$230M in projects at Bradley International Airport anticipate passenger growth
Kenneth R. Gosselin
In anticipation of future air travel growth, Bradley
International Airport is embarking on two major projects that will cost nearly
$230 million aimed at transforming the airport’s terminal and making room for
more airlines, passengers and amenities.
The state’s largest commercial airport will construct a
system that will transport checked baggage along a mile-long network of
conveyor belts to a new building near the Sheraton hotel for security
screening. The $185 million project will remove baggage screening from the
terminal lobby, freeing up space for at least 16 new airline ticket counters.
Bradley checks about 2 million bags a year, not counting
carry-ons.
A companion, $42 million project will include additions to
the east and west sides of the terminal. New sets of escalators and elevators
will connect the concourse and baggage claim, also creating new lounge areas
for people waiting for travelers arriving at the airport.
The idea is to relieve the congestion on the one central
stairwell that now serves all passengers. The central stairwell will eventually
be eliminated, opening up more space for travelers standing in line at the
nearby passenger screening checkpoint. At heavy travel periods, the line often
spills out into the lobby.
Kevin Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport
Authority, which oversees Bradley’s operations, said the projects will help
absorb expected airline and passenger growth in the coming years, putting off
the need to build a second terminal.
“I do think, in Bradley’s future, a second terminal is
inevitable, but we want to push that out as far as we can for obvious financial
reasons,” Dillon said. “A new terminal building, you’re talking in excess of a
billion dollars.”
Experts say screening baggage in airport lobbies was a gut
reaction after 9/11. In the past decade, however, screening has largely been
moved out of airport lobbies, with air travelers expecting to hand off luggage
to ticket counter agents for screening elsewhere, they say.
“There’s just something [psychological] about seeing the bag
on the belt,” Ty Orbaugh, global director of aviation at San Francisco-based
architectural firm Gensler, which designs airport projects, said. “I think you
feel it’s going to get where it needs to get to. There’s a level of safety
there.”
Similarly, more airports are looking at passenger
“circulation” projects like the two additions at either end of the terminal at
Bradley, Orbaugh said. There’s a growing emphasis on making it easier to get
around, whether on foot, in a wheelchair or on crutches, Orbaugh said.
“The more opportunities you give passengers to move freely —
it’s a much safer environment,” Orbaugh said.
At Bradley, the projects are expected to be finished in the
next two to three years.
Construction will begin this fall and kicks off just months
after Bradley cut the ribbon on its new, $210 million ground transportation
center. The transportation center consolidated all rental car companies in one
place and added more parking — all connected to the terminal.
The largest chunk of combined financing for the two new
projects — $104 million — is expected to come from airport reserves and
borrowing through the sale of bonds. Those bonds would be repaid by revenues
generated by the airport.
Federal airport grants of about $40 million — including a
$20 million competitive grant awarded this summer from the federal
infrastructure legislation — and about $45 million from the Transportation
Security Administration, which handles the baggage screening, are part of the
funding package.
The final piece of financing, about $38 million, is expected
to come from passenger facility charges. Those charges, up to $4.50 per
passenger boarding an aircraft, are allowed at airports such as Bradley that
are controlled by public agencies.
The launch of the two improvement projects, however, comes
at an uncertain time in air travel market nationally and in Connecticut.
At Bradley, leisure travel surged this summer, but business
travel, which represented half of Bradley’s passengers before the pandemic,
continues to lag.
Experts have said air travel for meetings within companies
may largely be lost to Zoom for good, but meetings with clients are likely to
pick up again.
The big-ticket projects at Bradley also coincide with the
emergence of the once-sleepy backwater of Tweed-New Haven Airport as a
competitor. Tweed, which isn’t overseen by the CAA, now offers some of the same
routes as Bradley, particularly leisure flights to Florida on Avelo Airlines.
Air travelers arriving and departing Bradley plunged in the
pandemic to 2.4 million, from 6.75 million in 2019, according to statistics
from the CAA. In 2021, Bradley logged 4.6 million passengers.
