Torrington school ‘going up so fast’
SLOAN BREWSTER
TORRINGTON – When asked if there have been any glitches in
the ongoing $179.5 million Torrington High School/Middle School construction
project, the project manager immediately acted upon superstition.
“Where’s wood?” Dan Hetzler asked, knocking on an edge he
found on a nearby pile of construction materials. “None so far.”
Hetzler and Building Committee Co-Chairman Edward Arum said
the project is running on schedule and within budget, and construction crews
from O&G Industries and architects from Slam Collaborative are working well
together.
Superintendent Susan Lubomski echoed that sentiment after
visiting the campus Wednesday morning.
“The building project is on schedule,” she said. “The
building is going up so fast. The weather has been perfect for the project.”
Ground officially was broken in October 2022, though some
work was done at the site previously, Arum said. The state will reimburse 85%
of all eligible costs, with the city responsible for the remaining 15%.
Arum credited state Rep. Michelle L. Cook, D-Torrington, for
getting the state to chip in the bulk of the funding.
“We have contingency, just in case we find something we
didn’t anticipate,” Arum said. “But right now we’re in good shape.”
The 310,000-square-foot building will house students in
grades 7-12. The goal is to complete the high school portion by December 2024
and bring students in by February 2025, Arum said. Middle school students are
expected to enter by September 2025.
In March 2025, after everyone has moved into the new spaces,
the old high school will be demolished, and new ball fields and parking lots
will be installed in its place.
The project began with the high school wing and, as of
Wednesday, the steel framing was completed in the cafeteria and kitchen, and
the four levels were erected. The plan was to begin laying slab for the
main-level floors late this week. From there, flooring will be laid in all
levels, with a week in between each level.
When school closes for summer break this year, work will
begin to connect the new building to the old school’s gym – the only area of
the current school that will be salvaged.
“The reason why, we saved $1 million, but also if we put a
brand new gym in, it would’ve been smaller,” Arum said, noting size
restrictions have changed per state law.
The gym will be stripped down to the steel frame and all new
materials will be installed.
After the high school population moves into the new
building, the old building, sans the gym, will be taken down, and a new
entrance and foyer will be added to the gym, as well as an auto shop in the
back.
After middle school students arrive in September 2025, crews
will work on building the new athletic fields until about Christmas of that
year.
Total crane count rises but commercial work dips
The overall number of construction cranes at work in major
North American cities grew 7% in the first three months of 2023 compared to the
third quarter of 2022, although cranes on commercial projects were down 20% for
that same period, according to the most recent crane
index from Rider Levett Bucknall.
Of the 14 cities surveyed, eight experienced an increase in
the number of cranes, two saw a decrease and four held steady.
Despite labor concerns and economic uncertainties, “we are
continuing to see new projects break ground within our 14 key markets,” the
report reads. “We anticipate the number of cranes to remain high into 2023.
Despite uncertain market conditions, construction projects will continue to
break ground, albeit at a cost.”
The twice-a-year crane index provides a snapshot of the
amount of work underway in major metros, while also measuring the kind of work
that’s being performed. Residential (51%) and mixed-use (22%) make up about
three-quarters of the crane uses, while commercial projects accounted for 12%,
down from 15% since the last report.
Las Vegas had the largest percentage growth; it added nine
cranes, up from three in the previous report. Seattle saw a 21% increase from
Q3 2022, also adding nine cranes. Toronto continues to have the highest number
of cranes of all measured cities at 238, 139 of them residential-related.
US cities’ Q1 2023 crane count indicates continued
investments
The number of construction cranes in each city as measured
by Rider Levett Bucknall.
Recent reports about construction show conflicting indicators
about the industry’s economic future. Dodge’s
Momentum Index — which measures nonresidential building planning —
tumbled 8.6% in March, in part due to banking insecurity spurred by recent
banking failures. The index leads actual construction by about 12 months.
Meanwhile, construction’s demand for jobs remains high,
with 412,000
unfilled positions for which contractors are actively recruiting. That
indicates that builders are still in “growth mode” despite recession fears,
according to Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu.
