State Pier construction nears completion
Greg Smith
The banging and ringing sound of metal piles being driven
into the floor of the Thames River around State Pier, echoing through the
streets of Groton and New London, has ceased.
The silence marks a significant milestone in the nearly $310
million reconstruction of New London’s deepwater port, signaling
near-completion for what has become a staging and assembly hotspot for the
country’s burgeoning offshore wind industry.
The last pile was driven on March 13, and dredging around
the pier wrapped up in February, later than initially anticipated but still in
time to accommodate the arrival next month of offshore wind turbine components
for Ørsted and Eversource’s next project, Revolution Wind.
“To the residents of New London and to the residents of
Groton, I thank you for enduring all of the pile driving during the day and
night ... for the benefit of the rest of the state and the country,” Ulysses
Hammond, interim executive director of the Connecticut Port Authority, said at
a port authority meeting earlier this week.
Hundreds of the piles, which are metal pipes ranging in
diameter from 30 to 42 inches, were used to shore up the newly constructed
pier. Marlin Peterson, construction manager for AECOM, said there are more than
1,000 of the piles, including the piles to create walls containing the 390,000
cubic yards of fill material used to fill in the 7 acres of water that used to
separate two piers.
Hammond said contractors are in the final stages of
preparing for the arrival of offshore wind turbines associated with Revolution
Wind, a 65-turbine offshore wind project to be construction off the coast of
Rhode Island by partners Ørsted and Eversource -- the first project to deliver
power to Connecticut. State Pier already was used to marshal components for
South Fork Wind, a 12-turbine project that became the first utility-scale
offshore wind project in the country and is now supplying renewable power to
the Long Island grid.
Hammond said the construction project will be substantially
completed by April, with some lingering punch list items being performed on
site. Over the next several weeks, work crews will be installing fenders,
bollards and ladders along the pier installation berth. There is also drainage
piping and salvaged granite blocks to be reset, final grading and compaction,
Peterson said.
Increased costs
The construction work, especially the pile driving, has
proved to be more challenging and costly than expected. Works crews have
repeatedly reported hitting obstacles, such as boulders and buried structures,
while driving the piles, leading to longer work hours and more time on site for
the massive pieces of equipment being used. Peterson said crews were often
working six days a week and two 10-hour shifts.
At a special meeting on Tuesday, the port authority’s board
of directors authorized spending $1.5 million on the work, $870,000 more than
anticipated ― more than half of that added cost is associated with pile
driving. The port authority had approved the extra work but had not yet had
details of the final cost. Peterson said other expenses include the
installation of a larger water connection, safety buoys and dealing with the
discovery of sewer manholes on site.
The money is coming from the $6 million in the budget
earmarked for contingencies. The rest of the money is also likely to be spent
when the final costs of installation of toe walls, which Peterson said
construction manager Kiewit Corp. thinks will exceed the remainder of the
funds. Peterson said AECOM contends the contingency will cover the cost but
remains in negotiations with Kiewit.
“We’ll see how we come to a resolution to that discrepancy,”
Peterson said.
The construction project, when conceived in 2018, was
estimated to cost less than $100 million but has steadily risen in cost. Last
summer, the Connecticut Port Authority obtained $30 million more from the state
and $23.7 million from Ørsted and Eversource to cope with the cost increases.
Ørsted and Eversource, with three planned projects
associated with staging and assembly at State Pier, are paying the port
authority $2 million a year as part of a 10-year lease of the property.
Separately, the city of New London is receiving a minimum of $750,000 per year
as part of a host community agreement with Ørsted and Eversource.
David Kooris, chairman of the board, said if the contingency
funds are not enough to cover the final costs, there is funding available from
other revenue streams, including the lease payments from the New England
Central Railroad property next to the pier.
“We’ve got all the money we need. We’re not going back (to
the state) for more money,” Kooris said.