Dillon said annual air passenger counts appear to be on pace
to recover to pre-pandemic levels by 2023, and, despite uncertainty, he is
optimistic about future growth. This year, Bradley has seen the expansion of
routes, particularly with low-cost carrier Breeze Airways. Breeze also is
making Bradley an operations hub.
Dillon said he is keeping his eye on the variables of
business travel and Tweed’s expansion as well as airlines nationally adjusting
the number of flights, responding to staff shortages.
“You have to factor that into some of the decisions that we
make,” Dillon said. “With these two projects, we believe, we’re behind the
times, and it needs to be done. Some of things that we are doing now, we’re
playing catch-up.”
On a recent afternoon, Dillon and the CAA’s director of
engineering and planning, Bob Bruno, walk through the airport lobby, passing
the baggage screening machines.
“I feel very comfortable saying this: Bradley is one of the
last airports in the country where you have these behemoths in the lobby,”
Dillon said. “As you can see, each of these machines is very labor intensive,
feeding the bag in.”
With the new system, luggage will be sent to screening via
the conveyor system at the ticket counter. Passengers won’t have to take the
separate step of bringing them to the screening machines in the lobby.
The screening will take place on the lower level of the new
80,000-square-foot building tucked in behind the back of the hotel. An upper
level is expected to be used for future gate expansion, essentially the
beginning of a second terminal that could be built on where the now-demolished
Murphy terminal once stood. A “mezzanine” above that may be used for offices
and mechanical equipment.
The screening project is being paired with two additions of
10,000 square feet each on the west and east ends of the terminal anticipating
passenger growth and easing congestion between the concourse and baggage claim.
Both will be equipped with areas designated for people
waiting to meet arriving passengers. Now, those people often wait at the top of
the existing central stairwell, adding to the area’s congestion.
On the east end, there will be space to expand and add
another entrance to the popular Escape Lounge and another concession, Bruno
said.
On the opposite end of the terminal, there is a tighter fit
because the Sheraton is so close, but access off the addition to the hotel is
planned.
“It’s going to transform the building,” Bruno said. “Maybe
it’s not as dramatic as the ground transportation center, but it will be a
dramatic difference for passengers in terms of how they come and go.”
Bridgeport aims to finally break ground on new Bassick High
BRIDGEPORT — City officials expect to finally break ground
on the new Bassick High School in January and have it open for the 2025-26
school year.
If that timeline holds, Bassick, located on the West End,
would officially open in a new four story, 204,000-square-foot structure in the
South End six years after the state initially set aside funds for the project
in summer 2019.
"We are ready to go. Paperwork is almost done,"
City Councilman Marcus Brown, chairman of the school construction committee,
said in an interview Friday.
In recent weeks the Bassick plans received local zoning
approvals and, because the school is being built in the sometimes-waterlogged
South End, also flood management certification from the state Department of
Energy and Environmental Protection.
"In order to receive reimbursement from the state, this
project must follow all state statutes and regulations concerning floodplain
management. This project fulfills those requirements," Will Healey, a DEEP
spokesman, wrote in an email earlier this week.
During a construction committee teleconference Thursday,
Larry Schilling, a who is helping manage the work for the city, said there
are a few more issues to clear with the DEEP and state Department of
Transportation, after which Connecticut's school construction office can
give Bridgeport the go ahead to put Bassick out to bid.
"They're anxious to give it to us," Schilling told
the group.
And if that happens, then the city is aiming to start
construction in January and, according to Ganim's administration, be up and
running for the 2025-26 academic year.
It was summer 2019 when Gov. Ned Lamont's administration and
the General Assembly agreed to spend $90.8 million to replace Bassick. At the
time it was to be built in the same West End neighborhood as the existing,
100-year-old school, but for $115 million.
Due to various changes and delays — including the Ganim
administration's abrupt
and controversial decision in 2020 to purchase land from the University of
Bridgeport in the South End for $6 million and erect the new Bassick there —
the price tag increased to $129 million, complicating the state's original
financing approval.
During this spring's legislative session state lawmakers
authorized the revised Bassick project and price tag.
