International sports and entertainment company Oak View
Group is preparing to wager at least $20 million that Hartford’s XL Center
arena can transform from an aging venue running a $2 million annual deficit to
a bustling moneymaker.
The Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) and OVG have
a tentative deal that would require the Los Angeles-headquartered company to
invest $20 million toward a $100 million overhaul of the roughly 15,500-seat
arena.
Gov. Ned Lamont, in his current budget, lined up $80 million
in public funding to cover the remaining costs.
Executives with OVG — which already manages the venue — say
experience demonstrates they’ll be able to jump-start activity at the XL Center
and turn it into a profit center, following much-needed renovations.
The half-century-old Hartford arena currently hosts six to
eight concerts a year, with many performers and promoters turned off by
substandard stage rigging, lack of premium seats and a loading-area chokepoint
that adds much time and cost to setting up and breaking down shows, according
to OVG and CRDA leadership.
At an October CRDA Board of Directors meeting, Oak View
Group Facilities President Hank Abate predicted a draw of “well above 30
shows a year” in the second or third year following renovations.
Under a tentative 20-year contract negotiated with CRDA, OVG
would keep the first $4 million of annual net profit from the arena each year,
in return for its upfront renovation investment. After that, profits would be
split evenly with the CRDA, which would use those funds for arena maintenance.
OVG would be responsible for covering any operating loss in
the meantime. Abate said his company aims to top the $4 million net profit mark
by the third year following renovations, which are targeted to take place in
2024 and 2025.
Similar arenas, big draws
Abate said OVG’s experience with similarly sized venues
bolsters confidence in XL Center’s potential.
He drew parallels with the 9,500-seat Enmarket Arena
completed in Savannah, Georgia in February 2022; the Acrisure Arena completed
in Palm Desert, California in December 2022; and a renovation of the CFG Bank
Arena in Baltimore, which reopened with a Bruce Springsteen concert on April 7.
Renovations allowed these venues to offer easy loading,
advanced stage rigging, improved fan and performer amenities, and more premium
seating — all features planned for Hartford’s downtown arena, executives said.
XL Center renovation plans call for a significant expansion
of premium lower-bowl seating, including the addition of event-level suites; a
new dressing room and lounge for performers; and relocation of the stage to
increase concert capacity, among other improvements.
“Just as that worked in all three of these buildings that
I’m pointing out to you, we feel that we’re going to accomplish the same great
results for the XL Center,” Abate said.
At 50 years old, Baltimore’s arena is about the same age as
the XL Center, and it suffered from similar repair needs, Abate said. Baltimore
did not want to directly invest in it, he said.
“OVG came in and invested quite a bit of money,” Abate said.
The cost of the OVG-financed, 11-month-long project in
Baltimore ultimately topped out at $250 million. Before renovation, the venue
hosted up to four concerts annually by premier performers. The venue is on
track for 109 concerts, shows and other events this year, OVG said.
According to terms approved by the Baltimore Board of
Estimates on Nov. 24, 2021, an OVG-affiliated limited liability company was to
receive a 30-year contract — with two, 10-year renewal options — in return for
spending at least $150 million renovating the arena.
OVG is responsible for funding the Baltimore arena’s
operations and debts. It must also annually put aside at least $750,000 for
upkeep and improvements during the first 10 years of the contract, and $1.5
million each subsequent year.
Under the agreement, Baltimore will hand over all taxes
raised from the venue in excess of a $1.75 million threshold. The city would
also receive a share of profits after the project reaches a 15% internal rate
of return.
Abate told CRDA board members planned renovations will allow
the XL Center to compete with the state’s two casinos, Foxwoods Resort Casino
and Mohegan Sun, which have poached the concert business over the years.
Foxwoods, in southeastern Connecticut, has theaters with
4,400 and 1,400 seats, respectively, that will host, among others, Kenny G,
Jefferson Starship, Jerry Seinfeld and Boyz II Men in December.
Mohegan Sun Arena has 10,000 seats and is home to the
Connecticut Sun WNBA franchise. Its upcoming concerts include Frankie Valli
& The Four Seasons, Bret Michaels and Michael Bolton.
OVG’s business has benefited from changes in the music
industry, Abate noted. Musicians can no longer count on album sales due to a
migration of music online, and so they make their money touring.
Once renovations make the XL Center more appealing, OVG will
be in a stronger position to leverage its network of East Coast arenas to
convince promotion companies that Hartford “has to be a must-play as well,”
Abate said.
