Master plan calls for transformation, new development along 220 acres of Middletown’s waterfront
Amaster plan has been unveiled that would reconnect
Middletown to the Connecticut River, transforming an underused 220-acre stretch
of riverfront land into a mix of uses, including restaurants, multifamily
housing, entertainment, recreational trails and a pedestrian bridge leading to
downtown.
The town has hired the architecture and urban design firm
Cooper Robertson to develop a plan for its waterfront, following a yearlong
planning process.
The plan, called Return to the Riverbend, proposes four
separate districts on the waterfront. The Riverside District would include
pedestrian and bicycle paths and a renewed Harbor Park, with a pedestrian
bridge over Route 9. The Sumner Brook District includes town-owned parcels that
would be converted into an entertainment hub, Riverbend Landing, with an
amphitheater and beer hall.
The Hilltop District includes land owned by the state of
Connecticut, which would be kept as open space for use by community members and
Connecticut Valley Hospital.
The South End District consists of the former Long River
Village along the shoreline and would be transformed into mixed-use housing.
The design plan was created through a planning process that
included comments from more than 1,200 residents during brainstorming sessions,
interviews and surveys.
With the planning stage finished, phase two, the
implementation stage, is set to begin this fall.
To view the master plan, click here.
Middletown’s riverfront – less than 1 mile from Wesleyan
University – has long been separated from the community by industrial uses and
Route 9. The town has been working to reclaim its riverfront for years, with a
wastewater treatment facility decommissioned in 2019.
Two years ago, residents approved a $55 million bonding
package that included $5 million to redevelop the waterfront. In April, the
Common Council approved the town’s purchase of the old Jackson Corrugated
Container manufacturer at 225 River Road, along with three residential
properties.
Middletown’s project comes at a time when municipalities
across the state are looking at ways of reactivating their riverfronts. A
nonprofit organization, Riverfront Recapture, has
acquired 60 acres of waterfront space on the Hartford-Windsor border and
is planning a riverwalk and an outdoor performance space, while setting aside a
10-acre cove for recreational use and another 10 acres for commercial
development.
In Waterbury, a greenway is being constructed along the
Naugatuck River.
Lease for Bridgeport Park City Wind project remains up in the air
BRIDGEPORT — Eighteen acres of vacant waterfront property is
hard to come by in Connecticut, so the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson ferry
company’s lot along Seaview Avenue on the harbor stands out.
Based on prior announcements, that prime land is supposed to
house a staging area for the construction/maintenance of the off-shore Park City Wind project while the
ferry, located across the harbor, prepares to eventually build a new terminal
on a portion of the site.
But as the ferry company’s environmental cleanup of its
acreage — dubbed Barnum Landing — drags on, the two sides have yet to finalize
a lease agreement, even
though one was announced in spring, 2021.
And in a recent statement for this report, Avangrid
Renewables, which owns Park City Wind, declined
to reaffirm its plans to utilizing the Seaview site or divulge if it is eyeing
alternative locations.
“AVANGRID is committed to making Bridgeport a centerpiece of
the Park City Wind project while delivering significant economic benefits to
the state and continues to work with the mayor’s office, the City Council, and
local business owners to optimize our operations in the port,” Craig Gilvarg,
Avangrid Renewables’ director of communications, said in an email.
But as of Friday the Park City Wind website continued to
state it was “partnering” with the ferry company “to redevelop an 18.3-acre
waterfront industrial property in Bridgeport that is currently underutilized
and undeveloped.”
“I’m fairly confident that we will at some point have a
deal,” Fred Hall, the ferry company’s general manager, told Hearst Connecticut
Media. “We continue to talk ... to try to define what exactly the relationship
is going to be between the two entities in terms of space utilization.”
Hall added, “We can’t let them use it until we clean it up.”
“We’re still in clean-up mode. We’re still getting the
contamination squared away,” Hall said. “We’re a year out on (finishing)
cleanup.”
How does that fit AVANGRID’s timeline? According to a
document forwarded by Gilvarg, the offshore wind project remains in the
permitting stage, with state approvals “on track” but federal permits delayed
by nine months. The revised timeline shows manufacturing is now scheduled to
begin in early 2024, versus mid-to-late 2023, pushing installation and
commissioning of Park City Wind from mid 2024-25 to early-mid 2025-26.
Meanwhile another harbor front neighbor of the ferry
site, Bridgeport
Boat Works, a shipyard operator located at 731 Seaview Ave., is looking to
get into the offshore wind business with its own staging area.