One of the complications has been the need to address
flooding issues in the South End.
As previously reported, a massive, federally funded
initiative dubbed Resilient
Bridgeport, authorized in 2014, is aimed at keeping the neighborhood dry
during severe storms. But Resilient Bridgeport, which has yet to break ground,
is over budget. And while its management team had as of spring 2021 urged the
city to hold off on Bassick, the Ganim administration decided not to
wait, requiring
design changes to the new school to prevent flooding there.
"We had to do the new plans because Resilient seems
like it's not gonna ever happen," said Councilman Ernie Newton, another
school construction committee member.
Offshore wind partners move forward despite missing out on grant
Erica Moser
While the Offshore Wind Industry Cluster in Connecticut
was not among 21 economic development projects the federal
government picked to each receive between $25 million and $65 million, its
partners vow to continue their work to shore up the burgeoning local offshore
wind industry, though perhaps in a scaled-back form.
Heading up a coalition, the Southeastern Connecticut
Enterprise Region (seCTer) put forth a portfolio of projects totaling $59
million, asking for $39 million in the Economic Development Administration’s $1
billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge to offset $20 million in matching
funds.
The largest portion would have been for the University of
Connecticut: $26 million for research and development facilities, research and
development activities, and a business incubator. The ask also included $23
million for Business Park North in Norwich, $7 million to create a workforce
pipeline for offshore wind, $1.4 million for identifying supply chain gaps, and
$671,000 for to assess sites for development.
The cluster was named one of 60 finalists out of 529 applicants last
December, and received $500,000, but learned earlier this month it was not
selected for further funding.
SeCTer Executive Director Paul Whitescarver said a group
from the EDA will meet with Offshore Wind Industry Cluster partners in
mid-October “to see what they can do to push these projects forward.” He
completed a survey to tell the EDA what he thought the priorities are, which
Whitescarver cited as workforce development, the business park, and identifying
brownfield sites that need remediation. The request for the business park came
from Norwich Community Development Corp.
Another partner is the Connecticut Center for Advanced
Technology, which focuses on supply chain development for global industrial
companies. President and CEO Ron Angelo said CCAT will continue to work on
developing the supply chain database, and to seek state and federal funding
sources.
Angelo said CCAT applies the same principles whether talking
about aerospace, defense or clean energy: The organization starts by looking at
who is in the marketplace, assesses the capabilities of existing companies, and
analyzes gaps.
“All the capacity for supply chain right now doesn’t exist
here. It’s over in Europe; it’s in China,” Whitescarver said in a Build Back
Better Regional Challenge virtual
showcase presentation on April 26. “So, our whole idea behind the
cluster development is to bring it here to the United States and more
specifically to our region.”
He explained that the projects represent “the entire
business cycle”: from research and development to business incubation to
locating new businesses in the Norwich business park, with workforce and supply
chain development. SeCTer has also facilitated a partnership with Rhode Island
and Massachusetts focused on workforce, supply chain and marketing.
R&D plans still in development at UConn
Talking in January, between when the OWIC was selected as a
finalist in the federal challenge and when it submitted a proposal for phase 2
funding, University of Connecticut’s Kylene Perras said if they didn’t receive
the funding “we’ll be sad, we will be disappointed, but certainly we won’t
stop; we’ll continue to explore what may be available.”
Perras, assistant dean at the UConn School of Engineering,
said this past week that UConn will continue to brainstorm how to move forward.
She was heavily involved in discussions about bringing blue
tech R&D centers to the Avery Point and Storrs campuses, something she said
UConn has been working toward for some time. The director of the Eversource
Energy Center and the marine sciences department were also involved in the
Build Back Better proposal.
Perras said last week she doesn’t have a timeline now for
when an R&D center would come to fruition or know its size, but said the
first step is getting feedback from the EDA, as Whitescarver referenced.
Workforce board works on pipeline for wind jobs
The Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board’s
proposal was to transform the successful Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative for
offshore wind. David Allard, senior manager of talent acquisition at EWIB, said
the MPI ― a short-term training program with no cost to participants ― has
resulted in more than 2,500 job placements since its inception in 2016 and ran
50 classes last year.
