brester said. "Bill has proven to be very skillful at mixing from the pile the right combination of materials; dirt versus asphalt versus concrete, which makes all the difference in the quality of the end product."

"What's great about this setup is that we are using one machine to make one product," added Kirhoffer. "In the past we would have needed a jaw, an impactor and a screener. This has everything we need in one compact unit. I really appreciate the diesel electric power system; if something gets stuck in a belt, it just trips off a breaker where normally the belt would be ripped to shreds."

"We really appreciate working with W.I. Clark. They are truly professionals. They have been great at selecting the right machine for this job and training us on its proper operation. S & S Asphalt has been doing business with W.I. Clark for more than 30 years, however, this was our first experience using them for aggregate equipment. Mark Brester with W.I. Clark checks in with us on a very regular basis to see what our needs are. He knows the machine inside and out and has been a tremendous help to us."

O&G Industries, Southbury Plant

The O&G Quarry Southbury, Conn., plant recently purchased a Kleemann Mobiscreen MS 953I EVO.

According to Tom Alexon, quarry superintendent, "The plant was purchased primarily for the production of a 3/8-inch minus product for the use in NovaChip paving, which is in high demand. In addition, we have also used the Kleemann for some asphalt plant cleanup rescreening and classifying, but it is primarily being used for the 3/8-inch minus product production. Material that is processed through this plant has ¼-inch stone removed and the 3/8-inch minus product separated."

"The NovaChip paving process is where you pave over an existing surface using Vogele 1800 spray jet pavers and eliminate milling, but the spec for the aggregate is very tight," Alexon added. "With the increased popularity of this paving process, the demand for this stone has increased dramatically, which is what drove O&G to be looking for the new screening plant."

"One of the things that attracted us to this particular screening plant is that it is a dry screening process — thus, there are no environmental issues with water contamination."

With O&G's setup, because they are screening a 3/8-in. minus, the top decks are removed so that the screens are not worn out. Thus, material is dropped directly to the middle deck; 1/2-in. and larger materials are separated as one product; 5/16-in. material also is separated out, as well as a true 3/8-in. material.

"All of the products that are being produced, we currently have a market for," Alexon said. "Thus far, the screening plant has met all of our expectations and it has been making spec with a single pass through the screening plant, which is where O&G has really seen the benefits of this purchase. In the past, it had taken two trips through the screening plants to make spec."

Another significant benefit with the Kleemann versus O&G's previous screening plant is fuel consumption, Alexon said. "The Kleemann is easily consuming half the fuel versus its predecessor. The difference being the Kleemann operates at a much lower rpm. The screening plant itself is significantly larger and operates at a lower rpm — the combined effect is larger production numbers with lower fuel consumption."

The plant's mobility also gives O&G some flexibility in how it is used.

"The screener, with its mobility, can be used all over the O&G plant. Wherever screening or recycling needs to take place and with its mobility, it is much more efficient to haul the Kleemann around the O&G plant than it is to haul material by the bucket load to the screening plant."

Rockhead Quarry

Rockhead Quarry is producing four products: 1-1/4-in. stone, 3/4-in. clean stone, 3/8-in. clean stone and stone dust. To produce these products, its crushing spread consists of a

• Kleemann MC110ZI EVO with a 44 by 28-in. jaw
• Kleemann MCO9SI cone with classifier
• Kleemann MS703I. screen

Nick Ferraina, plant manager, commented on several features of the Kleemann plant and the services provided by W.I. Clark.

"I have really been impressed with the continuous feeding system featured in the Kleemann crushing spreads," he said. "The crusher maintains a continuous, consistent flow of material through the jaw that gives you rock on rock crushing in the cone, providing improved fragmentation. The end result is a better product."

"The new configuration that W.I. Clark and Kleemann gave us eliminated a massive spread that ate up a lot of real estate, took up twice the manpower, consumed twice the fuel and had twice the wear parts. The noise level while crushing is excellent and really helps keeping neighbor complaints to a minimum.

"This new spread is compact and portable. We could easily move the entire setup in half a day. When we made this purchase, we shopped the Kleemann and W.I. Clark and compared feature-to-feature and the economics of operation, it just made sense to go with Kleemann and the W.I. Clark Blue Team.

"W.I. Clark has given us tremendous support. They have a regular schedule of visits to check on our operations and how we are getting along with our new setup. Their training is excellent and ongoing. It certainly helps that the Kleemann equipment is interface user-friendly and has good accessibility to the areas that need maintenance. As an example, we are able to change the screen mesh in less than a half hour." CEG

CT DOT outlines plans for nearly $4 billion in capital projects  

Paul Schott  Connecticut's roads and railroad lines are used every year by its approximately 3.6 million residents and millions more out-of-state workers and travelers.

To keep up with the wear and tear, the state Department of Transportation is constantly working on maintenance and improvement projects.

The most important of those initiatives are outlined every four years in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. The DOT is receiving public comments on the draft version of the latest STIP, to cover the years 2021-2024.

The 223 projects listed in the new STIP would cumulatively be funded with approximately $3.9 billion, roughly $3.2 billion in federal money, about $684 million from the state and some $17 million from municipalities.

About 60 percent of the funds would be used for highway and bridge projects, while the other 40 percent would go toward rail, bus and ride-share programs.

Connecticut's eight Metropolitan Planning Organizations and two Rural Councils of Governments contribute to the STIP's development.

"The list of projects is wide and encompassing," said state Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the state Legislature's Transportation Committee.

Some the marquee initiatives planned across the state in the next four years, with DOT construction cost estimates, include the following:

Interstate 95 

About $345 million for renovations of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge, which carries the highway over the Thames River, between New London and Groton. Work would involve structural steel repairs and upgrades, as well as replacement of the deck for the older, northbound structure. Work has already been completed on the southbound structure.

$180 million for work in Greenwich and Stamford that would include pavement improvements and bridge renovations. On the southbound side of Exit 3 in Greenwich, there would be a minor widening of the roadway to increase the length of the existing deceleration lane to improve safety and alleviate congestion.