The XL Center has undergone tens of millions of dollars in
publicly financed renovations over the past decade-plus, but nothing as
extensive as the planned $100 million overhaul.
Most recently, a new $5 million, 5,000-square-foot sports
bar and betting lounge debuted in a section of the property that faces Ann
Uccello Street.
Mammoth presence
Founded in 2015 by music industry giants Irving Azoff and Tim
Leiweke, OVG either owns or is in the process of building 11 new arenas in the
U.S., Brazil, Canada, Wales and Austria.
The company’s management arm — OVG360 — services more than
400 arenas worldwide, including the XL Center. It has also worked out
arrangements to participate in the refurbishment of existing arenas.
“We have over $5 billion invested in projects of all
sizes,” OVG360 co-chair Peter Luukko told the Hartford Business
Journal. “Really, we’re looking to invest in marketplaces, thinking long term.”
OVG acquired venue management and hospitality company
Spectra in November 2021. At the time, Spectra held a contract to manage the XL
Center, with CRDA providing oversight.
Luukko, who has strong ties to the NHL as past president of
the Philadelphia Flyers and executive chairman of the Florida Panthers, said he
voiced a willingness to “put equity” into a long-sought XL Center renovation
during his first meeting with CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth.
It was a demonstration of good faith, as well as a belief in
the marketplace’s long-term potential, Luukko said.
OVG is participating in a string of high-profile,
arena-building and restoration projects around the world, from a pending $280
million renovation of the 18,000-seat FirstOntario Centre in Canada, to plans
for a “state-of-the-art” sports and entertainment arena in Vienna, Austria.
A convincing offer
Freimuth, who has spent years pushing for a large-scale XL
Center renovation, said he has not yet had a chance to visit the revived
Baltimore arena.
But he said he’s confident in the OVG deal, which will end
taxpayer subsidies of the Hartford arena and leverage state funds to make
long-needed repairs, while providing modern amenities.
“If you’re going to put $20 million down and sign a piece of
paper saying, ‘We’ll take the operating loss,’ that’s two indicators to me they
have comfort and they can perform it,” Freimuth said.
Freimuth said he expects bids for the XL renovation by the
close of December. If these fall within, or at least very near, the projected
$100 million budget, CRDA can finalize an agreement with OVG.
The next big milestone would be a release by the state Bond
Commission of the $80 million allocated in the state budget.
Renovation work would be planned around XL Center’s events
schedule over the next two years, with the building closed and entirely
dedicated to construction during summer months.
Freimuth said Hartford needs an arena to help generate
vitality. Some have advocated for closure, but more voices are in favor of
preserving the venue, he said.
One thing many can agree on is the state has little appetite
to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it would cost to build an entirely
new arena, he said.
“The building isn’t going away,” Freimuth said. “There is no
market to simply replace it. So, we have to invest in it to buy a little more
life out of it.”
Facing defeat, Lamont withdraws regs phasing out new gas car sales
Mark
Pazniokas and Jan
Ellen Spiegel
A majority of the legislature’s Regulation Review Committee
was poised to vote Tuesday to kill regulations prohibiting new gasoline-powered
vehicle sales by 2035, forcing advocates and the administration of Gov. Ned
Lamont to open talks on a new plan for passage by the full General Assembly in
2024.
Jonathan Dach, the governor’s chief of staff, said Monday
that the administration reluctantly made the decision to withdraw the
regulations after being told that opponents on the bipartisan committee had the
votes to kill them and not merely reject them without prejudice, an action
that would allow a later attempt at passage.
“The choice open to us is let them be killed or pull them,”
Dach said. “We will pull them.”
“I was very hopeful we could get ‘rejection without
prejudice’ so we could carry on the discussions,” said Rep. Lucy Dathan, D-New
Canaan, the committee co-chair, after briefing Dach. “It’s disappointing.”
Lamont and legislators will hold a press conference Tuesday
to outline an alternative: Have the General Assembly pass a bill keeping
Connecticut in line with the timetable established by California and adopted by
New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and other states to phase out new sales of
most gas-powered vehicles.
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said one possibility
was emulating New Mexico and Colorado, states that endorsed a transition to
zero-emission vehicles, but included a commitment before then to assess their
states’ progress towards establishing the necessary electric infrastructure.
“This might give people comfort,” Ritter said.
Colorado adopted the California standards that progressively
limit new gas-car sales with a major proviso: It would follow California only
through 2032, then it would live by the lower federal clean air standards, the
other option available to states.
