Torrington voters to decide on school project funding Tuesday
TORRINGTON — The Torrington School Building Committee is
hoping voters on Tuesday will approve borrowing an additional $20 million for
the middle-high school building project, which was approved for $159 million in
2021.
The referendum question reads: “Shall the City of Torrington
appropriate an additional $20,000,000 (thereby increasing the appropriation and
bond authorization approved by the voters on Nov. 3, 2020 from $159,575,000 to
$179,575,000) for the construction of a new high school, a new middle school, a
new central administrative office, and for the demolition of the existing
Torrington High School.”
The referendum will be held at City Hall only, from 6 a.m.
to 8 p.m.
Residents can read the referendum description at www.torringtonct.org/.../explanatory_text_jan_25...
Voters in
November 2020 approved building a new middle-high school and
administrative offices for $159 million. Earlier this year, the state
legislature announced that instead of 65 percent reimbursement for all eligible
costs for the project, that amount would be increased to 85 percent.
Residents voted in favor of spending $159.6 million, with
the expectation that, with about $85 million in state reimbursement, the city’s
share would be lowered to $74.6 million. With the higher reimbursement, the
city’s share has been reduced to $28 million.
The increased costs, according to committee Co-Chairmen
Mario Longobucco and Ed Arum, are driven by increased enrollment, and rising
construction costs and materials. The co-chairmen told City Council in December
that the district’s enrollment has increased significantly, which will add to
the overall footprint of the new facility. That, coupled with escalating
construction and materials costs, have resulted in the project running over
budget.
“The bottom line is, the project was approved pre-pandemic,”
Longobucco said at the time. “We had 71 percent of the voters approve it. We’ve
done preliminary designs, based on state requirements, and we find ourselves in
a position where the money that was approved, pre-pandemic, is no longer
sufficient to deliver the type of school we want.
“This year alone, there are 137 new students in grades 7-12,
that were not here pre-pandemic,” he said. “Construction costs $525 per square
foot. And as we all know, everything’s going up. Materials costs have gone up.
... So we had to go back to the drawing board.”
Arum said the district’s total enrollment increased to 267
students in grades K-12, as of Oct. 1, 2021. The state requires a certain
amount of square footage per student in a school building; if expected or projected
enrollment is up, the building must be made larger, Longobucco said.
Arum said in December that the increased enrollment is something that could stall the whole plan, unless the city acted quickly to get voter approval for the additional $20 million.
Eversource looks to replace gas lines in Bristol neighborhoods
BRISTOL – City officials said that Eversource Gas is
anticipated to be replacing gas lines in neighborhoods soon.
Those neighborhoods include Woodard Drive, Norris Drive,
Driscoll Drive, Oakland Street, Cedar Street, Leominster Road, Westminster
Road, Wooding Street, First Street, Second Street and Third Street.
Through May 2022 work will continue and is weather dependent.
Construction hours are slated between 7 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through
Friday with an occasional Saturday. Minor traffic delays are to be expected
with a single lane open to allow emergency vehicles, buses, mail delivery and
local traffic.
For more information around the projects, contact Eversource
Energy repreesntative Ron Disher at 860-608-5323 or construction superintendent
Carlos Deras at 413-244-1191
Few forecasters anticipated a wave of large-scale apartment
and condo projects when the pandemic started, but across central Connecticut
developers are building thousands of new housing units.
Along with the uncertainty of the COVID-19 era are supply-chain
breakdowns and a rough labor market, but none of that has been enough to stop a
building bonanza in the region.
“In a lot of towns, there’s been no new inventory for so
long. In Berlin, we’re going from such a small inventory to potentially 400 apartments
in the next 24 months,” said Chris Edge, economic development director of
Berlin.
“A lot of pieces are coming together: Young people are
getting married later and having kids later. They have school debt, so they’re
not looking to buy a house,” Edge said. “And then you have people looking to
downsize but stay in town. Right now there’s demand from millennials, from
empty-nesters, both ends of the spectrum.”