$142 million for improvements at exit 74 in East Lyme. The project would include replacing the highway’s bridge over Route 161, to address its poor condition and accommodate a widening on Route 161.

$70 million for upgrades in Norwalk and Westport. About two miles of the highway in those towns would be rebuilt between the Norwalk River and Saugatuck River.

The existing bridge over Route 33 at exit 17 would be replaced using “accelerated construction” and minor work would be carried out on the Westport bridges over Franklin Street and over the Saugatuck River to maintain a “state of good repair” for those structures.

Merritt Parkway

Upgrades on Route 15 in Norwalk and New Canaan would total about $53 million and include bridge improvements and resurfacing.

Metro-North Railroad

Replacement of the four-track Walk Bridge in Norwalk arguably represents the most ambitious rail project supported by the STIP.

Scheduled to start in mid-2021 and take about four to five years to complete, the undertaking has an estimated total cost of $511 million.

Built in 1896, the 564-foot-long swing bridge is one of the oldest movable bridges in the region.

“The Walk Bridge has outlived its intended lifespan and experienced repeated operational failures in recent years,” reads an excerpt on the DOT website. “It is vulnerable to damage from storm surges and high winds and requires replacement.”

The STIP also makes eight-figure allocations for improvements to several other rail bridges in Norwalk, including $60 million for the East Avenue bridge, $50 million for the Fort Point Street bridge and $15 million for the Osborne Avenue bridge.

Other projects include New Haven line signal-system replacements, whose allotments would total more than $140 million.

In addition, there is an annual program to renovate stations on the New Haven line.

Stonington approves $30 million apartment building for downtown Pawcatuck

Joe Wojtas  Stonington — The Planning and Zoning Commission has approved a special permit for a Boston developer to construct an 82-unit apartment building on the former Campbell Grain building site in downtown Pawcatuck.

The commission voted unanimously to approve the permit for the project after a virtual public hearing last week.

Plans call for a five-story, 116,000-square-foot building with parking under the building and on site and a riverfront walkway with public access. The almost two-acre site is at the end of Coggswell Street, is bordered by the Amtrak line and has 240 feet of frontage along the Pawcatuck River.

A total of 70% of the units would be considered affordable housing under state law. This means Winn Development Co. LP of Boston did not have to comply with all zoning requirements in place for the neighborhood. It also meant it would have been difficult to reject the application because the commission would have had to prove that health and safety concerns outweigh the need for affordable housing.

The project does not comply with various requirement of the zoning regulations, among these being maximum density and maximum height as well as setback requirements and maximum floor area ratio.The Economic Development Commission, which has supported the $30 million project, has said affordable housing is needed here to meet a growing demand in the region.

The EDC has also said the project will generate $500,000 in tax revenue for the town and will help revitalize downtown Pawcatuck as a walkable neighborhood with proximity to shops, restaurants, parks, the library, transportation, and other amenities.

Anna Reynolds School renovation on the ballot for Newington voters

Steven Goode  NEWINGTON — A $33.5 million renovation project for Anna Reynolds School will be decided by Newington voters when they go to the polls or send in their absentee ballots this election season. The referendum question asks whether to approve $33.5 million in bonding for a renovate-to-new building project at the elementary school.

Local taxpayers would be responsible for up to $17.5 million of the cost of the project. School building grants from the state would cover the remaining cost. The town council voted unanimously to have the question added to the ballot.

If approved by voters, construction would begin in the summer of 2021 and be completed by December 2022. Students would attend the school during construction.

District officials and parents have been seeking upgrades to the school for several years as its condition has continued to deteriorate.

Built in 1954 and originally known as Northwest Elementary School, the 65,000-square-foot building suffers from a chronically leaking roof that has led some students to joke about the school’s “waterfall feature.”

Before the roof was recently repaired again, Principal Jason Smith said that 11 of the school’s 20 classrooms were experiencing leaks, which are expected to return without a new roof.

Teachers and parents have also complained about a foul odor that is emitted in the building during times of dampness and humidity and the harm it could do to those with allergies or breathing issues.

The building is also not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act requirement, has outdated plumbing, electrical and heating ventilation and air conditioning, officials say. The only air-conditioning the school has is window units around the building and open windows. Temperature control also fluctuates greatly from classroom to classroom.

Other issues include a main entrance that does not align with modern security precautions for people coming into the building, gaps in exterior doors that allow for insects and worms to enter the building and a lack of storage areas.

Carol Duggan counts herself as a supporter of the project for several reasons. She attended the school, sent two children through it and taught kindergarten and first grade at Anna Reynolds for 27 years.

“The kids deserve to have a school with a safe environment,” said Duggan, who is a member of the school’s PTO. “Now it’s time for the town to step up.”

Mayor Beth Delbuono said a fact sheet is being prepared to be sent out with absentee ballot applications. Delbuono said she wasn’t sure if they would be sent to every household.

Waterbury downtown road reconstruction project hampered by century-old pipe system

Michael Puffer WATERBURY – Many of the gas, water and sewer pipes below the city’s center date to the late 1800s. And the city maps showing where these run aren’t entirely accurate.

This has caused a delay of several months to the ongoing reconstruction a quarter-mile stretch of East Main Street downtown, as well as an estimated $1.1 million jump in costs.

The city is pursuing a project to give a facelift to East Main Street, sidewalks and lighting between the downtown Green and police headquarters. This section runs past the downtown branch campus of the University of Connecticut, the Palace Theater, the Waterbury Arts Magnet School and an assortment of businesses.

It began this spring with an effort to fix and upgrade underground utilities. City officials don’t want to fix the street only to have to dig it up again to fix broken water pipes or other utilities.

But Dayton Construction, which has the $2.7 million contract to fix underground infrastructure, found those utilities often were not where city maps said they should be, Waterbury Development Corp. interim CEO Dan Pesce explained. So they’ve had to gingerly dig with shovels instead of heavy equipment to avoid damage and service interrupts.That means delays and extra costs.