“The fact that we have the Manufacturing Pipeline in the
region really creates the infrastructure for us, and then it’s just a matter of
working with the employer partners to determine what their needs are, and
that’s the process we’re engaging in now,” Allard said Friday.
He had a meeting this week with Revolution Wind, the
Ørsted-Eversource venture to bring offshore wind power to Connecticut and Rhode
Island, which includes the redevelopment of State Pier in New London.
He said the application to the EDA included a commitment
from Ørsted and Eversource to fund workforce development. But not getting the
grant “changes how much we’re really able to do and how we’re able to do it,”
and so discussions are on the most critical needs and priorities.
Some MPI classes may be transferable to the offshore wind
industry, such as welding.
Council of governments assessing sites for development
The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments’
proposal as part of the OWIC application focused on identifying sites for
development up and down the Thames River.
Executive Director Amanda Kennedy said the components
include building a better GIS system, researching what kinds of properties
would be most in demand for the offshore wind industry, and conducting
brownfield assessments.
The idea for a GIS upgrade is to allow people to search for
parcels that are of a certain size and zoned for commercial, which Kennedy said
would be useful because since different towns have different zoning categories,
“It’s hard to say, ‘Show me all the commercial.’”
An EDA grant would’ve provided enough finding to hire a
consultant to figure this out, and Kennedy said she doesn’t know yet how
difficult this will be.
But she said SCCOG just got a new GIS coordinator two weeks
ago, who can take on the work her predecessor was doing in reviewing alternatives
to the current parcel viewer. Kennedy still thinks it would be great to get
funding for a consultant to do some of this work.
As for the other elements of the proposal, she said there
are brownfield funds available through state and federal sources, but first
they need to dig more into “what properties are going to be most in demand, so
we can then seek funding for the brownfields.”
Kennedy said all this work ― especially the GIS viewer ―
would be beneficial not only to the offshore wind industry but also to other
industries, because it’s about the “general capacity to support development of
underutilized sites.”
Developer seeks approval for apartments along New London’s waterfront
Johana Vazquez
New London ― A developer is looking for approval to build 81
residential units and two commercial spaces on 150 Howard St., partially
overlooking Shaw’s Cove.
The Planning and Zoning Commission discussed the proposed
four-story development on Thursday night with Matthew Greene, the attorney for
developer Keystone Capital Corp. and property co-owners One-fifty Howard LLC
and Nancy E. Wildes.
According to city records, the owners purchased the property
in 2017 for $1.
Needing more time to look over delayed materials, the
commission deferred a decision on the application until its next meeting on
Oct. 6.
The property was home to Miner and Alexander Lumber Co. but
has been vacant for almost 20 years, Greene said during the meeting. He and a
team of engineers and architects sought a site plan approval and a special
permit to change the use of the property to mixed use because it would have two
commercial spaces facing Howard Street.
Greene said the development would have four floors. He said
the commercial spaces would comprise about 5,200 square feet on the first
floor. Behind the retail spaces, depictions show parking.
He said the top three floors are residential and would
include 15 studio, 31 one-bedroom and 27 two-bedroom units.
The property would also have a public access walkway to
Shaw’s Cove and a rooftop garden.
In the Waterfront District Zone, Greene said building height
restrictions are 25 feet but there are options for the commission to increase
that under the special permit provided parking is under the structure.
Greene said at the highest point, the height would be 66
feet, 3 inches. But with a base elevation of 5 feet, he said the developers are
asking for a height of 61 feet.
In contrast, Greene said that across the street, The
Residences at Fort Trumbull, which has 203 units, is 60 feet at the top of the
fifth floor.
Required to have 108 parking spaces for its size, Greene
said the apartments would have 130 spaces with 13 electric car charging
stations.
The Planning department did not receive comments from the
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection until Thursday.
Barry Levine, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said the
commission would need time to look over the multiple pages of the comments.
