Bridgeport, CT airport authority seek operating deal for Sikorsky
Brian Lockhart
BRIDGEPORT — The city and the Connecticut Airport Authority have formally asked federal authorities to authorize an operating agreement for the latter to run Bridgeport's Sikorsky Memorial Airport.
In March, the authority, following several months of negotiating a purchase of the Stratford-based airport, backed off after a preliminary study revealed potentially extremely costly underground contamination. The CAA did not want to assume that liability.
The sides have since been talking about reaching an arrangement for the CAA to run, but not own, the airport with a particular focus on relaunching the dormant regular passenger service there. Sikorsky for the last few decades has only served business, charter and private flights.
Hearst Connecticut Media on Friday obtained from the CAA through a Freedom of Information Act request an April 25 memorandum from its executive director, Kevin Dillon, detailing the general terms of such a deal should it be approved by the the Federal Aviation Administration and Bridgeport officials.
The initial length of the agreement would be five years with an option for an additional two years or for the CAA to again pursue an acquisition of Sikorsky.
The document also states the CAA would provide Sikorsky "with an annual subsidy" though a dollar amount is not specified.
Initially CAA was going to pay Bridgeport $10 million for the airport. But it was not a standard real estate deal. Bridgeport, per FAA guidelines, could have only recouped what it could prove through an independent audit the city had invested in taxpayer dollars into the facility over the years. That amount was thought to be $10 million.
The April 25 term sheet acknowledges that $10 million figure and states that if Sikorsky, which for years has had a budget deficit, eventually operates at a profit, "The city would be permitted to take excess revenues off-airport as repayment for past city general fund contributions, up to $10 million."
The current 2022-23 municipal budget, approved last spring by Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim and the City Council, had relied on $4 million from the the-anticipated sale of Sikorsky. The 2023-24 fiscal plan the mayor proposed in early April rolled that $4 million over. But when the council voted on a final budget last week, it had reduced the amount to $2 million because of the ongoing uncertainty over Sikorsky's fate.
Even as Ganim's administration and the CAA work out a formal management agreement, the authority has loaned three staffers to help fill in running Sikorsky following the recent departure of Airport Manager Michelle Muoio, who announced late last month she was taking another unspecified job.
Daniel Roach, the mayoral aide who has been helping to negotiate with the CAA, briefed members of the city's appointed airport commission which helps oversee Sikorsky about the post-Muoio situation during a special meeting Friday.
"She has been gone for the last two weeks," Roach said during the teleconference. "The CAA has given us some assistance with oversight."
Roach noted the authority is "actually almost looking at this as a sort of phase-in, not necessarily one of these three gentlemen ending up being the full time permanent manager, but at least it’s a phase-in as far as CAA involvement is concerned. A possible phase in, I should say.” He added the three are not being paid by Bridgeport.
He also briefly mentioned the April 25 document forwarded to the FAA outlining the terms of the CAA formally taking control of Sikorsky and said it will be shared with the airport commission..
Bridgeport City Council President Aidee Nieves has a seat on the commission. She questioned how CAA staffers got involved in filling in for Muoio.
"Who made that decision?" Nieves said.
"That was a call I made to Kevin Dillon asking for some assistance," Roach said. "This all took place within the last couple of weeks."
A few years ago the CAA similarly stepped in to help run the airport when it was between managers.
Roach continued, "The CAA is kind enough to offer some assistance while we're waiting for things to be sorted out, whether it's a new airport manager being hired or the CAA taking over the management operation."
Nieves said Roach should introduce the three individuals to the commission and also present some documentation to members outlining the CAA staffers' responsibilities during this interim period.
"I just want to be sure we have some type of memorandum of understanding," she said.
Kenneth Flatto, Bridgeport's finance director who is also a commission member, agreed.
"We certainly appreciate the assistance, the advice (from the CAA)," he told Roach. "We're just trying to do this right."
'State-of-the-art' Bullard-Havens to replace 71-year-old Bridgeport vocational school
Richard Chumney
BRIDGEPORT — Construction on the new Bullard-Havens Technical High School, a massive state-of-the-art facility designed to replace the existing 71-year-old trade school, has officially begun.
The new building, which is slated to open in 2026, will be the first net-zero school in the state’s technical education system, an achievement officials hailed as a model for future vocational schools.
The start of construction was marked by a groundbreaking ceremony attended by parents, students and local officials, including Principal Susan Foss who described the school as a “symbol of our commitment to excellence and innovation.”