There is one cast-iron gas main dating to 1870, Pesce said. Water and sewer lines appear to date to about 1880.

“You are looking at Civil War infrastructure that we have underground,” Pesce said. “It’s really a restoration of infrastructure dating back to 1870.”

The below ground work was originally supposed to be completed July 16. Now, Pesce said, it’s expected to wrap-up Nov. 30. Aboveground work will go forward in spring.

Mayor Neil M. O’Leary’s administration is also planning similar street upgrades on stretches of Bank Street, North Main Street and South Main Street branching off East Main. The city has secured $8 million in state transportation grant dollars for the “above-ground” work on these streets and East Main. It hasn’t yet secured funding for underground work on the branch streets.

Pesce said there’s no telling when branch streets might be upgraded until funding is secured.

Mackenzie Demac, O’Leary’s chief of staff, would only say the city is “evaluating its options” for costs of underground work on the branch streets.

State presses ahead with plans for $20 million pedestrian bridge in New London

Greg Smith  New London — The National Coast Guard Museum Association has submitted an application to the city for construction of a 400-foot glass-walled pedestrian bridge to span Water Street and connect the downtown with the waterfront and future Coast Guard museum.

The state has authorized and approved up to $20 million for design and construction of the bridge, which is considered to be a companion project to the $100 million National Coast Guard Museum. The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to consider the site development plan at its Nov. 5 meeting.

The idea of a pedestrian bridge over Water Street has been talked about for decades as a safe way to connect visitors in the downtown area and those parked at the city-owned parking garage on Water Street with the waterfront, train station, bus terminal and Cross Sound Ferry terminals.

Cross Sound Ferry partnered with the city to develop plans for a bridge back in 2001. Those plans never came to fruition, but a 2013 announcement that the National Coast Guard Museum would be built behind Union Station led to a state pledge of up to $20 million for the project.

Plans submitted to the city’s planning office show the bridge connecting the Water Street parking garage with the north- and southbound train platforms and waterfront area east of the railroad tracks.

Once completed, the National Coast Guard Museum intends to transfer ownership of the bridge to the city, which will maintain and operate it.

“The curved form of the bridge reaches north as it spans Water Street, preserving the space immediately around Union Station. The bridge’s form and orientation on the site will enhance the urban fabric of Parade Plaza by giving definition to the north edge of the open public space, while at the same time safely linking the public spaces across the greater site,” the description of the bridge in the application reads.

The bridge’s glass facade “ensures sweeping views of downtown New London,” and the glass includes a “frit pattern” designed to mitigate bird collisions. Louvers and passive fans will help provide natural ventilation in warmer months.

At the urging of Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Barry Levine and with the commission facing statutory deadlines for review of the project, the commission on Sept. 17 unanimously voted to require a public hearing on the proposal. Levine said site plan reviews don’t always require public hearings but it's been the practice of the commission to require them on big projects.

“What I shared with this applicant during a couple of workshops was putting a bridge over Water Street is a big deal and I think the public should be informed about it and have an opportunity to weigh in,” Levine said at the Sept. 17 meeting.

The commission also granted itself a 90-day extension for review of the project since the 65-day statutory timeline for action on the application would have ended on Oct. 24. He said the commission would have been forced to deny the project or face a default approval without the extension.

The commission additionally has required that the planning department refer the application to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for a 35-day window to provide comment.

New London Zoning Official Michelle Johnson Scovish said the referral to DEEP had been a subject of debate between her department and an attorney representing the National Coast Guard Museum Association, part of the reason for the delay in bringing the project to the commission.

Robert Ross, executive director of the Connecticut Office of Veterans Affairs, said he expects the project to clear all land-use approvals by the end of the year, though a timeline for the start of construction is not yet clear.

“Our view from the beginning is that the pedestrian bridge supports the National Coast Guard Museum. These two projects have to advance together,” Ross said.Work associated with the Coast Guard museum on bulkheads at the city’s waterfront is expected to start sometime next year.

Ross, designated by former Gov. Dannel Malloy as the liaison between the museum effort and various state agencies, said it has been a collaborative effort to get to this point. Agencies involved have included the Coast Guard, Coast Guard Museum Association, state Department of Transportation, state Department of Economic and Community Development and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

“All of these big state agencies have really come together to figure out how to make this happen,” Ross said.

The bridge plans, Ross said, have evolved through the years to accommodate recommendations, some surrounding its proximity to Union Station.

Mayor Michael Passero said he knows of no other transportation hub with street-level crossings like New London’s.

“We arguably have (one of) the biggest intermodal transportation hubs all here in one place. And yet the pedestrians are on their own,” he said.

Passero said he views the bridge construction as an economic recovery project for the region, an asset to the downtown “and I think it’s going to be a bit of an architectural landmark in its own right.”

“I think this is a great first step to build confidence for the people out there that still doubt the museum is coming,” he said.

In a special session, the real debate is the agenda

Mark Pazniokas  Gov. Ned Lamont issued a call Friday for the General Assembly to return next week for a limited special session, primarily to set new performance-based standards for calculating electric rates and to approve about $500 million of dollars in borrowing for school construction.

The special session is expected to take only two days, but negotiations over the agenda consumed far more time as rank-and-file lawmakers pressed leaders to include favored bills that died without a vote in a regular session curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been quite complicated,” said House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin. “It feels like Groundhog Day at times, going over the same list of bills.”

The school construction package was reduced after it grew to a level the Lamont administration saw as too generous, given the fiscal uncertainties facing the state as it tries to rebound from the pandemic-induced recession.

“There were some hiccups along the way,” said Paul Mounds, the governor’s chief of staff. “But working in close consultation with legislative leaders we’ve been able to deal with many of the concerns that were raised by our administration on various issues, particularly on the fiscal side.”

Other than school construction, Lamont said he asked that any proposal with a significant budget impact wait to be considered by the next General Assembly, which takes office and convenes on Jan. 6.

“What we wanted to do was really focus on those bills that were timely, we had to do now, couldn’t wait until January,” Lamont said.