In April, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed federal emission standards requiring that 67% of new light-duty vehicles and 25% of new heavy-duty trucks sold in the United
States are electric or otherwise powered by zero-emission engines by 2032.
A shift to the EPA goals would be welcome, said Rep. Nicole
Klarides-Ditria, R-Seymour, a member of Regulation Review Committee and
opponent of the proposed regulations.
“This is what we’ve been saying right along: The EPA
regulations are just more realistic,” Klarides-Ditria said. Of the
California goal of 100% by 2035, she said, “We all want to move in that
direction, but it’s too aggressive.”
Without committing to a specific proposal, Dach said the
administration supports the legislative efforts to keep Connecticut moving
towards zero-emission vehicles. He was unsure if Lamont would attend the news
conference.
Ritter said the administration’s withdrawal of the
regulations give legislators flexibility. If the regulations were disapproved
by the committee, the legislature only could vote to overturn the panel, not
revise the regulations.
On the committee’s agenda Tuesday were two sets of
regulations that would implement revisions to the California clean air
standards followed by 17 states, including Connecticut and many neighbors.
The car regulations would have essentially updated
existing emissions levels by requiring that all new vehicles sold in the state
must have zero emissions beginning in 2035. The other is for medium and heavy
duty vehicles — trucks. Beginning in 2035, 40% to 75% of new vehicle sales,
depending on the class of vehicle, must be zero emissions.
Neither action affects existing vehicles, the sale of used
vehicles, or prohibits zero-emission vehicles that are not electric. It also
allows plug-in hybrid cars that have gasoline backups.
Both follow the standards set by California, which the
Connecticut legislature approved two decades ago for cars. Under rules of the
federal Clean Air Act going
back to its inception in 1970, states have been able to choose one of two sets
of emissions regulations for motor vehicles: those set by the EPA or more
stringent ones set by California.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, a Regulation Review Committee
member, had made clear for weeks that her vote was in jeopardy given her
concern about the impact on agriculture in her largely rural district, as well
as the cost of electric vehicles and the ability of the electric grid to meet
the greater demand.
Osten said that some of the complications
faced by Norway, where 87% of new car sales are EVs, also gave her pause.
Osten said she was struck by the cost of subsidies, such as tax credits, and
the disproportionate benefit on wealthier buyers.
She declined to say Monday if she had informed leaders she
was a hard no, but others said the decision to withdraw them was based on a
belief that Osten and Sen. Joan Hartley, D-Waterbury, would vote with the
Republicans in opposition.
Hartley confirmed she would have voted against the
regulations, despite a promise by Commissioner Katie Dykes of the Department of
Energy and Environmental Protection to convene a working group to oversee
Connecticut’s infrastructure progress before the 2035 deadline.
“I said, ‘No, let’s work on this first,'” Hartley said.
Dykes could not be reached. She is scheduled to join Lamont,
Democratic legislative leaders and others at a press conference Tuesday to
respond and review next steps.
Hartley said she supports the transition to zero-emission
vehicles as a necessary step towards protecting the environment, but she has
questions about the state’s readiness and the impact on lower-income, urban
constituents.
“I believe in it and endorse it,” Hartley said. But she
added, “I represent a city of 116,000 with a median income of $42,000.”
The Republican minority, which has offered similar
objections, is empowered under Connecticut’s unusual bipartisan system of
reviewing and approving regulations.
Unlike the regulatory framework of the federal government
and many states, Connecticut gives the legislature veto power over regulations,
albeit one that is supposed to turn on a narrow question: Does the regulation
implement legislation?
Attorney General William Tong said the proposed regulations
meet the test of legal sufficiency. Charles Rothenberger, a climate-and-energy
lawyer with the environmental group Save The Sound, said Monday he found it
“difficult, if not impossible, to make any logical sense of it” of the failure
to adopt the regulations.
“It’s really an embarrassment all the way around when it
comes to this,” Rothenberger said. “If in fact the committee is not voting on
these regulations tomorrow, it is really unconscionable.”
By rejecting the regulations, Connecticut is stepping
away from two decades of progress that included adopting a low-emission
vehicles program that set higher standards on gas and diesel engines that power
cars and trucks, he said.
“We are walking away from our longtime partners in the
effort to clean up our air and protect public health in terms of Massachusetts
in New York and Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia,” Rothenberger said. “And
we are declaring that we are content to align ourselves with the standards that
are good enough for Alabama, and Mississippi, and West Virginia. And those are
the states that we want to stand so it is you know, it boggles my mind.”