In May U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, all Democrats, signed a letter to the U.S. Maritime
Administration in support of an effort by the city and Bridgeport Boat Works to
obtain $11 million in federal aid to help fund “ground improvements and
construction of a seawall and service dock to facilitate component transfers to
offshore wind vessels, and related services.”
The letter does not mention Park City Wind by name, and
Gilvarg was unable as of Friday to answer a question about whether Bridgeport
Boat Works could be an alternative staging area. He did in an earlier email
state, “AVANGRID is providing support to a local Bridgeport company, Bridgeport
Boat Works, which has applied for federal infrastructure funding to enhance its
ability to provide services to the offshore wind industry.”
Himes in an interview acknowledged the Park City Wind
project is “absolutely slow going.”
“The amount of permitting and work — it’s a massive project
with all kinds of potential pitfalls along the way,” he said. “(But) there’s
only a couple of ports up and down the Northeast where you’ve got unobstructed
access to Long Island Sound. Bridgeport is one of them. Bridgeport has a real
competitive advantage.”
Norwalk schools have four building projects underway. Are they on track?
NORWALK — Power and water will be shut down at Cranbury
Elementary School for a couple of days next week while utilities are relocated
during construction
on the new school building.
Cranbury is one of four school construction projects
underway in Norwalk, all in various stages of development. The project managers
with Construction Solutions Group also provided updates to the Common Council’s
Land Use and Building Management Committee on the nearly completed Jefferson
Elementary School, the new Norwalk High School, and the South Norwalk
neighborhood school.
Construction crews broke ground just west of the existing
Cranbury building a little over a month ago, and preparations to lay the
foundations are underway, according to Mike Faenza, Construction Solutions
Group project manager.
The school’s powerlines currently run onto
the property from Grumman Avenue, but those lines will interfere with
the steel erection, set to begin in the fall, Faenza told the Committee this
week.
All the lines will need to come down and be relocated so
power is restored at the existing school building and to facilitate
construction on the new school before the fall, the committee was told.
“It’s a very, very challenging project,” Norwalk’s Building
and Facilities Manager Alan Lo told the committee. “We’re doing everything we
can. There are still supply chain issues, so we’re trying to get ahead of it.
Everything is being ordered as soon as we can, and we are very conscious of
those issues.”
The project remains on schedule for the new school to open
in time to welcome students in for the 2023-24 school year, he said.
“Demolition on the old school will then begin. That’s the
schedule,” Lo said.
Jefferson School
Jefferson teachers’ belongings have been moved
back to their home building on Van Buren Avenue following the
completion of all major construction work at the newly renovated school, the
committee was told. A few small projects are left to finish. All the furniture
is expected to arrive by the end of the month.
Faenza shared a couple of photos with the committee of the
updated cafeteria-auditorium and the learning commons. The commons space
includes three rectangular portholes which students can look through and see
down into the cafeteria.
Installation
of new solar panels on top of Jefferson will begin in mid-July,
according to Bill Hodel, facilities and maintenance director for Norwalk Public
Schools. He said he expects to complete the project by mid-September.
Norwalk High
The Norwalk High School project is moving into the design
development phase, the committee was told. The schematic designs for the new
school — to be built on the existing football field — were completed last month.
The architects will now add more details to the designs and incorporate
feedback the firm has received from numerous stakeholders over the past two
months.
“Many, many, many conversations continue to happen with the
Board of Education administration and school leadership about what they want,
what do they need … any other final adjustments,” Lo said.
The project team met with the city’s Transportation,
Mobility and Parking group as well as the school district’s transportation
coordinator in late May to discuss the planned bus drop-off and pick-up area. A
meeting with the NHS athletic director and the Recreation and Parks Department
was held in early June to discuss the pool and support spaces, the committee
was told.
The project team has also met with teachers and staff from
individual disciplines including the four major subject areas and the visual
and performing arts. Several meetings were held with the district’s security
director and the schools’ security officers as well as Norwalk police and fire
departments to address safety and security concerns around the new school, the
committee was told.
South Norwalk School
The city will close on the property at 1 Meadow St.
Extension, the future
home of South Norwalk School, later this month.
The search for an architect will begin next week with the
city issuing a response for quotation and response for proposal. A couple of
weeks later, the same will be issued to find a construction management firm for
the project, the committee was told.
More upgrades are coming to Bradley International Airport with $20 million grant
A $20 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration
will be used for improvements at Bradley International Airport in Windsor
Locks, Gov. Ned Lamont and members of Connecticut’s federal legislative
delegation said Friday.