Lawmakers would be hard-pressed, however, to argue that all 10 items in the governor’s call require immediate attention, probably including the marquee topic: energy.

Prompted by the widespread outages caused by a tropical storm last month, the energy legislation would freeze electric rates while directing the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority to craft new “performance-based regulations” and rates by September 2022.

PURA already had suspended an Eversource rate increase, and it does not need legislative authorization to explore performance-based rate approval.

With widespread anger at Eversource, the bill has a political appeal for lawmakers seeking reelection. They have tabbed the measure “The Take Back Our Grid Act.”

“The Take Back Our Grid Act promises to begin the overhaul Connecticut utilities and ensure the people of our state receive the services they pay for, ensuring that corporations focus on the people they serve instead of the profits they earn,” the Senate Democratic leadership said in a statement.

Lamont said the bill also would address excessive executive compensation.

Other topics included in the call are measures intended to ease the counting of absentee ballots, codify in state law how the prevailing wage is calculated in public works projects, redefine the extent liability for pollution stays with property when it is sold and clarify that condominiums are eligible for coverage under a program to aid homeowners with crumbling foundations.

The elections bill would allow local officials to begin processing absentee ballots before Election Day, but not open or count them. The local officials must check the signature on an outer envelope before an inner envelope is eventually opened and the ballot is fed into an optical scanner to be counted.

For the first time in a general election, any voter can use an absentee ballot — a temporary measure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s going to be 10, 20 times more absentee ballots than we’ve ever had before, and we want to put everybody’s mind at ease and give the registrars all the flexibility they need and make sure we can count these votes on a timely and accurate basis,” Lamont said.

Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, the co-chair of the Appropriations Committee, said none of the school projects in the bill requires immediate funding, but Lamont said in a hastily called news conference Friday afternoon that it was important to lock in the size of the school bonding now.

Osten has an item on the list: A measure to codify state rules for hemp agriculture. Temporary regulations are expiring, and businesses must shut down without state or federal legislation by Oct. 31, she said. A farm in Ledyard, part of her district in eastern Connecticut, was the first permitted to grow hemp. About 50 others have followed suit, she said.

“It’s not a booming business yet, but it’s not going to be booming at all if we shut it down in its infancy,” Osten said.

Under a separate call, lawmakers also are expected to confirm the judicial nominations of a Supreme Court justice and three Appellate Court judges. All four are serving on an interim basis after being appointed in July, when the legislature was not in session. A vote before the regular session was not necessary.

The legislature’s Judiciary Committee is expected to meet Wednesday on the four judicial nominations: Christine E. Keller to the Supreme Court and Joan K. Alexander, José A. Suarez and Melanie L. Cradle to the Appellate Court.

The House is expected to come in on Wednesday and the Senate on Friday.

The prevailing-wage measure is a new version of a bill that died from inaction when the General Assembly suspended its regular session in March and never resumed before its constitutional adjournment deadline in May.

It would codify in state law how the prevailing wage is calculated in Connecticut, essentially by giving the state some distance from federal control.

The state Department of Labor updates the prevailing wage rates every July 1st, but they must be finalized by the U.S. Department of Labor. Trade unions and contractors both supported the measure, saying federal inaction has led to administrative delays and confusion.

“It’s not meant to arbitrarily raise wages. It’s meant to simply protect the law as it is in practice today as a preventive measure,” the Berlin Steel Construction Company told lawmakers in written testimony in March.

But the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and the Council of Small Towns, who complain that the prevailing wage drives up the costs of construction in public works, viewed the measure less benignly.

CCM asked the legislature to complete a detailed fiscal analysis of how the bill would affect cities and towns, and COST declared itself in opposition.

“Under this proposal, prevailing wage rates must be in lockstep with wage rates dictated by union contracts, which will significantly increase costs for state and municipal projects,” said Betsy Gara, executive director of COST.

CT Construction Digest Monday September 28, 2020

State presses ahead with plans for $20 million pedestrian bridge in New London

Greg Smith  New London — The National Coast Guard Museum Association has submitted an application to the city for construction of a 400-foot glass-walled pedestrian bridge to span Water Street and connect the downtown with the waterfront and future Coast Guard museum.

The state has authorized and approved up to $20 million for design and construction of the bridge, which is considered to be a companion project to the $100 million National Coast Guard Museum. The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to consider the site development plan at its Nov. 5 meeting.

The idea of a pedestrian bridge over Water Street has been talked about for decades as a safe way to connect visitors in the downtown area and those parked at the city-owned parking garage on Water Street with the waterfront, train station, bus terminal and Cross Sound Ferry terminals.

Cross Sound Ferry partnered with the city to develop plans for a bridge back in 2001. Those plans never came to fruition, but a 2013 announcement that the National Coast Guard Museum would be built behind Union Station led to a state pledge of up to $20 million for the project.

Plans submitted to the city’s planning office show the bridge connecting the Water Street parking garage with the north- and southbound train platforms and waterfront area east of the railroad tracks.

Once completed, the National Coast Guard Museum intends to transfer ownership of the bridge to the city, which will maintain and operate it.

“The curved form of the bridge reaches north as it spans Water Street, preserving the space immediately around Union Station. The bridge’s form and orientation on the site will enhance the urban fabric of Parade Plaza by giving definition to the north edge of the open public space, while at the same time safely linking the public spaces across the greater site,” the description of the bridge in the application reads.

The bridge’s glass facade “ensures sweeping views of downtown New London,” and the glass includes a “frit pattern” designed to mitigate bird collisions. Louvers and passive fans will help provide natural ventilation in warmer months.

At the urging of Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Barry Levine and with the commission facing statutory deadlines for review of the project, the commission on Sept. 17 unanimously voted to require a public hearing on the proposal. Levine said site plan reviews don’t always require public hearings but it's been the practice of the commission to require them on big projects.

“What I shared with this applicant during a couple of workshops was putting a bridge over Water Street is a big deal and I think the public should be informed about it and have an opportunity to weigh in,” Levine said at the Sept. 17 meeting.