While the regulations proposed by the Democratic
administration of Lamont stem from a law passed in 2004 under a Republican
governor, Republicans said the 2035 deadline for transitioning to zero-emission
vehicles was a public policy change that most lawmakers could not have foreseen
two decades ago.
Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, a
Regulation Review member, complained at a press conference two weeks ago that
they reflect the desires of “unelected bureaucrats.”
“The majority wants to believe that California is better for
Connecticut than Connecticut. Nobody represents us in Sacramento,” Kelly said.
On Monday, he said, “I think common sense prevailed. I do
applaud the governor for withdrawing the regs, and I think this is what happens
when we take issues from underneath the Capitol dome and go across Connecticut
and bring issues to the people.”
Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers
Association, a trade group that represents gasoline and heating oil
distributors, applauded the withdrawal of the regulations, if cautiously.
“This is victory for consumers who would have paid a big
price tag for the state’s efforts to ban gas powered cars and trucks in the
future. However, the battle may not be over,” Herb said. “It’s unclear what
could happen next, but CEMA will continue to be vigilant in our opposition to
this reckless policy. This is too much too fast, and we are not ready for an
EV-only future.”
Huge Turbines Will Soon Bring First Offshore Wind Power to New Yorkers
The pier on the Connecticut coast is filled with so many
massive oddities that it could be mistaken for the set of a sci-fi movie.
Sword-shaped blades as long as a football field lie stacked along one edge,
while towering yellow and green cranes hoist giant steel cylinders to stand
like rockets on a launchpad.
It is a launching point, not for spacecraft, but for the
first wind turbines being built to turn ocean wind into electricity for New
Yorkers. Crews of union workers in New London, Conn., are preparing parts of 12
of the gargantuan fans before shipping them out for final assembly 15 miles
offshore.
“They’re sort of space-stationesque,” said Christine Cohen,
a Democratic state senator who toured the assembly site last week. “Seeing the
components up close, it’s just breathtaking how immense they are.”
The turbines will make up South Fork Wind, a wind farm in
the Atlantic Ocean whose completion is pivotal to Northeastern
states’ hopes of switching to renewable sources of energy. Recent
setbacks to several other offshore projects in the region have raised concerns
about whether and when they all will be built.
One of South Fork’s developers, Denmark-based Orsted,
recently canceled plans
for two much larger wind farms off the coast of New Jersey, saying they were no
longer feasible.
The company had also planned to build Sunrise Wind, another
wind farm in the Atlantic that would supply electricity to New York. But after
state regulators refused to
increase the subsidies for that project and three others, Orsted said it was
unsure whether it would bid again for that contract. New York officials said
they would seek new bids starting Nov. 30.
In the meantime, New York’s best bet for entering the era of
offshore wind power is stacked up at the water’s edge in New London.
The pieces are so big that it has taken a cargo ship three
voyages to transport them from Germany and Denmark, where they were made by
Siemens Gamesa, a leading manufacturer of turbines. The ship is due back soon
with the last load.
Orsted and its partner, Eversource, expect the electricity to start flowing from the first South Fork turbines before the end of the year. But the weather offshore — sometimes, it can be too windy to build a wind farm — as well as all sorts of mechanical matters and a simmering labor dispute at the pier could delay the flow of power from the ocean to Long Island.
In early November, the first barge to leave New London
loaded with turbine parts had to return still carrying three blades because of
a mechanical problem transferring them to a ship. It was not until two weeks
later that the barge was able to make another eight-hour round trip and a
successful transfer.
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The task is immense in every dimension, including distance,
time and cost. Out in the ocean, more than 30 miles east of Montauk Point, the
mission is to erect a dozen towers and attach 318-foot-long fiberglass blades
to each of them. Imagine the 50-story General Motors Building with three
Statues of Liberty rotating around the top, attached by the tips of their
torches.
The central role at South Fork is played by the Aeolus, a
jack-up ship. The Aeolus uses its crane to lift the turbine pieces off an
arriving barge and then transforms itself into a platform by plunging its four
legs to the ocean floor and rising out of the water.
Once one of the structures is intact, crew members from a
supply ship will enter the tower and, ascending on a three-passenger elevator
tucked inside, tighten bolts and connect cables to prepare the turbine to
generate power.
Paul Murphy, an Orsted executive overseeing the project,
said he expected South Fork to get past its remaining hurdles, including the
sparring between powerful unions at the pier.
