Milestone in New London High School construction project celebrated
Greg Smith New London — It wasn’t just an ordinary steel beam.
The bright yellow beam lowered into place by a crane on Tuesday was part of a topping off ceremony marking an early but significant step in the $108 million construction project at New London High School, now known as the New London High School Multi-Magnet Campus.
The completion of the steel frame of the new addition to the school is considered a milestone after years of behind-the-scenes work to get the long-delayed project on budget and underway. Work on the addition started earlier this year.
“That beam is symbolic, but we’ve accomplished a big milestone. Once you get that steel completed, things start happening very quickly,” said Douglas Rogers, director of construction and facilities for the Capitol Region Education Council, the group overseeing the project.
Construction crews with the joint venture firm Newfield + Downes guided the beam, topped with an evergreen tree and American flag, into place as a band played in the parking lot. The beam had been painted with dancing figures, the words "Whaler Pride" and signed by a host of well wishers.
The beam will eventually be covered over as part of an addition that will eventually boast space to accomodate an expanded arts program with things like a dance studio, and choral and band rooms, among other amenities. The new addition, which wraps around the back of the building, will also house administrative offices and the new front entrance to the school.
Superintendent Cynthia Ritchie said the project will bring new opportunities and allow a showcase for students’ talents.
“The New London Multi-Magnet High School building construction project highlights the multi-year collaborative efforts of the City and New London Public Schools,” Ritchie said. “The project will bring forth amazing new spaces, featuring top-of-the-line equipment and technologies, that will truly allow our students to shine … shine in classrooms, on stage, through their printed and graphic artwork, and during a variety of musical performances. ”
The project is slated for completion in November of 2023 with a complex construction schedule. Work will proceed while students are attending classes and the newly constructed addition, once completed, will be used as swing space while other sections of the school are renovated.
Highlights of the project include a former pool area converted into a new cafeteria and added space adjacent to the gymnasium that will house ADA-compliant team locker rooms. Classrooms and other spaces, such as a new culinary arts area, will be renovated or constructed during a later phase of the project.
When completed, the school will house the visual and performing arts magnet program for students 6-12 and high school STEM and International Baccalaureate magnet programs. The Science and Technology High School of Southeastern Connecticut is already part of the school campus.
The $49.5 million middle school construction project, which obtained city land-use approval in October and will soon be underway, will house middle school STEM and International Baccalaureate programs.
The high school and middle school projects are part of the school district’s conversion into the state’s first all-magnet school district. Voters in the city approved the $165 million project in 2014 with 80% of the cost of major parts of the project being reimbursed from state coffers.
“Since construction has begun, we’ve moved along at a very swift pace and I’m thrilled the community can actually see progress,” said school board member Bryan Doughty, also a member of the School Maintenance and Building Committee.
Doughty played tuba in the band performing during Tuesday’s ceremony and was joined by a school administrator, student, teacher and parent.
Cromwell's new town garage coming in months ahead of schedule
Jeff Mill CROMWELL - The new public works/Water Pollution Control Authority garage is in the final stages of construction, according to town officials,
The new nearly 40,000-square foot building could be ready to open “on or close to the first of the year” - months ahead of schedule, officials said.
The $9.3 million facility sits on a portion of a 13.5-acre parcel of town-owned land in the Northern Tier industrial Park.
It is nearly double the size of the existing garage complex, which is located at the rear of Pierson Park.
The decision was made to construct a new garage because the existing garage complex “is too small and does not sufficiently meet the needs of the town,” Town Manager Anthony J. Salvatore said before construction began.
Now, furniture has been moved into the new building and the contractor “is addressing punch-list items,” Town Engineer Jon C. Harriman said.
The work is being done by the D’Amato Construction Co., of Bristol.
D’Amato had 540 days from the date the construction permit was issued in October, 2019 to complete the work.
That would place the final completion date in the “April/May timeframe,” Harriman said Tuesday.
D’Amato has already submitted a request for a certificate of occupancy, which is currently being reviewed by the town’s building official, John Egan.
The town moved the sand and salt storage shed from the present highway garage to the new one before the onset of winter, Harriman said.
The fabric-covered facility was removed to the new site, given a new skin, re-erected and then the piles of salt and sand were trucked to the new site and dumped in the shed, officials said.
“No decision has been made about any possible future uses of the current highway department garage,” Salvatore said, “with the exception of the Quonset hut and the old wooden build.”