The commission also granted itself a 90-day extension for review of the project since the 65-day statutory timeline for action on the application would have ended on Oct. 24. He said the commission would have been forced to deny the project or face a default approval without the extension.

The commission additionally has required that the planning department refer the application to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for a 35-day window to provide comment.

New London Zoning Official Michelle Johnson Scovish said the referral to DEEP had been a subject of debate between her department and an attorney representing the National Coast Guard Museum Association, part of the reason for the delay in bringing the project to the commission.

Robert Ross, executive director of the Connecticut Office of Veterans Affairs, said he expects the project to clear all land-use approvals by the end of the year, though a timeline for the start of construction is not yet clear.

“Our view from the beginning is that the pedestrian bridge supports the National Coast Guard Museum. These two projects have to advance together,” Ross said.Work associated with the Coast Guard museum on bulkheads at the city’s waterfront is expected to start sometime next year.

Ross, designated by former Gov. Dannel Malloy as the liaison between the museum effort and various state agencies, said it has been a collaborative effort to get to this point. Agencies involved have included the Coast Guard, Coast Guard Museum Association, state Department of Transportation, state Department of Economic and Community Development and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

“All of these big state agencies have really come together to figure out how to make this happen,” Ross said.

The bridge plans, Ross said, have evolved through the years to accommodate recommendations, some surrounding its proximity to Union Station.

Mayor Michael Passero said he knows of no other transportation hub with street-level crossings like New London’s.

“We arguably have (one of) the biggest intermodal transportation hubs all here in one place. And yet the pedestrians are on their own,” he said.

Passero said he views the bridge construction as an economic recovery project for the region, an asset to the downtown “and I think it’s going to be a bit of an architectural landmark in its own right.”

“I think this is a great first step to build confidence for the people out there that still doubt the museum is coming,” he said.

In a special session, the real debate is the agenda

Mark Pazniokas  Gov. Ned Lamont issued a call Friday for the General Assembly to return next week for a limited special session, primarily to set new performance-based standards for calculating electric rates and to approve about $500 million of dollars in borrowing for school construction.

The special session is expected to take only two days, but negotiations over the agenda consumed far more time as rank-and-file lawmakers pressed leaders to include favored bills that died without a vote in a regular session curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been quite complicated,” said House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin. “It feels like Groundhog Day at times, going over the same list of bills.”

The school construction package was reduced after it grew to a level the Lamont administration saw as too generous, given the fiscal uncertainties facing the state as it tries to rebound from the pandemic-induced recession.

“There were some hiccups along the way,” said Paul Mounds, the governor’s chief of staff. “But working in close consultation with legislative leaders we’ve been able to deal with many of the concerns that were raised by our administration on various issues, particularly on the fiscal side.”

Other than school construction, Lamont said he asked that any proposal with a significant budget impact wait to be considered by the next General Assembly, which takes office and convenes on Jan. 6.

“What we wanted to do was really focus on those bills that were timely, we had to do now, couldn’t wait until January,” Lamont said.

Lawmakers would be hard-pressed, however, to argue that all 10 items in the governor’s call require immediate attention, probably including the marquee topic: energy.

Prompted by the widespread outages caused by a tropical storm last month, the energy legislation would freeze electric rates while directing the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority to craft new “performance-based regulations” and rates by September 2022.

PURA already had suspended an Eversource rate increase, and it does not need legislative authorization to explore performance-based rate approval.

With widespread anger at Eversource, the bill has a political appeal for lawmakers seeking reelection. They have tabbed the measure “The Take Back Our Grid Act.”

“The Take Back Our Grid Act promises to begin the overhaul Connecticut utilities and ensure the people of our state receive the services they pay for, ensuring that corporations focus on the people they serve instead of the profits they earn,” the Senate Democratic leadership said in a statement.

Lamont said the bill also would address excessive executive compensation.

Other topics included in the call are measures intended to ease the counting of absentee ballots, codify in state law how the prevailing wage is calculated in public works projects, redefine the extent liability for pollution stays with property when it is sold and clarify that condominiums are eligible for coverage under a program to aid homeowners with crumbling foundations.

The elections bill would allow local officials to begin processing absentee ballots before Election Day, but not open or count them. The local officials must check the signature on an outer envelope before an inner envelope is eventually opened and the ballot is fed into an optical scanner to be counted.

For the first time in a general election, any voter can use an absentee ballot — a temporary measure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s going to be 10, 20 times more absentee ballots than we’ve ever had before, and we want to put everybody’s mind at ease and give the registrars all the flexibility they need and make sure we can count these votes on a timely and accurate basis,” Lamont said.

Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, the co-chair of the Appropriations Committee, said none of the school projects in the bill requires immediate funding, but Lamont said in a hastily called news conference Friday afternoon that it was important to lock in the size of the school bonding now.

Osten has an item on the list: A measure to codify state rules for hemp agriculture. Temporary regulations are expiring, and businesses must shut down without state or federal legislation by Oct. 31, she said. A farm in Ledyard, part of her district in eastern Connecticut, was the first permitted to grow hemp. About 50 others have followed suit, she said.

“It’s not a booming business yet, but it’s not going to be booming at all if we shut it down in its infancy,” Osten said.

Under a separate call, lawmakers also are expected to confirm the judicial nominations of a Supreme Court justice and three Appellate Court judges. All four are serving on an interim basis after being appointed in July, when the legislature was not in session. A vote before the regular session was not necessary.

The legislature’s Judiciary Committee is expected to meet Wednesday on the four judicial nominations: Christine E. Keller to the Supreme Court and Joan K. Alexander, José A. Suarez and Melanie L. Cradle to the Appellate Court.

The House is expected to come in on Wednesday and the Senate on Friday.

The prevailing-wage measure is a new version of a bill that died from inaction when the General Assembly suspended its regular session in March and never resumed before its constitutional adjournment deadline in May.

It would codify in state law how the prevailing wage is calculated in Connecticut, essentially by giving the state some distance from federal control.