In September and October, busloads of longshoremen set up
picket lines outside the pier’s gates, objecting to the operation of cranes
there by members of the International Union of Operating Engineers. Their
union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, has stopped trying to
block work at the pier for now, but a union official said the matter was not
resolved.
“We changed our method of protest temporarily,” said James
H. Paylor, the union’s assistant general organizer. He said the union had been
handing out fliers outside Orsted’s offices in New York, Boston and other
cities.
Mr. Murphy said that after “some teething-type issues,”
South Fork was “in the last stages.” When the wind is not blowing too hard, the
workers out at sea can assemble a turbine in less than three days.
“The first time you do each activity, you want to make sure
you do everything nice and slow” to ensure that it is done right and novice
installers learn the steps, Mr. Murphy said.
The installation, which will continue for several weeks,
involves more than 200 workers, on land and aboard several vessels. Last
Monday, New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, announced that the installation of
the first South Fork turbine marked “a momentous step” toward the state’s goal of getting
70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
The pace of work could be faster if not for a century-old
law known as the Jones Act, which prevents the Dutch-flagged Aeolus from
picking up parts from the pier itself and ferrying them to the site. The Jones
Act requires the involvement of American-made barges.
But the barges will not be needed once there is an American
ship capable of installing turbines in the ocean. The first one, the Charybdis, is under construction in Texas, with a price tag
of $625 million and completion expected by early 2025.
The Charybdis should be able to operate at least twice as
fast because it will be able to carry up to four turbine towers at a time, said
Ulysses B. Hammond, interim executive director of the Connecticut Port
Authority.
“It’s huge,” Mr. Hammond said of the ship. “I mean huuuuge.”
Gesturing toward the nearby section of Interstate 95
crossing the Thames River, he added, “It’s going to stop the traffic on the
Gold Star Bridge.”
Mr. Hammond has overseen the remaking of the state-owned pier, which sits at the mouth of the Thames River across from General Dynamics’ Electric Boat submarine shipyard, into a hub for the assembly of offshore wind turbines. With no bridges between it and the ocean, the pier has the rare advantage along the Northeast coast of offering access to seagoing vessels without any practical limitations on height or width.
The project is now estimated to cost about $300 million,
more than triple the port authority’s original estimate. The developers of
South Fork, Orsted and Eversource, are contributing about $100 million and the
state is putting up the rest.
Connecticut’s governor, Ned Lamont, has called the spending an investment in capturing an outsize role in
a budding regional industry.
“Connecticut’s deepwater ports, direct water access and long
history of advanced manufacturing make our state a natural home for offshore
wind projects serving all of New York and New England,” Mr. Lamont said in
October.
Both the state and the developers are counting on the pier
as the assembly point for more wind farms. Orsted and Eversource have formed
joint ventures for two more offshore projects — Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind — that
they plan to build after completing South Fork.
Revolution Wind, more than five times the size of South
Fork, would provide Connecticut and Rhode Island with enough power for about
350,000 homes, Orsted says. Sunrise Wind would supply New York with enough
power for nearly 600,000 homes, it says.
But at the moment, South Fork is the one to watch as the
nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about offshore wind
power,” Mr. Murphy said. “In the next couple of months, we’ll be using it.”
Connecticut’s truck tax continues to fall short
Connecticut’s truck tax continues to underwhelm, falling $25
million short of estimated revenue from 2021 when the tax – called the Highway
Use Tax (HUT) – was passed by the General Assembly along a party-line vote and
over the protestations of Connecticut truckers.
The HUT was passed following the defeat of Gov. Lamont’s
numerous tolling proposals for Connecticut highways, and supporters argued the
tax was necessary to bolster the struggling Special Transportation Fund (STF)
that pays for Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure and public
transportation. The tax is based on the truck’s weight and the number of miles
it travels in Connecticut.
At the time of passage, it was estimated the HUT would bring in $90 million by fiscal year 2024 and nearly $100 million by 2026. Those figures, however, have been adjusted downward by roughly $25 million to $30 million for the 2024 fiscal year, according to the latest Fiscal Accountability Report from the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA).
According to OFA, the HUT is now expected to bring in $65
million over the course of FY 2024 and $67.6 million in 2026. By fiscal year
2028, the tax is projected to bring in only $70 million, roughly $30 million
less than earlier projections and taking years longer than previously expected
to ramp up.
OFA wrote the HUT was adjusted downward by $25 million for
2024, “to reflect lower than expected collections.”