State Pier Rebuild – By the Numbers
335 – 30-inch diameter Pipe Piles
367 – 42-inch diameter Pipe Piles
323 – Sheet piles
2,525 – lineal feet length of Toe Wall (combination of pipes
& sheets) used to retain rip-rap below the water line along east wall
390,000 – cubic yards sandy fill between State Pier &
CVRR Pier
180,000 cubic yards dredged volume (disposed offsite)
8,643 – lineal feet of stormwater pipes
4 – new Stormwater Outfalls
10 – 120-foot High-Mast Light Poles
14,500 cubic yards of concrete
4,812,866 lbs. of steel reinforcement (rebar) which equates
to 2,406 tons
(Source/ Connecticut Port Authority)
Aging dams sprinkled across Connecticut are hidden flood hazards waiting in plain sight
Vincent
Gabrielle, Eric
Bedner
Charise Hewitt has lived near Konold's pond in the West
Hills neighborhood of Woodbridge for about 20 years, and every spring and
summer her yard floods twice a month. It takes weeks for it to dry out enough
to walk on the ground, she said, and it's gotten worse over time.
In a nearby grove of trees, a small ancient dam more than
100-years-old is choked with brush as it holds back the swollen West River that
drains the pond. It's spring, and more water is coming as the snow melts up
north.
“The water stays; there’s more of a chance that the water is
gonna rise” in the pond, said Hewitt. “It’s going to stay on our side of
the flow, rather than spilling out into the river where it belongs, where it’s
supposed to go.”
Down the road, on a little cul-du-sac abutting the
pond, resident Steve Sappo said the neighborhood floods constantly. “The last
few times it’s rained … it’s been, well you know ... we have two pumps running
downstairs.” Sappo, who works in construction, said it would “be smart” if
someone removed the dam, or dredged the pond.
Unlike the dramatic breach of the Fitchville Pond Dam in
Bozrah in January, the Konold Pond dam is like most: small, privately-owned,
and gone unchecked by engineers for years. And it's not alone.
Connecticut is one of the most heavily dammed states in the
country, with about 4,800 spread throughout cities and towns, 84 percent of
which are privately owned and many more than a century old. According to the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state is home to 54 dams per every 100 miles
of free-flowing rivers — more than any other state per river mile. The national
average is six.
Over half of the dams were originally built to supply local
water power to mills or to make small ponds. They easily blend into the
landscape, largely going unnoticed until catastrophe strikes.
Making matters worse, there are no federal or state laws
that require owners of high risk or significant hazard dams to disclose who
might be in the flood zone should a dam fail, or get clogged and backup.
Keeping count
The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
classifies all dams by the level of risk to life, property and infrastructure
it poses to the region should it fail, ranging from the lowest being Class AA,
a "negligible
hazard," and the most hazardous and likely to cause severe damage or
loss of life classified as C. Class B dams pose significant risk to the local
area, while Class BB dams are considered a moderate risk,
should they fail.
There are a total of 288 dams in the state with a C
classification, 27 of which are privately owned, according to DEEP officials.
Konold Pond dam is rated Class A, according to DEEP records.
The dams are also classified by inspectors and rated for
their condition, including unsatisfactory, poor, fair, or good. Dam owners must
hire the inspector, who submits the rating to DEEP.
The Fitchville Pond Dam was among those that had a long
history of missing inspections before it breached. Other privately-owned Class
C dams can be found throughout the state, including Pemberwick Dam in Greenwich, Williams
Pond Dam in Glastonbury, Warren Pond Dam in Stafford, and the
Hockanum Reservoir Dam in Vernon.
According to DEEP, there are roughly 960 dams in Connecticut
that have no hazard ratings at all — the dam has not been inspected and in some
cases, the state isn't sure if it still exists.
Laura Wildman, vice president of the nonprofit Save the
Sound, said frequently people living and working downstream of high hazard dams
have “no idea” they are in a potential flood zone. “This is a national problem,
not just a Connecticut problem,” said Wildman. “There are no laws, no
federal or state laws, that require people who live in dam breach inundation
zones to be told that they live in a dam breach inundation zone. That’s even
the case when buying a property.”
In October 2007, owners of high and significant hazard dams
in Connecticut were required to file a notice with municipal land records and
register "all dams in the state of Connecticut” with DEEP, but neither the
state nor the municipality is required to warn residents or businesses
downstream of a high-hazard dam.