New Track, ‘Dislocation’ Necessary for High Speed Rail, Murphy Tells Chamber Luncheon
Cate Hewitt
MONTVILLE — Boosting the speed of train travel along the
Northeast corridor is a top priority, according to Sen. Chris Murphy, that will
require new track and “dislocation” for communities along the rail corridor.
Murphy made the comments at a luncheon sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce of
Eastern Connecticut on Wednesday.
Murphy spoke to about 150 attendees in the Earth Ballroom at
Mohegan Sun about “four big pieces of legislation that we moved in the last
Congress” that included infrastructure, prescription drug pricing, renewable
energy jobs and issues of gun violence.
“The rail line obviously matters to us. No matter where you
live in Connecticut, that rail line in particular, the line that connects
Boston to D.C., it’s the lifeblood of our economy, and with a stop in New
London, it obviously matters greatly to southeastern Connecticut.
But it’s atrophying,” said Murphy. “You know the story
— that it takes you 20 minutes more to get from New London to New York
City today than it did in 1950. That’s inexcusable.”
Murphy said that of the $66 billion in the infrastructure
bill designated for rail, he and his colleagues were able to “earmark $30 to
$35 billion of that – half of that money – just for the stretch of rail from
Boston to Washington, D.C.”
He said the funding will help put into action Gov. Ned
Lamont’s plan to decrease rail travel time for Connecticut to travel to New
York and to Boston.
“That piece of legislation is really important for
Connecticut – infrastructure matters more here than anywhere else,” Murphy
said.
Responding to an audience question about building spurs
along the rail lines to more cities and towns, Murphy said the focus needs to
be on the main line first.
“I believe you’ve got to get the main line right first and
that we have to improve the experience and reduce the time that it takes to get
from New York to Boston, and that the bulk of our dollars should be going into
that project first,” he said. “Because once you get that more reliable and
faster, then you’re going to attract a lot more consumers to any branches that
you build.”
Murphy said the only way to significantly speed travel along
the existing line is to build new track “in places where there isn’t track
today.”
“And building new track involves some dislocation. Nobody’s
ever built anything important or meaningful in this country without there being
some dislocation,” said Murphy. “I understand communities rightfully get
very upset about that and we will work with every community to make sure that
the dislocation is the least amount possible. But we have a choice to make as a
state, we either want that rail line to be viable, or we want zero dislocation,
you just can’t get both. And that’s just a tough conversation we have to
have.”
New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study
Since joining Sen.
Richard Blumenthal in 2016 to oppose a proposed high-speed rail bypass through
southeastern Connecticut and southern Rhode Island, Murphy has spoken in public
on a number of occasions in
favor of investments in high-speed rail and the need for improvements outside
of the existing Northeast Corridor right of way.
Opposition to that planning left future plans for high-speed
rail between New Haven and Providence unresolved in the Federal Railroad
Administration’s NEC Future master plan for the Northeast Corridor. The 2017
record of decision, which put in place goals for speed and capacity along the
entire corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston, also mandated the
completion of a New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study to identify on-
and off-corridor infrastructure that could achieve those objectives.
The proposed Old Saybrook to Kenyon, RI rail bypass – FRA’s
initial solution between New Haven and Providence – was set aside in the 2017
record of decision, but will remain part of the forthcoming study, along with a
proposed expansion of the rail corridor between Branford and Guilford.
In a recent letter to the Charlestown, RI town council,
Andrew Koziol, the assistant chief of planning at Rhode Island Department of
Transportation, told Council President Deb Carney that Amtrak applied for
funding the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study on March 27.
At Wednesday’s luncheon, CT Examiner asked Murphy about the
status of the study and the bypass. He responded that he didn’t know about the
study and couldn’t speak to it.
Murphy reiterated that, in general, it is not possible to
decrease the amount of time it takes to get from Boston to New York without
building new track or straightening the existing track.
“We need to do that straightening and build that new track
in a way that is the least impactful on communities, but we cannot expect that
we’re going to make progress without building some new track,” he said.
Murphy said he understood the “uproar that happens in
southeast Connecticut” and said there may be a way to do it better with less
impact.