“As HUT is still in its relative infancy, its long-term
outlook and growth rates are less certain at this point compared to more
established tax streams,” the Fiscal Accountability Report says. “The downward
adjustment for HUT is partly offset by higher than expected collections for
motor vehicle registration and related fees as well as for interest income.”
John Blair, president of the Motor Transport Association of
Connecticut (MTAC), which represents Connecticut trucking companies and
truckers, says the lower revenue is what his organization warned about when the
legislation was passed.
“From day one we as an organization at MTAC have said we
expect this thing to underperform because the out of state carriers are not
going to pay their fair share, or at all,” Blair said. “I believe if we dug
into the numbers, it would bear out that in-state carriers are carrying the
majority of the dollars that come into the state.”
“Because there’s no enforcement mechanism around it, the out
of state carriers are unlikely to pay the same amount of tax,” Blair
continued.
There currently exists no way to enforce the tax other than
trucking companies self-reporting their weights and miles, something the
trucking industry has long said leaves similar taxes in other states struggling
to meet expectations. During the 2023 session, the General Assembly voted to
require only quarterly HUT taxes rather than monthly, which was an
administrative relief for trucking companies in Connecticut, Blair said, but
the tax remains cumbersome for trucking companies.
“This regulatory scheme is so complicated, from the
quarterly filings to tracking miles on a daily basis, I also believe that
affects the overall revenue collection because it’s very difficult to keep
track and it’s an administrative burden,” Blair said.
Republicans who opposed the tax have unsuccessfully tried in
years since to roll it back, even forcing a public hearing on repealing the tax before
the Transportation Committee in 2023.
While the expected revenue from HUT is lower than
anticipated, the overall trajectory of the Special Transportation Fund remains
positive, for now. According to OFA’s report, the fund will start to see
deficits in 2027 as expenses begin to outpace revenue. However, the fund has
also built up its largest cumulative balance in history at $681.7 million. That
balance is expected to grow to more than $1 billion by 2026, just as the
shortfalls are expected the following year.
Much of that growth is due to the transfer of sales tax
revenue into the STF, a tax that has seen increasing revenue for Connecticut,
particularly during periods of high inflation. The OFA warns, however, that
fuel taxes, which show a slight decline, could fall further if the state begins
to phase out the sale of gasoline powered cars.
“Conversely, fuel tax growth is projected to be negative
through FY 28 as vehicles become more fuel efficient and oil prices fall from
recent highs,” the OFA report says. “Furthermore, the state is pursuing longer
term goals that are expected to reduce fuel tax collections, including various
strategies to increase the adoption of electric vehicles and to reduce vehicle
miles traveled.”
Overall, according to the report, Connecticut is expected to
see lower surpluses due to declining revenue from Wall Street, business taxes
and sales tax revenue, but continue its current run of taking in more revenue
than it is paying out due to declining expenditures, resulting in balanced
budgets.
The report did warn, however, that OFA’s report methodology
“does not allow for growth in non-fixed cost expenditures or the consideration
of other potential budgetary pressure, such as potential ongoing expenditures
previously funded through temporary resources such as American Rescue Plan or
carryforward funds. Therefore, the out-year balances should not be considered
annual surpluses.”
91-unit affordable housing development approved in Farmington
Aprominent developer has received zoning approval for a
91-unit mixed-income apartment complex on New Britain Avenue in Farmington.
Metro Realty Group, which specializes in affordable housing
projects, will build 33 one-bedroom and 58 two-bedroom apartments across 12
buildings at 8562 New Britain Ave., according to plans submitted to the
town.
The 9-acre site is near Route 6 and is across from the
office building of digital marketing firm Primacy.
Metro Realty is seeking tax credits that would result in a
breakdown of 80% income-restricted units and 20% market rate, said Kyle
Richards, executive vice president at Metro Realty, during a Nov. 6 public
hearing.
That would result in 73 units having their rent capped at
affordable levels set by the state, with 18 units being market rate.
All 91 units will count toward the town's 10% affordable
housing goal. Currently, 8.17% of the town's housing stock is considered
affordable.
At a recent infrastructure summit held at Hartford's Society
Room, Geoffrey Sager, president of Metro Realty, applauded new state incentives
through the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and Department of Housing
that help developers secure financing for affordable housing projects.
Metro Realty recently received approval for a similar
88-unit project in Berlin.
"There's big demand for market-rate housing, and
there's an insatiable demand for affordable housing," Sager said.