“It is more important than ever that we continue to innovate and adapt to meet the needs of our students and the industries they will be entering,” Foss said. “And that’s exactly what this new building will allow us to do.”
The 260,000-square-foot building is being constructed on the same Palisades Avenue site as the existing school, which was originally erected in 1950. The current building will remain occupied during construction until it is torn down at the end of the 41-month project.
The more than $200 million building, which was designed by JCJ Architecture and is being constructed by the Gilbane Building Company, will have enough space for 13 separate shop programs, including automotive technology, carpentry and the culinary arts, among others.
The facility will also feature a host of classrooms to accommodate more than 900 students, a gymnasium large enough to fit the entire student body, cafeteria, large amounts of storage space, fieldhouse, bus garage and several new athletic fields.
“At the forefront of our design is the ability for the facility to be adaptable, flexible,” Bruce Kellogg, the project’s principal architect, said. “This building is not only a high school with classrooms, administrative wings, and a gymnasium … but it also serves public and community needs for after school programs.”
Bullard-Havens is one of 17 diploma-granting schools within the Connecticut Technical Education And Career System, a statewide program that serves more than 11,000 high schoolers and 3,000 adult education students.
The school currently serves about 800 students who largely hail from Bridgeport and the surrounding communities. Like most other state vocational schools, students have the option of earning credit while working at a trade.
According to Roxanne Amiot, the head of the school’s automotive technology department and a longtime employee, Bullard-Havens was named for a pair of businessmen who promoted technical education in the early 20th century to help boost the local manufacturing industry. The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by a handful of their descendants.
Amiot said that when the city’s first technical school opened in 1910 it offered courses on just three trades: machinery, woodworking and dressmaking. At the time, the inaugural class was made up of only 35 students.
Officials hope the new school will help prepare students to enter the workforce as new technology upends large segments of the manufacturing industry. Maritza Farias Silva, a freshman automotive student, said she believes the building will ensure students will have the opportunity to master new skills and expand their knowledge.
“We are the future generation that will bring innovation and change,” Farias Silva said. “Thanks to Bullard-Havens we are being shaped into the skilled professionals of tomorrow. I am honored to be a part of this journey.”
$14M Bridgeport housing project dealt another setback
Brian Lockhart
BRIDGEPORT — A $14 million housing project needed to help Connecticut's largest city boost its stock of affordably-priced units has again faced a funding setback.
For the second year in a row, Building Neighborhoods Together did not qualify for a state-administered federal tax credit that would cover around $1 million of the building costs for 44 apartments on the East Side.
"We did not get the money this round," Doris Latorre, BNT's chief executive officer, said. "We're trying to figure out how to make the project work. There's other ways to do it. We're regrouping right now."
This was the second time that BNT submitted an unsuccessful application to the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority for the tax credits. The nonprofit did not obtain the financial aid last year, either.
The affordable apartments BNT wants to build at East Main and Nichols streets are important for a couple of reasons.
First, Bridgeport is grappling with a lack of cheap dwellings. While 21.28 percent of Bridgeport's housing stock, or 12,134 out of 57,012 units, are considered affordable versus the 10 percent minimum Connecticut wants of all municipalities, elected officials and other community leaders have been arguing that is not enough to meet the demand.
The city experienced a real estate boom in recent years as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which boosted purchase and rental prices. Meanwhile some of the higher-profile redevelopments that have either broken ground or been announced around town are all market-rate apartments.
Secondly, BNT's proposed 44-unit complex is specifically intended to help balance out the planned construction of hundreds of luxury apartments just a few blocks away at the Steelpointe harborfront site.
The Christophs, the father/son team that has spent years slowly redeveloping Steelpointe, under an agreement with the city must also build or help pay for new affordably priced units representing 10 percent of their total market-rate ones. And most of those can be scattered around town rather than all at Steelpointe.
The Christophs have previously partnered with BNT to fulfill that commitment. Latorre has said in the case of the East Main and Nichols streets effort, the Steelpointe developers provided the nonprofit a no-cost ground lease for the vacant site and $650,000 to help defray the overall price tag.
Although delayed by ground contamination, the Christophs are expected to break ground in the coming months on their luxury housing even as BNT's low income project remains stalled.
Pat Guliano is managing director of CHFA’s multifamily department. He said the tax credit program BNT has been trying to access has become more and more competitive.
"We had 18 applications (for this year) which is a tremendous amount," Guliano said. Those totaled $24 million worth of credits.