Those two buildings will be demolished.
The wooden building dates back to the late 19th or early 20th century.
The Quonset hut is a half-moon-shaped, pre-fabricated steel-sided building.
Once the highway department and the WPCA move into the new facility. “We intend to issue an RFP (requests for proposals) for a study of the remaining buildings,” Salvatore said.
The study will determine “if those buildings have any viable use, as well as assessing the space needs of Town Hall,” he said.
$135M for new federal courthouse in Hartford hailed by Connecticut’s Congressional delegation
Kenneth R Gosselin Connecticut’s congressional delegation Tuesday hailed the approval of $135 million for a new federal courthouse in downtown Hartford that would replace the aging and outdated court complex on Main Street.
“The 57-year-old U.S. District courthouse in Hartford has simply outlived its sell-by date,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. “There are major structural problems and its design makes providing court security very difficult. A new courthouse will bring judicial civil and criminal operations into the 21st century.”
The $135 million approved late Monday in the federal budget and COVID-19 relief bill is just the first appropriation that will be needed for the project that is eventually expected to cost about $270 million.
The federal courthouse in Hartford was ranked this year as No. 1 among all federal courthouses in the country that needed to be replaced. The existing courthouse is part of the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building and Courthouse on Main Street, just south of the Hartford Public Library.
Rep. John Larson said the delegation worked together to get the project moving.
“The federal judiciary has found that the federal courthouse in Hartford is the most outdated in the country,” Larson said.
Talked about for several years, the project is still in its earliest stages. A site must be found for the new courthouse and no construction timetable has yet been established. According to a staff member in Sen. Chris Murphy’s office, a groundbreaking could still be a couple of years away.
Murphy framed the funding as a “big deal” to give the project a start.
“The $135 million we secured will create construction jobs in Connecticut and build a space that will be safer for judges, jurors, plaintiffs and defendants,” Murphy said.
In an email, a spokeswoman for Chief Judge Stefan R. Underhill and the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut said the court was grateful that initial funding for the project had been secured.
“We understand that we have now reached our first major milestone,” Clerk Robin Tabora wrote. “The court recognizes this is a long process. We are excited to continue working with the [General Services Administration] and the city of Hartford to get this new courthouse designed and constructed.”
In 2019, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the GSA was examining building design and locating potential sites in downtown Hartford after concluding a year earlier a new courthouse was needed.
Construction of a new courthouse was needed to address significant ongoing security, space and building condition deficiencies at the existing location in Hartford and was the judiciary’s top priority, a spokesman for the courts said.
David Sellers, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, told The Courant last year security concerns are high on the list for replacing the existing courthouse, built in 1963 and named for Ribicoff, a former governor and U.S. senator, in 1980.
“Currently, prisoner movement is through public corridors, and through the public entrance of each courtroom because the layout of the building does not allow for separation of public, prisoner, judge and staff circulation,” Sellers said.
The sally port where prisoners are transported to and from the court isn’t big enough. The co-location of Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in the building are also a problem.
The complex now has eight courtrooms and 11 chambers, many of which do not meet modern size standards. A new courthouse would likely have 11 courtrooms and 18 chambers for 18 judges.
“In addition, growth in replacement judges throughout the district will be consolidated in the new Hartford facility, minimizing the need for additional space in New Haven and Bridgeport,” Sellers said.
The delegation, all Democrats, said there was some eleventh-hour lobbying to get the Hartford project included in the legislation.
Republicans in the U.S. Senate had only included funding for a new courthouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee, even though Hartford ranked as the top courthouse replacement site for the second year in a row by the Federal Judiciary Courthouse Project Priorities list.
If Hartford wasn’t included, it would have been the first time Congress overrode the recommendation by the judiciary.
“When it became clear that the Hartford funding was in trouble of receiving nothing because of an egregious and frankly unfair earmark inserted by Senate Republicans, the delegation was able to come together to make it right to ensure Hartford received its fair share,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who is set to take over as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
‘Pozzotive’ energy: Concrete, environment benefit from Urban Mining CT’s recycled product
Steve Barlow BEACON FALLS — The jelly jar you tossed into the blue recycling bin last week might become part of the concrete bridge you ride over in the future.
A new facility that recently opened on Breault Road takes the recycled glass collected by municipalities and changes it into a white, powdery material that can be mixed into cement, which can then be used for everything from roads to bridges to sidewalks.