Money from the FAA’s airport terminals program will be used
to increase the capacity of Bradley International’s ticket counter area as well
as improving baggage handling at the airport. The federal money is a small
piece of the $185 million price tag for the project, most of which will come
from bonding, said Kevin Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport
Authority, which oversees Bradley’s operations.
“This was a competitive grant that hundreds of airports
applied for and only 85 were selected to receive,” Dillon said. Construction
work on the improvements will start this fall and take about two years to
complete, he said.
The centerpiece of the project will be to relocate the
baggage security screening machines from the area adjacent to the ticket
counters. The screening machines will relocated to an 80,000 square foot,
multi-level addition that will be added to the rear of the terminal building,
Dillon said.
“Bradley is one of the last remaining airports that has the
security checks of baggage done in the lobby of the terminal,” he said. “These
machines are going to relocated so that your bags will be taken at the ticket
counter and carried using a comprehensive and significant conveyor system to a
place in back of the terminal building where the security check will be done.”
The grant will also allow the airport to meet certain
requirements in the Americans With Disabilities Act and enhance other
requirements that have already been met.
The FAA’s terminals program is funded through the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with $5 billion in grants available to
address aging infrastructure of the nation’s airports. The work at Bradley is
expected to create 2,500 jobs during the construction process.
“Bradley is already considered one of the best airports in
the nation with service expanding to more and more cities across the United
States,” Lamont said. “With this new federal funding, the experience of flying
into and out of Bradley will continue to be first-class.”
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2, said the improvements at
Bradley reflect how heavily used the airport has become. Bradley is New
England’s second most active airport in terms of passenger traffic after
Boston’s Logan International.
“While waiting in BDL’s currently crowded terminal space,
it's easy to see that it’s just about reached capacity - there’s hardly any
room to increase the number of flights and airlines available to passengers, or
to augment the flow of traffic,” Courtney said. “Increased funding through the
new Infrastructure law means that CTDOT will finally have the resources for a
long-awaited upgrade to BDL’s terminal space, providing the airport with room
to offer more flight options, serve more passengers while cutting down on wait
times.”
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D - Conn., said the grant “will
improve the airport experience and save travelers time, all while creating
good-paying jobs and making Bradley more energy efficient.”
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1, called the airport “a vital
piece of Greater Hartford’s transportation network.”
Commercial airline service at Bradley started in 1947. An
expansion of the airport’s only existing terminal for domestic travelers was
completed in 2002.
Later this month, the Connecticut Airport Authority
will open
a new transportation center car rentals and other links that is
adjacent to the domestic terminal building.
As Evergreen Walk prepares to welcome two prominent new
tenants, South Windsor planners likely will decide Tuesday on a proposal for
165 apartments at the retail hub.
The idea got extensive public support and only mild
criticism at a recent hearing, and Town Manager Michael Maniscalco wrote that
it will bring in an estimated $400,000 in new tax revenue.
Small and large merchants along with tenants of the existing
Tempo apartments told planners they’re enthusiastic about more housing next to
Evergreen Walk, which has struggled with commercial vacancies for several years
after opening to good-sized crowds in 2004.
This year, plaza managers announced that Shake Shack and
Whole Foods will be opening new outlets there, two of the best-known names to
locate at Evergreen Walk in years. Last fall, Costco opened a
163,000-square-foot warehouse outlet alongside the property.
Costco told the planning and zoning commission that it
supports the plan for new apartments nearby.
“Like all retailers, Costco relies on a healthy and diverse
consumer market of neighboring homes and residences,” Ernie Annibale, a Costco
regional manager, told the commission in a June 17 email. “The addition of 165
new units at Evergreen Walk will surely add customers for not only Costco, but
for all our neighboring businesses at Evergreen Walk and throughout the area.”
Roberta Gowing, Cordelia Harrington and Rita Graicerstein,
all residents of nearby Kebalo Lane, spoke against the project at the
commission’s June 28 hearing. Gowing said construction would disturb wildlife
on the site, and Harrington and Graicerstein both said the proposed buildings
are too high.
But the overwhelming majority of comments were supportive.
“The market demand for apartments in this area is
significantly increasing,” Tempo tenant Mingxi Liu wrote. “Constructing more
residency buildings at Tempo would ameliorate the shortage of high-quality
apartments, prevent overpricing and stimulate surrounding commercial
activities.”