"We only have around $10 million to allocate annually," Guliano said.
The list of this year's recipients is composed of developments in Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Greenwich, Meriden and Farmington with a total of 320 affordably priced apartments.
He said BNT was eliminated "because they didn't have all the commitments they needed to prove they had what we call 'credible financing.'"
"There's so many different sources these days that could be used to fund these (housing) deals. And you have to have proof all of those funders have committed to funding your sources," Guliano said.
He said LaTorre has already spoken with himself and other state housing officials "about helping her to achieve a better status next year when she applies."
"And it's not atypical for a project to have to submit (over) multiple years," Guliano said.
Bridgeport City Council President Aidee Nieves represents the East Side and said Friday she felt disappointment over this latest setback for BNT and that neighborhood.
"I would have liked to see both the (Steelpointe) waterfront housing done simultaneously with this (BNT) housing," Nieves said.
She said perhaps there are other state financial resources BNT can tap into "so it doesn't stay another vacant lot for a very long time."
A developer wants to replace a Stamford office building with the city's second highest tower
Jared Weber
STAMFORD — A proposal awaiting its day before the Stamford Zoning Board would knock down an office building in downtown's Landmark Square to construct what could be one of the city's tallest buildings.
The Cappelli Organization — a White Plains, N.Y., developer with a footprint already in Downtown Stamford — would replace the existing structure, Landmark 3, with a 31-story high-rise apartment building. The skyscraper would feature 400 luxury apartments, 420 parking spaces and 5,200 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, which consultants said would likely include a restaurant with outdoor seating.
The complex would stand 320 feet tall, second only among existing Stamford buildings to another Cappelli project: Park Tower Stamford, which is 350 feet tall. The Zoning Board approved a 423-foot residential tower for 677 Washington Blvd. in February 2021, but crews have yet to break ground on the development.
Cappelli is requesting a special permit to contribute about $10.7 million to Stamford's Affordable Housing Trust Fund in lieu of including 40 below-market-rate apartments in the floor plans.
"The goal would be to take this $10.7 million and turn it into something far more meaningful than 40 units on site," attorney William Hennessey told the Planning Board on March 7.
Amenities inside the building would include a pool, fitness center, yoga, gaming room, lounge and club rooms, among others.
The Planning Board voted to advance the proposal at the March meeting, but it has yet to be taken up by the Zoning Board because of a growing queue of applications. Zoning officials scheduled a special meeting May 18 to address the workload, but the proposal is not slated to be discussed.
Land Use Bureau Chief Ralph Blessing said he expects the backlog to be a "temporary thing."
“(With) all the boards, it’s a little bit fast or famine. Sometimes, it’s purely coincidence … you have two or three big projects coming in at the same time,” Blessing said.
The existing office building's occupancy rate was about 38 percent in February. The property owner has been winding down leases for years with the project in the works, land use consultant Rick Redniss said.
The five-story building, built in 1977, is one of six commercial office buildings in Landmark Square. The development was one of the crown jewels of Stamford's urban renewal era when officials turned the industrial New England downtown into a corporate hub, largely through eminent domain.
Landmark Square covers five acres, but it's part of a 30-acre block bound by Atlantic Street, Broad Street, Greyrock Place and Tresser Boulevard. According to the application, the block contains "approximately 2 million square feet of commercial space and almost no housing."
Before urban renewal, downtown blocks were lined with houses and businesses. According to a 1994 estimate, close to 75 percent of the neighborhood was demolished for the urban redevelopment project.
But in recent years, the pendulum has been shifting back toward housing. This time around, it's rental buildings. An eight-story, 228-unit apartment building, approved in July 2021, is under construction at Broad Street and Greyrock Place. In addition, the Zoning Board is multiple hearings into discussion on a proposal that would put 198 apartments next door across the intersection of Broad and Gay streets.
At the March Planning Board meeting, the changing character of the block was central to the pitch made by Hennessey and Redniss. They gave statistics showing how office space drastically outpaced the city's population in the second half of the 20th century, though recent decades have been more a regression toward the mean. They also touched on city and state officials' efforts to make Atlantic Street more pedestrian friendly.
“Atlantic Street is changing. It’s no longer the place where all the northbound I-95 traffic gets dumped and it’s no longer the street you take a left on at the end of the ramp and drive fast on to get to North Stamford. So, the city has recognized that and has begun to study on how to turn it into a pedestrian friendly street," Hennessey said.