The state has oversight of all dams in Connecticut,
regardless of who owns it, except for those regulated by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, DEEP spokesman
Paul Copelman said. If a dam is given a Class AA negligible hazard rating,
its management and regulation is transferred to the local municipality, as
it’s of little consequence, he said.
Under state law, every dam should have undergone a
regulatory inspection by at least 2016 that included a determination by a
professional engineer recommending a hazard classification in order for DEEP to
accept it, Copleman said. However, close to 1,000 dams throughout the state
have no hazard class rating because they were not inspected before the 2016
deadline.
In 2014, Connecticut transferred the obligation to inspect
dams to the dam's owner, with higher risk dams requiring more frequent
inspections and the most hazardous requiring an emergency action plan submitted
to the state, showing the land most at risk from a dam failure and recommended
responses to breaches. The statutory change requires dam owners to hire a
licensed professional engineer to conduct the inspections and report the
results to DEEP.
However, since 2015, DEEP's Dam Safety Program has issued 69 notices of
non-compliance and 52 notices of violations for Class C dams lacking emergency
action plans. Some of these were issued multiple times to the same dam
owner.
About 14 percent of high and significant hazard dams are
past their inspection due dates, per DEEP, while 17 percent of high and
significant hazard dams have submitted emergency action plans that DEEP has not
accepted because they need revisions or updates.
Wildman said that even with good dam safety requirements,
funding for enforcement is lacking from the state.
“You can send dam safety orders to a dam owner over and over
again,” said Wildman. “We have almost no funding for enforcement, and
because of that these things are almost never enforced.”
According to DEEP, there are no high or significant hazard
dams in unsatisfactory condition in Connecticut, however there are 30 rated as
poor.
One such dam is the Freshwater Pond Dam in Enfield,
which is owned by the town. The dam's most recent inspection report filed with
DEEP was conducted in April of 2020, listing the dam's overall condition as
"poor." At the time, parts of the dam, which was built in 1900,
showed "significant deterioration" since its previous 2014
inspection.
It has since been repaired following the 2020 inspection,
town officials say. Enfield spent roughly $441,000 to address concerns raised
by DEEP, Public Works Director Donald Nunes said. Work included removing all
vegetation from a masonry retaining wall, constructing a new retaining wall
adjacent to the downstream spillway retaining wall, and repairing storm drains,
among other improvements, he said.
“We have done exactly what was required of us and it’s all
been repaired,” Nunes said. “We’ve made extraordinary efforts to make sure
this dam is safe.”
State and federal response
State Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, said that while the
legislature has made strides in providing accountability for dam owners, such
as making sure prospective property buyers are aware there's a dam on a parcel
they’re purchasing and the responsibilities that come with it, more should be
done. A large issue, she said, is that people who own private dams most
likely don't have the money to make costly repairs or even pay for inspections.
"Inspections are not cheap," Osten said.
"To fix a dam is not cheap. There isn't a dam that is going to cost less
than $1 million and that's just construction." Other costs include
engineering and permits, she said. "All of that is expensive, takes time,
and there is no real enforcement on making sure that private land owners of
dams do all of those things."
In hindsight, Osten questions if moving some regulatory
authority from DEEP to the dam owners was the best approach, even though it
minimizes the cost to taxpayers. And while the state Bond Commission has
approved millions of dollars for dam repairs throughout the state in recent
months, funds don’t go to private dams.
U.S. Sens. Richard Blumethal and Chris Murphy agree
more needs to be done and are looking for solutions at the federal level. While
there is no new legislation proposed by Congress to address Connecticut’s
private, aging dams there are a variety of existing sources that could be of
use, including through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
“Each year, Connecticut gets hit with increasingly frequent
and dangerous storms that come at a huge cost to homeowners, local businesses,
and municipalities," Murphy said. "Repairs after a devastating flood
are vital, but we need to get serious about mitigating damage before disaster
strikes.”
There are limited federal funding avenues for
privately-owned dams, however, said Blumenthal, who added that he's
explored possibilities through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and general
flood resiliency funding. Any money from the Corps Water Infrastructure
Financing Program is a loan, not a grant, and is limited to dam safety projects
that are not federally owned, operated, and maintained. Privately-owned dams
like the one in Bozrah or West Haven could potentially be eligible for
those funds, he said.