Tenant Matthew Papke was among the supporters who said more
housing will be key to the revival of the plaza’s retail center.
“It is clear to me that any revitalization of the shops at
Evergreen Walk will require additional foot traffic,” he wrote. “As a Tempo
resident, I frequent the shops, and it has been sad to see so many close due to
the lack of customer support.”
The owner of M&R Liquors on Buckland Road just in front
of the plaza also said planners should approve a zone change for the project.
“As our town’s second largest taxpayers, Evergreen Walk’s
health and stability is of the utmost importance,” Gary Rounseville wrote. “The
addition of 165 new residential units within walking distance to shops like mine
will provide needed new customers and help protect one of the town’s most
important assets.”
Andy Liu, owner of the Sakura Garden restaurant at the
plaza, said new customers are increasingly important to Evergreen Walk
businesses because of changes in retailing. In most markets, traditional malls
and so-called lifestyle retail centers have lost ground to online shopping,
which affects both the stores themselves as well as the hair salons,
restaurants and service businesses nearby.
“A great deal has changed in the nearly two decades since
Evergreen Walk first opened. Consumers have changed how they shop, and
retailers and tenants have changed to remain competitive,” Liu wrote. “COVID
has also taken its toll.”
Like many other supporters, Maniscalco told planners that
South Windsor will need the new tax revenue and building fees to help pay for
$75 million in new school reconstruction costs. And even though the land next
to Evergreen Walk was initially planned for more retail, the town must adapt to
the shifting retail market, he said.
“Unfortunately, the world of commercial (development) in
particular has changed, and with that our original plans need to be rethought,”
Maniscalco wrote.
The planning and zoning commission in January rejected a
previous version of the apartment plan, saying it wouldn’t benefit the town.
The developer filed a lawsuit and submitted a revised proposal that it says
addresses commissioners’ concerns; the lawsuit is still pending but is expected
to be dropped if the new plan is approved.
The commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday at 7 p.m. at
council chambers in town hall.
Hope for new Hudson River tunnels
It should have been done by now.
2018 was the expected completion date of the new railroad
tunnels under the Hudson River, first proposed in 2009. At that time
the $9 billion project was the biggest infrastructure project in the
country. Now it may finally happen.
Why do rail tunnels from New York’s Penn Station to New
Jersey matter to us here in Connecticut? Because they are the
weakest but most crucial link in the northeast corridor, home to 23% of
the U.S. economy. Imagine trying to get to Philadelphia or Washington
without Amtrak running through our state, into those tunnels and to points
south.
There are 23 bridges and tunnels connecting Manhattan from
the north and east. But between that island and New Jersey there are
only six… two of them those rail tunnels built in 1910. And when
super-storm Sandy flooded those tunnels in October 2012 with 3.5 million
gallons of salt water, their lifespan was shortened by decades due to
corrosion. They need to be augmented and repaired.
If one of those two rail tunnels were to fail, the entire
nation would be in an economic crisis. We had a taste of that last
week when Amtrak closed one of the tunnels for a couple of hours due to a track
problem, backing up the morning rush hour as dozens of trains queued up even as
others broke down, further clogging the tubes.
New York’s Penn Station was never built to handle the
430,000 daily passengers it handled each day pre-COVID (vs the 750,000
who enter the much-larger Grand Central Terminal). Amtrak, NJ
Transit and the LIRR then carried twice as many riders at Penn as New York’s
three airports combined.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania residents alone make up 16% of
Manhattan’s workforce. Their rail commuting options are so tight
that many must rely on the 7,700 daily commuter buses that bring them into the
commuters’ nightmare known as The Port Authority bus terminal.
All that could have changed if the 2009 plan to build
additional rail tunnels had gone through. But then, along came Chris
Christie, the newly elected governor of the Garden State who balked at the cost
and pulled the plug.
Cynics say that he did so to instead spend money on highways
and keep the state’s gasoline tax low for another few years, even after
repaying Uncle Sam for $95 million already spent on the rail project.
During the Trump administration the President dutifully
avoided even promises to do anything about the tunnels, ignoring the city where
he made his fortune, out of sheer spite.
But now there’s new hope: an agreement between New Jersey and New York’s governors
to share the cost of the first phase, a staggering $14 billion for the local
share of the aptly named Gateway project. Then, it’s hoped, the feds will
chip in the other half.
As the always-prescient 100-year-old Regional Plan
Association points out, the tri-state area cannot afford to not build
for the future just as those before us did, leaving us an infrastructure now
almost a century old and crumbling from neglect.