Greene said the late arrival of the comments sets the
developers back. He said they will also have to go before DEEP and get
approvals.
Wildes, reached by phone Friday, said she was not privy to
the details of the proposed development. Greene could not be reached.
The development on 150 Howard St. is the third proposed
apartment complex along Hamilton street in recent years. Construction of The
Residences at Fort Trumbull is underway. The Docks, a 137-unit apartment
complex, opened in the past year at the corner of Howard and Bank streets.
Kosta Diamantis employee grievance case hearing set for Monday
Andrew Brown
State officials are set to hold a hearing on Monday to
decide whether to proceed with a grievance case that Konstantinos Diamantis, a
former state deputy budget director, filed against Gov. Ned Lamont’s
administration last year.
The hearing will bring to a head a conflict that has been
simmering since last fall and threatens to dredge up past disputes that
allegedly existed within the governor’s administration.
The case stems from Lamont’s decision to remove Diamantis
from his appointed position as the deputy director of the state Office of
Policy and Management on Oct. 28, 2021, and Diamantis’s subsequent decision to
retire from his other post as the director of the state Office of School
Construction Grants and Review, a classified job that offered civil service
protections.
At that time, Diamantis was told that he was being placed on
paid administrative leave pending a state ethics investigation into his
daughter’s hiring at the Division of Criminal Justice, while Connecticut’s
chief state’s attorney was seeking pay raises for state prosecutors.
His suspension and eventual exit from state government also
occurred just eight days after a federal grand jury subpoenaed Lamont’s
administration seeking records and emails related to Diamantis, the State Pier
project in New London and the state’s school construction grant program.
Diamantis filed the grievance accusing top state officials
of mistreating the former OPM secretary, Melissa McCaw, in November. The state
moved to dismiss the case in June.
On its face, the upcoming hearing should be rather simple:
Officials with the Employees’ Review Board, which is tasked with reviewing
cases involving suspensions, demotions and other state personnel matters, are
being asked to throw out Diamantis’s case.
As part of that process, the review board has been asked to
determine if Diamantis should have been able to rescind his resignation and
regain his job as the director of the school construction program — as he
attempted to do last fall.
OPM and the state Department of Administrative Services
argue Diamantis was not entitled to return to that job because he resigned
while under investigation for his daughter’s hiring and while facing possible
disciplinary action.
As a result, the state agencies argue he was not in “good
standing,” which is required to resume employment with the state.
Diamantis and his attorneys disagree on that point, and they
argue that he was not officially facing any disciplinary action in October —
even if he was the focus of an ethics investigation.
Diamantis further alleges that he was “strongarmed” out of
his position and forced into a “hasty retirement.” His initial decision to step
down, he claims, was made while he was “emotionally distraught” and while
“operating off of bad advice” from state officials.
Diamantis and his attorneys are also trying to make the
hearing about much more than the state rules surrounding retirements and
resignations.
The case could take on a life of its own due to some of the
allegations that Diamantis leveled in his initial 24-page complaint and more
recent filings.
In those records, Diamantis contends that he was placed on
paid leave and subjected to the ethics investigation only because he spoke out
against “racial and gender injustice and cronyism.”
The complaint specifically accused Joshua Geballe, the
former DAS commissioner, and Paul Mounds, Lamont’s chief of staff, of
mistreating and disrespecting McCaw, who served as the director of OPM until
earlier this year.
In a recent brief, Diamantis claimed that those members of
Lamont’s administration “harassed” him and his coworkers, created a “hostile
work environment” and initiated “baseless investigations into his conduct.”
In response, the attorneys for the state have pointed out
that Diamantis never raised any of those issues before he was pushed out of his
position at OPM, and they argued that those allegations were not relevant to
the case in front of the Employees’ Review Board.
“It is notable that the grievant first leveled these
meritless allegations only after learning he had been relieved as Deputy
Secretary of OPM and that his own conduct had come under intense scrutiny,”
they wrote in a recent brief. “The grievant’s attempt to deflect attention from
the pertinent facts in this case — that he voluntarily resigned not in good
standing — should be rejected and the grievance should be dismissed.”