The funds would be a welcome relief to those like Heidi
Duff, who estimates she'll spend $25,000 or more on repairs to her Norwich hair
salon that flooded when the Fitchville Pond Dam in Bozrah cracked and
spilled water down her street before the state stepped in to make emergency
repairs. The final damage could've been much worse at the Details Hair Salon
and other neighboring businesses, Duff said. “If that dam were to collapse, my
basement would be filled with water,” said Duff, noting that in 2010, the former
tenant had four feet of water in their basement space. With that in mind, Duff
bought a flood door that she and her husband reinforced with sealant.
“I’m hoping we’ll be OK for the next one,” Duff said.
“Spring is coming; we’ve never had a flood like this in the winter, but you
can’t stop Mother Nature with her rain and the volume of snow that we had prior
to that. … We’ll hope and pray, and if the water comes again, we’ll clean it
out.”
Duff says she was one of the more fortunate business owners
in the area, as others were “totally annihilated.” She places most of the blame
on the town for not properly maintaining the Yantic River. “I think the bigger
story, in all honesty, is the history of the area and what was or wasn’t put in
place for future generations to be protected,” she said, adding that the river
is routinely littered with debris that creates its own dam, causing water to
flow over the river’s banks. “My concern is more the obstructions that are down
river that aren’t being addressed,” Duff said. “Without the maintenance of the
river, it could be a catastrophe.”
Why so many dams?
With so many ancient dams in the state, the question remains
if they're all necessary. People initially built dams to power water wheels,
make ponds for fishing or livestock, while others were created for flood
control or canals. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, dam building
reached a fever pitch as early mills relied on fast-flowing rivers, plugging
them up with dams to power the mills.
Ari Perez, a Quinnipiac University civil engineering
professor said that over time, as economics and technology shifted, many of
those dams deteriorated. Water can burrow through earthen dams, eroding holes
to make them larger. Reinforced concrete chips and cracks with age,
exposing rebar to rust. And maintenance wasn't always a priority once they
were no longer needed.
“But the other thing that’s more difficult to account for is
that sometimes things just run their course,” said Perez. When the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers inspects a dam, part of their process is asking the question
“does this dam still need to be here?”
Andrew Fisk, northeast regional director for the nonprofit
environmental group American Rivers, said that there were many thousands of
privately owned dams across America that no longer serve a purpose. “They are
suffering from needed maintenance in order to prevent them from partially
breaching and fully breaching,” he said, pointing to an earthen dam
in Michigan that was not maintained and burst in 2020, forcing tens of
thousands of people to evacuate.
Back in Woodbridge, Jon Vander Werff, a fish biologist,
strolled the banks of Konold's Pond and wondered if the same thing might happen
there. The water on that sunny, March 13 day was just out of flood stage, but
still really high. The small concrete-and-stone wier creating the shallow and
widening pond runs the width of the river. Beyond it, shaded in a stand of
maples and oaks and choked with brush is an earthen dam that's over a century
old.
Recent rains have pushed the pond beyond its normal bounds,
as the West River roars down through the trees. Vander Werff, who works
with Save the Sound, said it's unclear when the ancient dam was built or who
built it, but it was probably installed to make a fishing pond. There’s no
evidence of a mill here, unlike other sites downstream, he said.
“In my eyes it’s creating all kinds of issues,” said Vander
Werff. “It’s not super big, but it’s making the water level higher.”
Some of the neighborhood residents contacted Save the Sound
during a dam removal and river restoration project at the former site of the
Lilly Pond Dam, he said, asking if anything could be done about the Konold
Pond dam that was flooding the neighborhood. Discussions are at the early
stages. The problem with this dam, and this pond, is that over its long life
span Konold Pond has gotten shallower and shallower as silt has built
up, Vander Werff said.
Resident Carol Perrotti said the pond used to be
beautiful, but it's now choked with lily pads. “It’s just deteriorated, that’s
all I can say, since I was a kid, the last few years especially,” she said,
adding that she was lucky to have a basement high enough to avoid the water.