“But let’s be honest, there will be opposition anywhere we
propose building additional infrastructure,” he said. “But if 100 years ago, we
decided not to build, [or] to build no track anywhere, because it would involve
dislocation, we wouldn’t have a single bit of… we wouldn’t have built the
northeast corridor to begin with. So we’ve got to be sensitive, we’ve got to do
this carefully, but we’ve got to build.”
Upcoming water main repairs on Greenwich Avenue will mean closed roads, less parking for a year
GREENWICH — Aquarion Water Company expects to start repair
work on the water line under Greenwich Avenue soon with the work likely causing
intermittent road closures in coming months.
Aquarion, through its partner Snyder Civil Engineering,
expects to start work this spring and take a full year to complete. The
companies have not specified when work will start.
Crews are expected to work at night as much as they can, but
parts of Greenwich Avenue will have to be closed to cars during the repairs,
they said.
Don Snyder and Ken Petrini of Snyder Civil Engineering
presented information
about the repair work and related road closures to the Board of
Selectmen on Thursday during the regular meeting.
“We're asking for the ability to have intermittent road
closures over the course of the next year,” Don Snyder said on Thursday. “We’re
not looking to close the road every day… A day a week, a couple days a month,
as needed.”
First Selectman Fred Camillo and the board did not take any
action on the Snyder presentation since it was a “first read.” The item will be
presented again at the next Selectmen meeting on April 27, after the public has
had a chance to comment.
“We know it has to be done, so we'll certainly work with you
to make this as painless as possible for people,” Camillo said.
Snyder said they are already coordinating with Greenwich’s
Department of Public Works and wanted to make a presentation to the Selectmen
early in the process.
“We will be transparent in advance throughout the course of
construction with dates. Rather than coming to your board on a regular basis,
we wanted to be proactive and plan in advance,” Snyder said.
The repairs will take place between Elm Street and Grigg
Street on the Avenue, running past the Havemeyer Building and many stores and
restaurants. Work crews will work on different parts of the water main line
during the course of the year, so the entire section will not be closed all at
once.
During the meeting, Selectwoman Lauren Rabin and
Selectperson Janet Stone McGuigan said they were concerned about notifying
business owners and the public about road closures as well as the impact of the
work itself.
“The work, I think, is going to be more disruptive than the
road closure, actually,” Rabin said. “We will have to get the notice out,
because it's not just businesses, there's apartments above most of the
restaurants and retail establishments.”
Camillo also said they are likely to receive noise
complaints if the crews work at night.
The water main work will also impact parking on the Avenue,
which is already in short supply thanks to outdoor dining.
Snyder said Aquarion typically sends advanced notice about
work to existing customers and that they will have workers physically out on
Greenwich Avenue to notify people when the digging starts. The company also
said it could provide weekly updates to the town on expected closures.
Snyder submitted multiple proposals to redirect traffic
during road closures, including plans to close side streets and redirect
drivers down Arch Street and Mason Street during various phases of work.
“Generally, the proposed water main work will take up one of
the two lanes in Greenwich Avenue during construction,” Snyder Civil
Engineering wrote in a letter to the Board of Selectmen. “Where possible, an
attempt will be made to maintain through traffic. However, due to the potential
complexity of the construction activities, portions of Greenwich Avenue will
need to be closed to through traffic during various phases of the project.”
The full project area spans about 1,500 feet of the Avenue
and crews will be replacing old six-inch and eight-inch water mains with new
12-inch lines. The existing water services will be transferred to the new mains
and the old mains will be abandoned in place once the work is complete,
according to Snyder.
The company expects to use signs and uniformed police
officers or certified flaggers to direct traffic as needed during the
project, according to the presentation.
Developers eye scaled back Huntington Village plan in Shelton
SHELTON — Developers are seeking approval for a scaled back
Huntington Village project.
The development had been the focus of more than two years of
heated public hearings, an initial Planning and Zoning Commission denial and a
court appeal before a
deal was finalized in 2020 to allow 16 single-family homes behind the
Huntington Congregational Church adjacent to Ripton Road.