Not only does it make the cement more durable, the material, known as Pozzotive, prevents discarded glass from clogging landfills and reduces greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.
“It’s a win-win-win,” said Louis Grasso Jr., the inventor of Pozzotive and one of the owners of Urban Mining CT, which built the Beacon Falls plant.
Grasso’s family owned a cinder block company in Kingston, N.Y., 20 years ago. While working on a project in New York City, Grasso met an architect, Robert Cox Jr., who advised him to figure out how to use recycled materials in his blocks. Grasso, 58, eventually developed Pozzotive.
The concrete block company was sold, and the Grassos started another business, Urban Mining Northeast, based in New Rochelle, N.Y., which produces and markets Pozzotive. One of its best customers is O&G Industries, and the Torrington construction firm convinced Grasso that a Connecticut site would be worthwhile.
O&G leases the 20,000-square-foot plant in Beacon Falls to Urban Mining.
Urban Mining stockpiles at its plant the recycled glass collected at municipal recovery facilities. The glass arrives there mixed in with paper wrappers, bottle tops, plastic, food residue and other debris. Some of the glass itself contains ceramics as well.
Grasso’s patented process initially sorts out the debris and removes the ceramics from the glass until it’s a sandlike substance. “We clean the glass here to 99.5% pure glass,” he said.
That substance is then further refined until it is a white powder that can be stored in silos on the property. The Pozzotive is then trucked off to cement plants, where it can replace up to 50% of the cement.
The Pozzotive makes the concrete harder, according to Patrick Grasso, Louis’ uncle and another owner. The concrete also lasts longer because it’s less permeable, making it resistant to road salt and the thaw-freeze cycles of water, he said.
“Every ton of cement generates a ton of (carbon dioxide) gas; 6% to 7% of greenhouse gases in the world are attributable to cement,” Patrick Grasso said. “By replacing the cement, we’re greatly reducing the carbon footprint.”
Also, two-thirds of the glass put into recycling bins winds up going into landfills. “There’s so much of it that doesn’t have a home right now. This product is a solution for that,” he added.
Concrete companies have traditionally used another additive, such as fly ash, a byproduct of coal power plants, to mix into their cement. But with coal plants going offline, the availability of fly ash has dwindled.
After producing test batches over the past month, Louis Grasso expects the plant to be in production within a couple of weeks. There are seven employees now; at full production, that number should double as the plant produces 50,000 tons of Pozzotive in a year.
“That’s 50,000 tons of greenhouse gases we’ll keep out of the air,” he said.
COVID-19 relief package could aid construction through infrastructure funds, PPP loans
UPDATE: Dec. 22, 2020: The U.S. Congress passed a $900 billion pandemic relief bill last night that includes $600 stimulus payments to qualifying individuals and a new round of Paycheck Protection Program funding for small businesses impacted by COVID-19.
Although it took months to reach an agreement on a second relief bill, funds in the bill for transportation and small business loans could aid construction, Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of America, said in a statement.
“The new coronavirus recovery measure … should provide some needed relief for a construction industry that is coping with project cancellations and job losses in most parts of the country,” he said.
Sandherr pointed to $10 billion in funding addressing the shortfalls from state transportation revenue brought on by the pandemic. That funding should keep many road projects safe from cancellation and delays for a few months, he said, and includes new funding for waterways and ports.
The legislation also ensures tax deductibility for business expenses paid with forgiven PPP loans, something many contractors had been concerned about for months.
“The measure reaffirms the original congressional intent that employers that used Paycheck Protection Program loans to save jobs will not be forced to pay more taxes next year as a result,” Sandherr said.
Elected leaders returning to Capitol Hill this week face several issues impacting the U.S. construction industry.
Liability reform, a new highway funding package and Payroll Protection Program forgiveness are all on lawmakers' to-do list.
“We have this kind of mix between what we want Congress to accomplish and what we expect Congress to accomplish,” said Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives for AGC.
Turmail said he expects partisan compromise will be more challenging than ever because it is an election year.
“Neither party wants to give the other party a victory before the election,” Turmail said. That's compounded by the fact that Democrats hope to flip the balance of power in November, which means they’d rather wait until January to pass their own legislation, rather than compromise this fall.
Peter Comstock, director of legislative affairs for ABC, echoed Turmail’s expectations.