Developer Tony Valenti of Newport Realty, who is building
apartments in Berlin and age-restricted condos in Plainville this year, said
demand for new residential projects is intense.
“At the start of the pandemic, a lot of things were on
pause. As soon as that pause let up, a lot of pent-up demand came out,” Valenti
said. “And the cost of money was still cheap.”
Developer Avner Krohn, who has more than 700 new apartments
across the region in planning or under construction, suggested that people who
are spending more time at home now want more comfortable and stylish
accommodations.
Many builders in the region credit municipalities’ greater
willingness to offer tax breaks on new construction, and those near the CTRail
or CTfastrak lines report that access to mass transit is helping to drive
demand there.
The overwhelming majority of communities around Greater
Hartford have large-scale projects in the works, and some have several apiece.
Among them are these eight:
Avon
Boston-based Beacon Communities plans 176 one- and
two-bedroom apartments in the Avon Park South office park. It will remodel the
former headquarters of Security Connecticut Life Insurance into 76, and
construct a four-story building next door for the other 100. The company
anticipates that 140 will be affordably priced, with the rest at market rate.
Berlin
Newport Realty has just installed windows on the first stage
of the five-building, mixed-use Steele Center, which will add 76 apartments in
town. The $18 million project is alongside the Amtrak and Hartford Line
station, and developers Tony Valenti and Mark Lovley along with state officials
describe it as a prime example of transit-oriented development. The one- and
two-bedroom apartments will be leased at market rates.
East Hartford
Development partners Brian Zelman and Avner Krohn of Jasko
Development plan 360 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments on the
site of the long-closed Showcase Cinemas along Silver Lane near I-84. Rents
haven’t been established yet. Contractors this fall began the $80 million
project by demolishing the old multiplex theater.
Farmington
The former Hartford Marriott Farmington is being turned into
224 studios and one- and two-bedroom market rate apartments. A development
cooperative led by 15 Farm Springs LP paid $21.5 million for the property in
October. Part of the location’s appeal is that it’s near an I-84 exit as well
as Route 6.
New Britain
Developer Avner Krohn of Jasko Development broke ground last
year on The Brit, planned as a stylish six-story, 107-unit apartment building
in the heart of downtown. Earlier this month, he announced he’ll tear down the
aging Amato’s Toy and Hobby building next door to become the site for a twin
project. In total, that will add nearly 220 market-rate one- and two-bedroom
apartments.
Newington
Texas-based Anthony Properties plans 238 apartments near the
CTfastrak Cedar Street station. The four-story building will have studios and
one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Rents have not been announced. The
company’s proposal includes a 310-car garage, a swimming pool for tenants and a
sidewalk directly to the CTfastrak station.
Plainville
Before construction, Newport Realty reports it has already
sold the first three phases of its four-phase condo development on the
Plainville-Farmington line. Willow Brook Estates will be a 55-and-over complex
of detached, single-story homes ranging from 1,444 to 1,610 square feet. Prices
start at $370,000.
West Hartford
Lexington Partners LLC has started work on the 292-unit One Park
apartment complex at Park Road and Prospect Avenue. Developers plan studios as
well as one, two- and three-bedroom units at the former Sisters of St. Joseph
convent. About 10 percent will be designated as affordable, with 90 percent at
market rates. Amenities will include a fitness center, an outdoor pool and
electric car charging stations.
$220M+ In Harbor-Boosting Fed Funds Celebrated
Look for more room for bigger ships carrying steel, cement,
and oil to New Haven’s industrial waterfront — and less room for
climate-change-exacerbated storm surges to inundate the streets and highway on
Long Wharf.
Federally funded economic-development and climate-resiliency
projects aimed at those goals were touted at a press conference at the
Sound School Monday by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Mayor Justin Elicker, City
Engineer Giovanni Zinn, Connecticut Port Authority Executive Director John
Henshaw, and Hill/City Point Alder Carmen Rodriguez.