The state Department of Labor updates the prevailing wage rates every July 1st, but they must be finalized by the U.S. Department of Labor. Trade unions and contractors both supported the measure, saying federal inaction has led to administrative delays and confusion.

“It’s not meant to arbitrarily raise wages. It’s meant to simply protect the law as it is in practice today as a preventive measure,” the Berlin Steel Construction Company told lawmakers in written testimony in March.

But the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and the Council of Small Towns, who complain that the prevailing wage drives up the costs of construction in public works, viewed the measure less benignly.

CCM asked the legislature to complete a detailed fiscal analysis of how the bill would affect cities and towns, and COST declared itself in opposition.

“Under this proposal, prevailing wage rates must be in lockstep with wage rates dictated by union contracts, which will significantly increase costs for state and municipal projects,” said Betsy Gara, executive director of COST.

CT Construction Digest Wednesday September 23, 2020

Amid pandemic, we’ve become complacent about transportation: Getting There

Jim Cameron  When it comes to COVID-19’s impact on transportation in our state, we are in the eye of the hurricane.

That’s been the theme of my recent virtual talk to various Connecticut’s libraries and civic groups, comparing the calm eye of an intense storm to how we’ve become complacent about our transportation future. We kid ourselves if we think the winds have passed. The worst is yet to come.

Commuters who’ve returned to the rails tell me ridership is slowly coming back but many still fear for their safety on mass transit, and with good reason.

Metro-North has finally put $50 fines into effect for those refusing to wear face masks on its trains, but they’re leaving enforcement to the MTA Police who almost never are seen on Connecticut trains. Anecdotally I’ve heard from many riders who’ve seen non-mask wearing riders and conductors who do nothing to get them to mask up.

We’re talking about public health here. I think anyone who refuses to wear a mask should be kicked off the train.

The back side of the coronavirus hurricane may see a second wave of infections, but we will certainly feel the effects of six months of financial losses born by the railroad. The MTA’s Chairman Patrick Foye said the agency is facing an “existential challenge” — a $16 billion deficit by 2024.

Without federal help, he is predicting layoffs and service cuts to as little as one train every two hours. Imagine how crowded those trains will be, commuters sitting three abreast among the unmasked.

But on the state level an even greater financial storm is approaching: The Special Transportation Fund is going bankrupt faster than previously feared.

It is the STF that funds highway and bridge repairs, subsidizes mass transit and keeps transportation moving. But it relies on gasoline and sales tax revenues that have been slammed by the virus, so by mid-2022 — or maybe sooner — it will run out of money.

If the STF is in the red, nobody on Wall Street will underwrite any of Connecticut’s new bonds, not for schools or sanitation or housing. Then what do we do?

What really galls me is that nobody is talking about this.

It is an election year (as if you haven’t noticed), but our state lawmakers have disappeared, leaving the governing of the state (by executive order) to Gov, Ned Lamont who, by recent polls, is seen as doing a good job.

Some lawmakers have complained the legislature has been cut out of decision making, but they couldn’t cite which of Lamont’s emergency orders they took issue with.

Aside from their brief summer session when they passed an omnibus police reform package, now receiving criticism after we understand its details, our state reps and senators are AWOL.

Oh, they’re campaigning, but not talking about what’s coming in the next session.

Of course they don’t want to tell you now what’s going to be necessary to re-fund the STF: A combination of tolls, new taxes and higher fares. They’ll leave that bad news until after they are reelected.

That’s why all of us must force their hand. Go to their campaign rallies (fully masked) and upcoming League of Women Voters debates and ask them, on the record, where they stand on tolls and taxes. And if not those remedies, what are their alternatives?

Then we can all cast an informed vote and decide who’s best to help us weather the storm yet to come.

Construction begins at former Marina Village site in Bridgeport

Tara O'Neil  BRIDGEPORT — It’s been a long time coming, but construction has finally begun at the former site of the Marina Village public housing complex.

City officials announced Tuesday that work is underway on four building of the future Windward Commons Development.

Demolition went on for months in 2018. At the time, development was expected to begin in late 2018 and continue into early 2019, with leasing projected for this year. Instead, demolition efforts continue through this summer.

In June, Mayor Joe Ganim visited the site to watch as one of the buildings was demolished, posting a livestream from the site.

JHM Group, the developers of the site, partnered with Park City Communities, which owns and manages the city’s public housing, to revive the complex.

The $27 million project will allow for the development of 60 new mixed-income housing units during phase one, with 100 overall — a third of which have been set aside for residents relocated during the redevelopment of Marina Village.

The four-story mixed-use building will also feature a new, 7,000-square-foot Southwest Community Health Center facility. The project includes a four-story, mixed-used building at the corner of Park and Railroad avenues.

“Thanks to the leadership of our City Council and the patience of the tenants, the South End is seeing a huge rebirth right here at what’s formerly Marina Village,” Ganim said in a statement released Tuesday.

Windward Commons is phase one of a bigger redevelopment plan at the former Marina Village site. It is being built alongside the state’s Resilient Bridgeport project, which is expected to create a public green space, designed to absorb rain run-off and will include a pumping system to provide greater flood protection for the area.

The complex was flooded in 2012 during Superstorm Sandy.

New London argues State Pier project will need local approvals

Greg Smith   New London — The city has issued a challenge to the Connecticut Port Authority and crafted legal opposition to the proposed $157 million State Pier Redevelopment.

City Law Director Jeffrey Londregan, in a Sept. 2 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, reiterated the city’s argument that the port authority must first amend a 20-year-old State Pier Municipal Development Plan before it can apply for a permit to work at the pier. The plan governs activities on the property.

The proposed work at State Pier, which includes filling in 7.4 acres of water between State Pier and the Central Vermont Pier, represents a major modification to the MDP, the city contends, and requires a months-long process of public hearings and local legislative approvals overseen by the city’s development arm, the Renaissance City Development Association.