Other houses in the neighborhood experienced flooding in their backyards and
basements in recent months. “The people on both sides of me have water in their
basements. It cracked the floor, the water; it cracked the floor from the ground
up.”
According to the Woodbridge Assessor's Office the dam
and the pond are privately owned and controlled by an LLC, so dredging the
silt or removing the dam isn't easily done, and prospects are few. No one from
the LLC or the family trust attached to the company could be reached for
comment.
The pond does provide a much-needed spawning habitat for
migratory river herring, herons, wood ducks and occasionally bald eagles,
Vander Werff said. Locals come to kayak and canoe on the pond.
“What takes so much time is that there are so many different
stakeholders,” said Vander Werff. Downstream, the river channels, which
makes pond remediation tricky. If work is done on the dam to lower the pond, it
needs to be engineered so that it doesn’t make the West River more prone to
flooding, or destroy the homes and businesses that abut the channel, he said.
“We want to lower this pond down to reduce the water
(flooding) back here, but not reduce it enough where it gets a faster velocity”
downstream, he said. “If it gets a faster velocity in the straightaway it’s
going to erode, and all the walls are gonna come down.” It's a great example of
how complicated a small, privately owned dam can be, and the problems it can
cause after blocking a river for a century or more, both upstream, and down.
As Waterbury’s population grows, blighted downtown sites are are giving way to new housing, business
Liese
Klein
Corned beef and cabbage star on the menu instead of
schnitzel, and you can get draft Guinness at the bar instead of a German
lager.
But the new Tullamore Public House that opened on
Waterbury’s Leavenworth Street just in time for St. Patrick’s Day this month
taps directly into the legend of Drescher’s Restaurant, a century-old tradition
in downtown.
“It’s been here for a very long time,” said Waterbury Mayor
Paul Pernerewski. “It’s got a classic old-style bar, and just that feel with
the woodwork and everything. Now it’s coming back as more of an Irish bar.”
Established in the late 1800s, Drescher’s occupied the
building at 21 Leavenworth in various forms until 2021, when the pandemic
shuttered many of downtown Waterbury’s restaurants. Now the area is slowly
stirring back to life, and the co-owner of Tullamore Public House hopes to help
bring business to the entire downtown district.
“I’ve been here for 58 years and this is where my roots
are,” said Mike Pronovost, who owns Tullamore’s with Christina Napoli. “It was
an unbelievable feeling how many people came out to support me on St. Patrick’s
Day, to come by and say hello.”
New shine in Brass City
The Tullamore’s opening downtown is just one hopeful sign in
the long-beleaguered Brass City, which saw factories that once employed more
than 50,000 people at their peak shut down decades ago. The city of about
114,000 was left with dozens of hulking abandoned factories, acres of poisoned
land and the third-poorest population in the state.
Despite ongoing issues with poverty and crime, the city
added nearly 5,000 new residents in the decade between the 2010 and 2020
censuses. Home prices and rents are way up, and a new wave of investors from
New York are buying land and planning new housing.
Gov. Ned Lamont took notice at an event in Waterbury on
March 1 announcing
planned changes in state pollution rules to speed reuse of old
industrial sites. Connecticut’s long distressed major cities are spearheading
an economic revival in the state, he said.
“A lot of our development and growth has happened in great
cities like Waterbury, where people want to be — one of our fastest growing
cities in the state,” Lamont said. “People love this city, love the history
here, and we’re just bringing that history back to life.”
The debris-strewn property that provided a backdrop to the
governor’s event, the former Waterbury Button Factory, will be cleared in
a matter of months and could eventually be repurposed for housing, said Thomas
Hyde, executive director of the Waterbury Development Corporation.
“There’s still in-ground contaminants that we’ll have to
deal with… at that point, there may be an interested developer or we’d be
looking at additional state funding to try to clean it up,” Hyde said. A new
baseball field was also built last year on a former factory site up the
street.
Even Holy Land, the famously long-decaying theme park with a
giant cross that looms over the city from Pine Hill, is slated
for improvements, thanks to a Waterbury-born priest who was a
contractor before taking his vows.
Lifetime Waterbury resident Pernerewski, in his first months
as mayor, sees a new energy in the city.