Huntington Village, LLC, which has no affiliation to the
original developer, John Guedes, has filed plans for eight single-family homes
on the 6.147-acre parcel, which is presently undeveloped. The new developer is
seeking an amendment to the already approved Planned Development
District.
The Planning and Zoning Commission will set a public hearing
at a later date.
Seven of the lots would be served by a private road, with
one lot having direct access to Ripton Road. All lots will be served by
Aquarian Water Company water supply and municipal sanitary sewer service.
The scaled back plans bring back to the forefront what had
been a controversial proposal that was first submitted in 2018 and denied by
the commission. That denial was then appealed by Guedes who, while the appeal
was still in court, filed a new project on the site for a massive 84-unit
development with an affordable housing component.
The original plans for the detached housing caused an uproar
when they were presented. Hundreds of people attended a public hearing on the
application in the summer of 2018. In the end, the Planning and Zoning
Commission denied the application. Guedes sued.
The
commission and Guedes reached a settlement in October 2019. At that
time, the commission voted 4-2, with commissioners Jimmy Tickey and Mark
Widomski opposed, to approve the deal that allowed for 16 single-family homes
on approximately 6.15 acres behind the church.
The settlement agreement contained three conditions — a
permanent conservation easement of two acres along the Centerview Drive
properties; a permanent landscape buffer abutting 24 Ripton Road, and no more
than 16 single-family units on the final site plan.
In September 2020, the Planning and Zoning commission voted
to approve final design development plans for the project. However, the project
never moved forward.
Senior housing project pitched for Windsor Locks
A Windsor Locks developer is planning a senior housing
complex on a parcel of land near the high school.
Owner and applicant Gary Merrigan of Windsor Locks-based
M&L Development Corp. has gained approval to build 24 residential units at
64 South Elm St., for seniors age 55 and older called The Settlement at 64.
The 3.1-acre development site is primarily vacant land
except for one single-family residence.
Plans call for six, one-story apartment buildings with a mix
of one- and two-bedroom units, with a decorative gabled half-story above.
The main entrance will be accessed from South Elm Street,
roughly 350 feet from the entrance to the high school. The development will
have a circular driveway and 58 parking spaces, according to the application.
The development will have a landscaped common area in the
center, with sidewalks throughout and access to nearby facilities like the high
school and municipal centers.
“It’s a great location,” Merrigan said, “you can walk to the
high school and church,” or the public safety center and gathering area.
Windsor Locks First Selectman Paul Harrington said Windsor
Locks has a severe housing shortage, including senior housing units, and that
this is a much-needed project for the town’s aging population.
He also praised Merrigan and M&L Development for their
quality work spanning several decades on numerous projects around Windsor
Locks.
Merrigan said his company built developments like Glenbrook
Drive senior condominiums, The Village at Old County, Woodridge of Windsor
Locks and the Regina Drive subdivision.
Another senior residential development on Southwest Avenue,
Pine Meadow, has had a waiting list for applicants seeking age-restricted
units, Merrigan said.
This Elm Street project was originally proposed in 2020 and
approved as a 22-unit market rate attached condominium complex before it was
appealed and delayed.
Merrigan said today’s housing market caused him to adjust
plans and pitch the age-restricted project on which he hopes to break ground
this summer.
Berlin Turnpike storage facility approved
Adeveloper has gained approval to build a self-storage
facility at 2176 and 2180 Berlin Turnpike on the Newington-Wethersfield line.
Applicants Robert Pryor, director of engineering for Solli
Engineering LLC and White Plains-based BDC Holdings Inc., are planning a
three-story, 99,360-square-foot self-storage facility with 5,000 square feet of
outdoor storage.
The facility will have nearly 630 interior self-storage
units, office space, an employee break room, a retail area, and more than 20
units with outside entrances.
The property is 11 acres total, with 7.6 of them in
Wethersfield, and located just south of the Route 175/Berlin Turnpike
interchange.
The project has been granted approvals from both
Wethersfield and Newington.
Developers will buy the property from owners Priscilla and
Barbara Turgeon, and Laura Ricci. A blighted single-family home on the
Newington portion of the property will be demolished.