It will ultimately be up to the Employees’ Review Board to
decide how to consider the various allegations.
The hearing is currently set to take place over a video
conference at 10 a.m. on Monday.
Projected price tag for redevelopment of Hartford’s Martin Luther King apartments jumps $12.7M
Projected costs of a pending redevelopment of the Martin
Luther King affordable housing complex into a mixed-income community have
jumped from $50 million to $62.7 million in a little more than a year.
Project organizers blame inflation and rising interest
rates, which have forced adjustments to the number of units and ratio of
affordable to market rate apartments.
Affordable housing provider Sheldon Oak Central plans to
demolish the roughly 52-year-old, 64-unit apartment complex on 7.3 acres at 79
Van Block Ave., and replace it with a denser development that now would also
include market-rate units. The nonprofit has partnered with Simsbury-based
Vesta Corp.
In July 2021, the plan was to begin demolition in early
2022. The new, $50 million development would include 90 market-rate apartments
and 71 affordable, for a total of 161 units.
Now, organizers expect to spend $62.7 million to build 155
apartments, 86 of which would be affordable and 69 market rate.
The project’s financing plan includes $5.8 million from
Hartford and the Capital Region Development Authority, along with a $29.7
million mortgage. The remainder would be drawn from low-income housing tax
credits, state housing funds, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
funds and deferred development fees.
Despite setbacks, Sheldon Oak Executive Director Emily Wolfe
said the project is nearly ready to launch, with designs 90% complete and
financing lining up. She expects to begin demolition in October with the
relocation of the last remaining tenants. She also plans to release
construction bid documents that month.
Wolfe anticipates demolition beginning in the first quarter
of 2023.
Insurer marks 600th foundation fix
Eric
Bedner / Journal Inquirer
With the recent restoration of a concrete foundation in Ellington, the captive insurance company fixing the widespread safety hazard has reached another milestone — replacing 600 foundations in the state, officials announced on Wednesday.
Anna Hyde of Ellington originally applied to the program on
Aug. 29, 2019, and waited patiently before having her foundation replaced,
Michael Maglaras, superintendent of the Connecticut Foundations Solutions
Indemnity Co., said.
“This is an important day in the history of CFSIC, and for
Anna, and an important day for all the victims of the crumbling foundations”
disaster, he said.
Hyde said that Maglaras called her personally on Wednesday
to congratulate her.
CFSIC President Steven Werbner said there has been “great
cooperation” from Gov. Ned Lamont and his staff, adding that “they believe in
what we’re doing, and they realize the deep economic and human impact of
CFSIC’s success.”
To date, CFSIC has paid out nearly $100 million for
foundations, as well as reimbursements for previous replacements.
With more than 2,200 total claimants since launching on Jan.
10, 2019, CFSIC officials are expecting to reach the 1,000 foundation
restoration milestone in the next 18 months.
As foundations are repaired, families are not only returning
to safe homes, but municipalities are also beginning to see their property tax
rolls return to normal as homes that were reassessed are returned to their true
market value.
“When the crumbling foundation crisis burst in 2016, the
milestone of repairing 600 homes seemed beyond reach,” U.S. Rep. Joseph D.
Courtney said.
Courtney has been a steadfast supporter of homeowners with
crumbling foundations as the problem has saturated his district. On Wednesday
he highlighted state funding, federal aid in the form of tax relief, and funds
for testing, as helping to stabilize the real estate market in north-central
and northeastern Connecticut.
“The crumbling foundation issue has not only posed a safety
concern, but it also has had the potential to be economically damaging to the
northeastern region as a whole, regardless of whether your own personal home is
among those that have been impacted,” Lamont said. “I am glad that the state
has been able to partner with 600 homeowners to address this issue and help
bring some security to their homes and their lives — it was the right thing to
do.”
On Wednesday, Hyde praised the CFSIC staff, particularly
claim adjuster Nicole Carrozza, for making the process “seamless.”
“I am so grateful to the state of Connecticut and CFSIC,”
Hyde said.