It’s a contention that the port authority has dismissed, arguing the MDP is no longer applicable since the terms of the MDP have been met. But RCDA Executive Director Peter Davis said the MDP issue was first brought to the attention of the port authority in May 2019 and that he has yet to see a written legal opinion disputing that “the MDP remains in full force and effect for 30 years from the date it was ratified. Period. End of sentence.”

New London, Davis argues, has contended with obstacles thrown up by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for Fort Trumbull, which has a similar MDP in place.

“It’s an issue of equity. The RCDA doesn’t understand how we can be held to the terms of Fort Trumbull MDP and (the port authority) is not pondering the terms and conditions of the State Pier MDP,” Davis said. “Respectfully, we don’t agree with that.”

“The city is obviously trying to protect its interests and wondering why the CPA is held to a different standard,” Davis said.

Connecticut Port Authority Board of Directors Chairman David Kooris maintains that actions contemplated by the MDP at State Pier are completed. The city acquired parcels of land and transferred them to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, which completed redevelopment there. Fort Trumbull, by contrast, remains mostly undeveloped, Kooris said, and thus the MDP remains in effect there because conditions of that MDP have not yet been met.

The opposition from New London comes even as Mayor Michael Passero continues to argue that as the host city, New London deserves better financial compensation for a project on tax-exempt land. Meanwhile, negotiations on a host city agreement with State Pier development partners Orsted and Eversource have stalled.

The lack of response from the port authority to the MDP, Passero said, is “consistent with the way this agency has acted throughout this project, to completely shut the city out of discussions and ignore any issues we raise until we get to the critical point that jeopardizes the project.”

“This is a legitimate issue we’ve raised. It’s another symptom of the agency locking out a representative from the host city to participate in their plans,” Passero said. “You can’t blame the city if this is jeopardizing the project. They can’t just ignore it. It’s the law.”

The city’s letter was a response to a solicitation of public comments by the Army Corps of Engineers as it reviews the port authority's permit application to transform State Pier into a hub for the offshore wind industry. Construction is slated to begin in 2021 but the authority must first obtain permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for aspects of the proposed work.

The comment period for the Army Corps application ran from Aug. 4 to Sept. 3, and numerous individuals and organizations submitted letters — a mix of support, opposition, questions, concerns and calls for a public hearing. The Day obtained copies of the letters through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The U.S. Coast Guard, for instance, has asked that the port authority conduct a Formal Navigation Safety Risk Assessment for the proposed project. The 473-foot-long and 184-foot-wide vessel, expected to be used in association with the work at the pier, would require 36.8% of the 500-foot channel as compared to the 19% required by vessels arriving at State Pier in 2019.

“I am concerned there may be increased risk of collision and subsequent damage to vessels in the waterway due to the reduction in available channel width …,” wrote Coast Guard Lt. Jennifer Sheehy, chief of the Coast Guard’s Waterways Management Division.

The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments is among others that have has raised concerns over State Pier's inability to accommodate freight other than what the wind industry is bringing in. There is also support. The Connecticut Business and Industry Association, a group representing thousands of small and large businesses, argues the improvements “will provide a long overdue and much needed boost not only to the Groton-New London community, but will help support the health and well-being of the entire economy of Connecticut and Southeastern New England for years to come,” wrote CBIA Vice President Eric Brown.

After the construction period and growth of the offshore wind industry, Brown writes, “Our state will have full ownership of a modernized port facility that can support numerous different cargoes and shipping opportunities.”

It is unclear when the Army Corps is expected to make a decision on the permit application.

Kooris said a legal opinion of the MDP from the port authority is forthcoming and thinks the city has a wrong interpretation of the MDP.

“The role of the MDP is to give a redevelopment agency the authority that they didn’t have … in this case the purpose of the MDP was for redevelopment. The activities the (MDP) governed are completed,” Kooris said.

Davis said while some work was completed, the city never did see the kind of economic benefits contemplated in the MDP, such as a promised multi-use cargo warehouse and associated jobs.

The MDP was adopted in 1999 to allow the city, through the New London Development Corp., to acquire 8.6 acres and dozens of homes in the area around the State Pier with state funds, enabling it to market the property for commercial use in association with State Pier. The NLDC later transferred the property to the state Department of Transportation, which expanded the footprint of the pier to about 30 acres. The property was recently transferred to the port authority.

The MDP project area is 125 acres and includes tidal waters at both State Pier and the adjacent Central Vermont Railroad Pier. The city argues that plan remains in effect until 2029.

The proposed work falls within the boundaries of the MDP, and the city contends some of what is proposed is “inconsistent with certain sections and provisions of the MDP.” Specifically, the city argues that the plan to fill in 7.4 acres between the two piers significantly changes the shoreline and triggers a review and possible series of approvals by the city before it can apply for a permit to the Army Corps.

“Clearly these elements of the proposed project are not only inconsistent with, but in direct violation of, the plain language of the MDP as adopted in 1999,” Londregan wrote. “The MDP was prepared for the RCDA and the City of New London, not for the CPA.”

Waterford Airport property ready for takeoff

Sten Spinella   Waterford — The former airport property has a new suitor. 

Vacant for 37 years, what’s known locally as “the Waterford Airport property” at 140 Waterford Parkway South is once again a target for development, this time by Fabcon Precast, a concrete manufacturer based in Minnesota. 

At 188 acres, the airport property value is currently about $4.3 million, according to the town tax assessor’s office. Fabcon did not disclose the details of its deal with Mathon Fund I LLC, except to say it’s contingent on the town approving development of the property.

Town Planner Abby Piersall said Fabcon has so far applied for inland wetlands approval from the Conservation Commission as well as filing a special permit application, which includes the site plan, with the Planning and Zoning Commission. 

The Conservation Commission has yet to come to a decision on Fabcon’s applications. Jordan Brook and Nevins Brook are both on the property. 

Piersall said the town is preparing notices for a public hearing she expects to take place in early October. 

Fabcon CFO Mark Pederson spoke to how the company scoped out the Waterford property for development. 

“We’re interested in opening a new plant somewhere in the New England market,” Pederson said. “When you start looking around at sites that are big enough to accommodate our needs, it was hard to find an appropriate site. The airport site happened to fit.” 