“It’s not going to be what it was back in the ’50s and ’60s,
but we can bring back the vibrancy and the centrality of the city to what it
was back in those days,” Pernerewski said.
New housing coming to downtown
Aiding in downtown Waterbury’s revival will be the 120 new
housing units, mostly market-rate apartments, slated to open in the coming
year, with dozens more in the earlier planning stages.
“For a long time it was a big push out to the suburbs and
everybody was leaving the central cities. Now you’ve got a lot of younger
people, they don’t want to drive, they want to be connected,” Pernerewski said.
“ You get all those things downtown.”
Fueling the demand for housing downtown in part is the
growth of UConn Waterbury, the university’s regional campus centered on East
Main Street. Waterbury was the only regional UConn campus to show growth
in the number of first-time students in 2023, with numbers rising slightly to
243 in fall 2023 from 237 in fall 2019.
The total number of UConn undergraduates in Waterbury still
lags its pre-pandemic peak, with 760 students in fall 2023 compared to 806 in
fall 2019. Even so, UConn Waterbury showed the smallest post-pandemic
enrollment decline of the four regional campuses, down 1 percent, compared to
UConn Hartford (down 2.7 percent), UConn Stamford (down 2.5 percent) and UConn
Avery Point in Groton (down 3.9 percent).
New UConn offices are planned for a historic building at 36
North Main St., on the Waterbury Green.
Post University has also pledged to increase its downtown
presence, although remote working trends have curtailed plans to relocate 400
staff members to the Howland-Hughes building on Bank Street.
“There’s been some talk about bringing their Baldrige School
of Business here,” Pernerewski said. “I’m hoping to have some conversations
with them shortly to see if we can do that.”
Metro-North brings new residents
Also powering housing demand is growing ridership on the
Waterbury Branch Line of Metro-North, which runs to New York via Bridgeport.
Increased service on the line has increased the number of NYC commuters:
Passengers can get on the train in Waterbury at 4:45 a.m. and arrive at Grand
Central by 7:28 a.m.
The Waterbury Branch Line has the fastest growing ridership
in the state, Pernerewski said, “especially post-COVID when people have moved
up here to get out of the city. Many of them
The growth of the Metro-North route also bodes well for the
future of a 20-acre former brass manufacturing complex near the train station,
on Freight Street, which has been cleared of dilapidated buildings in recent
years and is now awaiting testing prior to redevelopment.
“What we want to do is get a developer on board,” said Hyde,
adding that the growth of Metro-North ridership is expected to spark new
development throughout Greater Waterbury and into the lower Naugatuck Valley.
The Waterbury
line is slated to get stylish new French rail cars in coming years
and lawmakers
are pushing for more trains and new stations in the Naugatuck Valley.
The Freight Street site would be ideal for “transit-oriented
development,” the catchphrase and grant programs used to encourage
higher density in the state’s towns and cities and new construction near major
transit routes. Access to transit has shaped Waterbury’s priorities, Hyde
said.
“It’s all part of the redevelopment of downtown, where
people can walk from Freight Street, where they can walk to the train station,
have a job in Fairfield County or in New York, come back to Waterbury and
live,” Hyde said.
Factory sites move toward reuse
In addition to Freight Street, many of Waterbury’s more than
33 former factory sites are also moving toward reuse in coming years, thanks to
a flood of money channeled into the city from President Biden’s Infrastructure
Act.
Top priority is the former Anamet hose-making facility, a
17-acre site at 698 South Main St. with a surviving high-bay warehouse building
suitable for a distribution center. The city spent $4.4 million to clean up the
site and restore the warehouse, but has yet to make a deal to redevelop the
site.
“We’re going to go out to bid again this year,” Hyde said.
“Depending on what the end use is, ideally this year or next we’ll start to see
something.”
Waterbury is actually running short on industrial space for
smaller users, with demand outstripping supply, said Brian Godin of
Middlebury’s Godin Property Brokers.
“In general, there’s not a lot of inventory available…which
I guess is a good thing,” Godin said.
Office space is also in high demand in the city’s downtown,
with law offices and other users seeking to expand and New York investors
buying buildings. Godin said he has worked in the Waterbury commercial real
estate market for 18 years and has seen a definite uptick in interest in recent
years.