“Things get more contentious as it approaches the election. Parties may be staking out stances, so they’re less likely to make agreements,” Comstock said.
In a survey of Construction Dive’s readers at the end of August, 93% of respondents said they believed the election would slow down the decision-making process.
In addition, AGC CEO Stephen E. Sandherr recently said during an AGC webinar that neither Democrats nor Republicans have shown any real commitment to helping the industry.
“I would say neither,” Sandherr said when asked which party is better for the industry. “We have a Republican Senate, we have a Democratic House, and they have done nothing” on issues of importance to construction.
In contrast, ABC announced its endorsement of President Trump on Aug. 28.
“Your continued support for fair and open competition, job creation, small businesses and expanded workforce development initiatives during your first term in office have helped ABC members grow their businesses, upskill their workforce and create career enhancing jobs,” ABC President and CEO Michael D. Bellaman and ABC 2020 National Chair Tim Keating wrote in a letter to Trump.
Liability reform and relief
There is a divide in party lines about the biggest issues facing the country and construction, Turmail noted.
“Democrats have made it clear they want relief for local governments, whereas Republicans have made liability reform their red line,” he said.
AGC and ABC are both pushing for that liability reform, as contractors’ concerns grow over potential legal action from workers who contract COVID-19.
Although contractors can do everything to follow guidelines and protect their workforce onsite, workers who test positive for the virus may sue their employer for compensation, even though the exact location where a person contracts it is often unknowable. Currently, there is no distinct legal language protecting contractors, or indeed any employer, from such a lawsuit.
Comstock said liability reform is certainly the biggest issue for the ABC. The organization wants contractors to focus on following CDC safety guidelines for their workers, rather than trying to avoid potential litigation.
FAST Act speeding to expiration
Democrats proposed a new surface transportation bill in the Senate in early June. The new bill would last five years and include $494 billion for building and maintaining highways, replacing the current budget.
Funds from the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act — originally passed in 2015 — will run out on Sept. 30, 23 days after the congressional recess ends.
While ideally the new bill would receive approval quickly and provide security on road infrastructure construction for the next few years, Turmail wasn’t optimistic the bill would get passed. It is much more likely, he said, that the bill gets extended, though AGC hopes it is for more than just a few months.
That kind of shorter extension would amount to kicking the can down the road, and could end with the same gridlock. Making the extension longer — closer to a full year — or passing new legislation entirely would provide security and assurance for the future, Turmail said.
Comstock said representatives and senators campaigning at home — away from Washington, D.C. — could hurt the passing of a spending bill, but said he believed neither party wants it to fail, which would look bad for both. Nevertheless, a decision on infrastructure spending is vital to the survival of some businesses, especially small ones.
“Many businesses aren’t going to last six months, or can only last that long, and some will last only a year,” Comstock said.
Paycheck protection and employee retention
The Paycheck Protection Program, a part of the CARES Act, helped businesses pay employees during the first months of the coronavirus. Now, as summer comes to a close, businesses need to be wary of an IRS ruling that could mean they need to pay more in taxes next year.
A forgiven PPP loan is tax exempt, but using the loan can reduce how much a construction firm can write off on its business taxes, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. If there is no decision made by Congress, contractors could see themselves with fewer deductions and more taxes than they’d normally have.
The tax increase could make things rougher for smaller businesses during an already rough time, Comstock said, and ABC is specifically looking for an extension of a federal employee tax credit, or some other alternative to PPP, due to the uncertainty most businesses face about their future.
“If anything is addressed, it’ll be [PPP taxes] hopefully,” Comstock said.
At the same time, the pandemic has exacerbated the labor shortage. In an AGC survey in August, 44% of firms who have tried to recall laid-off or furloughed workers said some staff have shown a preference for unemployment benefits, or remained at home to care for their families and remain completely safe from the virus.
Expectations vs. reality
The impact on contractors from the coronavirus has continued into the election season, and those two factors have contributed to an increasingly unknowable future.
“The pandemic is raging longer than most people had hoped. We’re still facing market uncertainty, economic uncertainty,” Turmail said.
The reality is most issues will likely be leveraged for politics, so while extensions are possible, it’s contractors who will have to deal with the impacts of continued inaction.
“Thankfully, after the election, this won’t be an election issue," Comstock said. "We’ll still need to address the COVID issue. It’s a matter of timing before that’s accomplished."