Redniss said the development could also contribute to those efforts by allocating funds to the area around the bus shelter and Veteran's Park.
"We're hoping to use some funds that we will be agreeing with the city ... to use to enhance the park, to enhance anything around the bus shelter that isn't part of the state project, to enhance the bicycle opportunities around the bus shelter, the crosswalks to Atlantic Street," Redniss said.
Karen Tensa
NORWALK — In addition to breaking ground on the Walk Bridge replacement project, the Connecticut Department of Transportation has also released the latest conceptual renderings of how the new bridge will look.
For the nearly $1 billion project, the existing four-span Walk Bridge will be replaced with a state-of-the-art multispan bridge, including 240-foot dual lift spans with fixed east and west approach spans over the Norwalk River. The bridge appears shiny and silvery in the drawings, with a tall vertical tower on each end.
The structure will replace the 127-year-old swing bridge that takes Amtrak and Metro-North trains over the Norwalk River. The old bridge, which is considered obsolete, occasionally fails to close completely after opening to allow marine traffic to pass, causing train delays.
The most visible part of the construction project currently underway is the brick-by-brick demolition of the Maritime Aquarium's old IMAX theater next to the bridge. For weeks, workers have been painstakingly removing the facade in way that does not disrupt auto traffic or marine life in the area.
Only a shell of the original IMAX theater now remains. But fans of the giant screen can see movies at the aquarium's state-of-the-art 4D Theater that opened in early 2021.
The new conceptual Walk Bridge renderings, which were posted on the Walk Bridge Project website last month, show how the new bridge will appear and operate.
With its vertical lift span design, it will allow navigation on the Norwalk River and provide a widened channel alignment with the nearby Stroffolino Bridge, which carries vehicular traffic over the river.
The new replacement bridge features two movable spans carrying two tracks each, which can be operated individually, according to DOT.
The lift bridge’s towers are 150 feet above the level of the railroad tracks, which is nearly 100 feet shorter than the existing high towers that will be removed as part of the project, DOT said.
DOT took the aesthetics of the new bridge into consideration, and its features include machine room enclosures at the top of the towers, arch designs, enclosed staircases and elevators, and decorative railing on the exterior walkways.
The new bridge incorporates innovative engineering and construction techniques that make it more resilient and allow it to withstand extreme weather, load and external forces, DOT said.
The foundations for the new bridge will be built outside the existing foundations, which allows the current bridge to operate during construction, according to DOT.
Also, the vertical lift design allows the new bridge to be built in pieces, DOT said. Two tracks will remain operational throughout construction with only two weekends of planned track outages.
To see more drawings of the new bridge and a video of how it will operate, visit https://www.walkbridgect.com/.
Michael Walsh
WEST HARTFORD — More housing could be coming to the town's transit-oriented district via a 70-unit housing development proposed at 579 New Park Ave.
If approved, the development would join the Elmwood Lofts, 150 units of housing proposed for the former Puritan Furniture site just down the road on New Britain Avenue, as the second housing project to utilize the new ordinance.
Designs and plans submitted to the town's Design Review Advisory Committee are preliminary but do indicate that the proposed building would be five stories in height, with the street-facing side of the building having mixed-use retail space available for commercial tenants. The first floor of the building, at street level, would include 11 units of housing, the second and third floors would include 20 units of housing each and the fourth floor would include 19 units of housing. The development is a mix of one- and two-bedroom units, according to the submitted plans.
The development would also offer up at least 20 percent of its units as "affordable" housing, according to the submitted plans, meaning 14 units would be made available to earners making 80 percent or less of the area median income.
Vehicle parking would be made available for residents and patrons visiting the commercial spaces. There would be 71 standard vehicle parking spaces, with an additional 12 spaces for assigned units, according to the plans. Bike parking would also be included on site.
Kristen Gorski, the town's economic development coordinator, said the proposal was submitted by Li Brothers Construction. On the committee's meeting agenda, it indicate that the current building — listed as the location of Gozzo Design & Remodel LLC — would be demolished and replaced.
She noted, though, that these designs are "very preliminary" and could see alterations after staff review, which began with the Design Review Advisory Committee.
"As this is a very preliminary set of plans and the developer is early in the process, we expect changes to the proposal and plans that will be reviewed," Gorski said.
Todd Dumais, West Hartford's town planner, indicated that what was submitted to the Design Review Advisory Committee are not formal plans, but rather "massing models and concepts" that seek the committee's feedback and suggestions "in order to help [the developer] prepare for a formal submission in the future."