Since it opened its first plant in 1971, Fabcon has steadily expanded its operations. The company now has plants in Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas and Pennsylvania. 

Pederson said the Pennsylvania plant had been servicing the New England market at “quite a distance.” Fabcon determined there was enough demand in the area to warrant the building of a new plant. Although Fabcon won’t buy the land unless it gets the proper approvals for development, Peterson said “so far we’re on track to make that happen.” 

Fabcon’s land use application elaborates on its plans in Waterford.

“The development is proposed on the east side of Jordan Brook, which is approximately a 97-acre portion of the 188-acre parcel,” the application reads. Fabcon promised to demolish and remove any remaining structures and to “construct a new 123,284 SF (130,000 SF Gross Floor Area) concrete products manufacturing facility with an outdoor storage yard and related site improvements on roughly 41 acres of the 188-acre site. The building will include 122,000 SF of manufacturing and 8,000 SF of offices.” 

The plan includes a new driveway system and space for 60 parking spots. 

“Truck loading will occur at several locations around the building and in the storage yard,” the application reads. “Vehicle deliveries include gravel deliveries, hardware, steel, lumber, cement, foam insulation, admixtures, and pigments, and vehicles also will remove debris and recycle material including filter cake (concrete waste), lumber or pallets, cardboard, metals, and office debris.” 

Piersall said all exhibits related to Fabcon’s possible redevelopment of the Waterford Airport property can be found on the town Planning & Development website.  Waterford First Selectman Rob Brule is optimistic about the possible development.

"I am supportive of building the town's tax base and putting a project at the old airport property, which is zoned industrial, as long as it meets the zoning and wetland regulations of the town in all respects," Brule said.

Airport history 

Some in Waterford are unaware the town was home to an airport from 1945 to 1987. Its three runways were destroyed decades ago. Now, the property is mostly a wooded area with overgrown vegetation and some litter. 

Russell Corser, a pilot from Waterford, founded the airport in 1945. Corser announced in 1978 that he hoped to sell the land. In 1979, neither a proposed industrial park nor a proposed 19th-century “Disney Land,” complete with horse shows, a hotel and an amusement park, came to fruition. New England Savings Bank bought the property in 1984, anticipating an office park, hotel and convention center, but after $300,000 in improvements to the property, not a single building went up.  

Reynolds Metals Development Co. bought the property in 1987 with plans to build an industrial park called “Waterford Landing.” But after hundreds of thousands of dollars in soil remediation, lawsuits related to its wetlands permit and efforts to put utilities on the property, Reynolds Metals left the deal in 1997.

Rumors of different entities willing to buy and develop the property have persisted for decades, but deals never materialized.

The Mathon Fund I LLC, the mortgage-holder that foreclosed on the Waterford Airport site in 2005, faced its own legal troubles around that time. Principals Duane Slade and Guy Williams were convicted for defrauding investors of more than $167 million in a Ponzi scheme. A court-appointed conservator who was tasked with recovering money for defrauded investors took Mathon over.

“There’ve been discussions over the years, folks have come in with interest about the property and asked general questions of what could be done there, but in my five years, no one has come this far to going forward, no one else has submitted permits,” Piersall said. 

New $25M Bristol hotel, event center development breaks ground

Greg Bordonaro  evelopers have officially broken ground on a new $25-million expanded hospitality complex in Bristol that will include a hotel and event center.

The owners and managers of the DoubleTree by Hilton Bristol held a groundbreaking Sept. 17, to start construction on a new 50,000-square-foot Bristol Event Center and a 90-suite HOME2 Suites by Hilton hotel. 

The development, which will be located adjacent to the current DoubleTree by Hilton hotel on Century Drive, will be constructed on four land parcels, including a portion of the existing DoubleTree hotel site. 

The event center and hotels are owned by Dr. Gerald Niznick and managed by Prestige Hospitality Group. Niznick is privately funding the hotel.

The Hartford Business Journal was first to report the development in December. 

The Bristol Event Center will feature two hospitality suites, a ballroom and outside seating accommodating up to 750 people conference style or 450 people for sit-down dinners/weddings. 
 

The HOME2 Suites by Hilton hotel  will feature all-suite stylish accommodations with flexible guest room configurations and inspired amenities. Underground parking garage and pedestrian walkways will connect the two new hospitality venues with the existing DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton Bristol.  

Construction on Hinsdale School delayed

Kathryn Boughton  WINSTED — Town Manager Robert Geiger told the Board of Selectmen Monday night that he had met with school officials about the renovations and addition to Hinsdale School, originally slated for completion by September 2022.

Geiger said completion will probably not be realized until a later date.

“The architects have been working on all the plans, which they will put in a package to be sent for bids,” he reported. “That has been occurring over the past several months. There have been some modifications that have occurred, which is normal.”

This stage will end in coming weeks, before the specifications are sent out to contractors.

“It will take two to three months for the contractors to look at them and another few months before we see returns,” Geiger predicted. “Then a contractor will be selected. We are a long way off before there is a shovel in the ground.”

Selectman Jack Bourque asked about bonding for the project and was told the town is waiting for state grant approval.

“We have to wait until there is either a special or a regular session (of the legislature),” said Mayor A. Candy Perez. “And then we have to wait for the bonding commission before the bids can go out. The good news is, our reimbursement rate will be higher, which will save the community a million dollars or more.”

In other business, Geiger revealed that he has had a second meeting with a developer about a large parcel of land in Winchester. The property, which he did not identify, has been on the market for a number of years.

He said state permits are being sought to close the sidewalk and half of one traffic lane on westbound Route 44 in front of the former Mexican Grill on Main Street. The town has owned the property since April and plans to demolish the building to create eight parking places.

Director of Finance Bruce Stratford had both good news and bad. He said tax collections are at the same level as 2019-20, as is the town’s total revenue. Municipal leaders throughout the state had feared decreased tax payments if residents lost jobs to COVID-19, but payments have not faltered in Northwest Connecticut towns.