The reason for celebration was two
new large allocations of federal money towards boosting business at
New Haven’s ports, and towards protecting the city’s waterfront Long Wharf
neighborhood from sea level rise, flooding, and storm surges, all of which are
likely to take place more frequently and intensely in the coming decades thanks
to manmade climate change.
Those two projects are :
• The $63 million New Haven Harbor Navigation
Improvement Project, to be funded with money from the recently passed bipartisan
federal infrastructure bill, and
• The $160.3 million New Haven County Coastal Storm
Risk Management Project, to be funded with money from Hurricane
Ida federal relief funds.
“It’s a new day.” DeLauro said Monday in
a second-floor Sound School library that looked out onto the shimmering
blue waters of the Long Island Sound. “It’s a new dawn, with regard
to federal resources really being pumped into states and cities, localities, in
order to rebuild roads, bridges, ports. It is infrastructure.”
That includes investing in climate resiliency and protecting
vulnerable waterfront areas, she said.
There is “very little we can do to prevent natural
disasters from occurring.” Thus the importance of being “proactive about
preparing for them, minimizing the damage, protecting the areas
from damage.”
According to DeLauro and Henshaw, the $63 million port
project will “deepen the federal navigation channel” within the New Haven
Harbor from 35 feet to 40 feet.
That deepening of the channel will allow “larger
vessels to access our port and the terminals,” DeLauro said.
She and Henshaw said that large ships looking to unload
cargo at New Haven’s industrial ports in the Annex have real trouble making it
all the way to the terminal because of the current depth of the navigation
channel. They either have to wait in the harbor for more favorable tides, or
lighten their loads while still outside of the breakwaters.
“The project will enable New Haven to more safely and
efficiently accommodate ships coming to port by reducing tidal delays and
loitering,” Henshaw said, “accommodating anticipated growth in bulk and
liquid cargo, by accommodating larger vessels, and improving maneuverability
for deep-draft vessels.”
He said that New Haven’s port saw a nearly 35 percent
increase in vessel traffic from 2020 to 2021.
And what kinds of products are currently shipped into New
Haven’s port on a regular basis?
Henshaw said those include construction materials, oil,
cement, steel, “aggregate,” and “other types of imports.” He said
New Haven’s port has also begun exporting scrap metal from the city.
There are a total of eight different terminals in New
Haven, he added. Most of them are on or near Waterfront Street in
the Annex.
Henshaw estimated that the channel-deepening project will
take “a couple of years” to complete.
As for the $160.3 million coastal-resiliency project,
Zinn said that those federal Hurricane Ida relief funds will be used on three
main projects:
• A new flood wall along the water side of I‑95 on
Long Wharf, from roughly the side near the Long Wharf Nature Preserve to the
area across the street from the old Lenny and Joe’s restaurant. “The
height of the wall will vary” from a couple of feet to eight or nine feet,
he said, because of the uneven topography of that area. Overall, he said, the
top of the wall will stand at elevation 15.
• Five new “moveable gates that will seal off the
three underpasses of the highway” along Long Wharf.
• A new “large pump station.” “When there’s
high water in the harbor and you have a rainfall event at the same time,
the water can’t drain out of the city,” Zinn said. “So it accumulates in
the low spot,” which is the Long Wharf district. This pump station will allow
the city to more easily get those pulls of water back out into the harbor.
Some of the other coastal-resiliency projects to be paid for
with these federal funds include a “living shoreline” off of Long Wharf
to help with erosion protection.
Zinn said these federal investments in protecting waterfront
areas like Long Wharf are “visionary” because, “in Connecticut,
we’re expected to see up to 20 inches of sea-level rise by 2050.
We need to start investing now. We’re not going to be able to build all that
infrastructure very quickly in 2050 when the sky is falling. We need
to start now.”
Zinn estimated that these various projects will take roughly
five years to complete.