Dumais said that at Thursday's meeting, the committee suggested the developer return again for an informal discussion on their proposal.
"Because it was so preliminary, [the committee] provided some high-level comments and feedback and encouraged the developer to come back when they had more information to base some feedback on their proposal," Dumais said. "There were some suggested alterations to approach and massing and orientation of the building that may be more successful."
The proposed site sits firmly within the transit-oriented district that the West Hartford Town Council established last June that encompasses areas within a short walk of the Elmwood and Flatbush CTfastrak bus stations that have frontage or access to Darcy Street, Flatbush Avenue, Jefferson Avenue, New Britain Avenue, New Park Avenue, Prospect Avenue and South Street.
"The big picture is that it’s very exciting that there’s another potential utilization and development under the [transit-oriented district] standards," Dumais said. "I have every reason to believe the developer will be able to meet those standards."
The goal of the district is to encourage developers to utilize the four D's of "distance, density, diversity and design" while building housing that looks to utilize modes of transportation other than vehicles. In turn, building in the district affords developers certain higher density occupancy, reduces the amount of required parking spaces and provides incentives for affordable housing.
Approval in the district is also earned differently than in the rest of town. Rather than go to a public hearing and face a Town Council vote, the site gains approval through administrative review conducted by the town planner and other staff. Once the plan meets the standards of the town's zoning ordinance, it's approved.
Should plans remain for 70 units, that would bring West Hartford's recently approved and proposed housing units across the last few years past the thousand mark. Some of those units — like the ones at One Park Road, a former convent — are already built, while others have been approved by the town but haven't begun construction, such as the luxury housing development set to be built at the former Children's Museum site.
Of those thousand housing units, just over 265 of them would be marked as affordable at varying percentages of the area median income. That's good for about 25 percent of the total number of units coming online through 11 different housing developments, including condos and apartments set to be West Hartford Fellowship Housing, which alone is adding 95 units of affordable housing for those at least 62 years old and people with disabilities of all ages.
West Hartford is working to reach a goal of having 10 percent of its housing stock be considered affordable. In December, Town Manager Rick Ledwith had said that would require adding around 600 units of affordable housing to the town's housing stock. At that time, Ledwith said around 2,000 units in town were considered affordable.
And while they're still working on a new affordable housing plan that needs to be submitted to the state, West Hartford in December established a $6 million fund using 16 percent of its American Rescue Plan money to entice developers to build more affordable units in town. The fund would distribute grants or loans to developers who set aside at least 20 percent of units in a housing development aside as affordable.
Tax break, CRDA loan sought for 130-unit East Hartford apartment project near CT River
Michael Puffer
The Simon Konover Co. is seeking government incentives for its proposed $38.5 million, 130-unit apartment development near the Connecticut River in East Hartford.
Simon Konover is seeking an eight-year tax break worth an estimated $2.1 million, as well as a $7.7 million loan from the Capital Region Development Authority, according to a prospective financing outline shared with East Hartford’s Town Council ahead of its Tuesday meeting. The document assumes that $2 million of that loan could be written off if certain development targets are met.
The Simon Konover Co. has owned a 35.2-acre property at 341 East River Drive for decades, originally as a prospective site for office development. It currently sits between the American Eagle Federal Credit Union and Two Rivers Magnet School.
Simon Konover has not yet applied for needed land-use approvals, but the basic layout seems “feasible,” Director of Development Eileen Buckheit wrote in a memo shared with the council.
The basic financial plan submitted by Simon Konover has been reviewed by Mayor Michael Walsh, Buckheit, Finance Director Melissa McCaw and staff at CRDA, Buckheit’s memo notes.
“We feel that this proforma represents a balanced approach to grow our grand list and provide the public support this project will require,” Buckheit wrote.
The project is projected to generate rental income of $3.29 million to $3.55 million in the first four years.
Reached Friday, Buckheit noted the project will need to pass through layers of approval. CRDA’s board will review, and potentially approve, a loan. A tax break would require approval from the East Hartford Town Council. And the town’s land-use board will have to sign off, including a wetlands review due to the presence of a man-made pond on-site, Buckheit noted.
Newton C. Brainard, Simon Konover’s vice president of acquisitions and development, said the company sees a path to breaking ground on the site but also noted it is “very early” in the development process.
“At this point we are following the town’s process,” Brainard said. “They’ve been a fantastic partner and we stand at the ready whenever they need us to engage.”