“I just feel like a lot of people are coming in and I feel
like they’re spending some money downtown, which is opening the door for more
opportunities,” Godin said.
Mall and Amazon project hit headwinds
Although hopes are high for many sites in Waterbury, some
question marks remain.
Like many malls across the state, Brass Mill Center has lost
anchor tenants like Macy’s and Sears as shopping habits shift. Although the
mall will get its movie theater back soon, Bath & Body Works announced
earlier this month it would move to Waterbury Plaza across town.
A “for lease” notice is currently the largest signage at the
mall’s entrance and the adjacent Brass Mill Commons was recently pulled off the
market by its current owners.
Waterbury’s two hospitals are also struggling in a climate
that has left most
of the state’s health care systems reeling from higher costs and reimbursement
issues.
Owned by ailing Prospect Medical Holdings, Waterbury
Hospital got a new leader in February ahead of a planned sale to Yale
New Haven Health. That deal has been delayed for two years as the state
analyzes its impact and two sides squabble over terms.
Saint Mary’s, acquired by Trinity Health in 2015, reported
declines in employee numbers, patient discharges and staffed beds in fiscal
2022 compared to prior years, according to the state Office of Health Strategy.
Uncertainty also looms over a proposed
Amazon distribution center that would employ 1,000 at a site that
straddles the Waterbury-Naugatuck border. The developer
asked that the closing deadline be extended until December amid
concerns about feasibility in the current market.
But Waterbury leaders are optimistic the deal will go
through and a 660,000-square-foot Amazon facility will soon add to the city’s
employment base and tax rolls.
“Every indication in conversations we’ve had with them is
they’re still very interested in the site,” Pernerewski said.
Developer of Brainerd Place mixed-use complex in Portland seeks tax break, 110 more apartments
Cassandra Day
PORTLAND — The developer of Brainerd
Place, a seven-building mixed-use complex under construction at
the old Elmcrest Hospital site, is asking town leaders for another tax
abatement and zoning approval of a modified site plan.
Real estate
developer Daniel Bertram, a principal with BRT
Companies of Danbury, came before the Board of Selectmen earlier this month
to explain proposed updates to the project.
Construction is proceeding at the 14.7-acre property at the
corner of Main (Route 17) and Marlborough streets (Route 66), near the Arrigoni
Bridge.
Among the many features of the years-long project are two
eateries and a Starbucks.
Brainerd Place is approved for 240 housing units. The new
plan calls for an additional 110 apartments to be built on the plot originally
intended for a CVS. That would bring the total units to 350, which
requires a special zoning exception.
When Bertram joined the project in 2015, he told selectmen
that a CVS was built into the design. However, it has been difficult to secure
a pre-lease with the company, Bertram said.
"It didn't progress to anything. I don't think it's a
loss,” he explained. “This is a very nice alternative, and right sizing to the
existing demand, but a premium offering."
Additional units, Bertram said, would be “a big step up from
a CVS” considering a Walgreens is already close by.
Renovations
to three 19th-century buildings on the campus that had fallen into
disrepair are underway at the circa 1852 Erastus Brainerd Jr. House, circa 1804
John H. Sage House, and the Hart-Jarvis House, which was built in 1829.
Sage House will include a restaurant, and Brainerd House
will become a clubhouse for people who work or live there. The Hart-Jarvis
House will be used as office space.
New traffic lights at the intersection have been installed
by the state Department of Transportation, and are ready for use.
The Board of Selectmen tabled the request for a tax
abatement for a future meeting.
Bertram
told the board on March 6 that four EV charging stations will be
installed in the underground parking garage at one of the buildings, with a
capacity of 125 vehicles.
There are no playgrounds or in-house day care as part of the
plan since the dwelling units are not designed for children, Bertram said.
“We would have more large units if it was a family offering;
it's more the recent college grad and the senior crowd,” he said, pointing to a
similar complex in Brookfield that also has a 70-30 percent mix of studio,
one-bedrooms, and two-bedroom flats.
Ten school-age children live in the Brookfield units, he
said.
The Brainerd Place is projected to house 24 school-age
children.
Another feature will be a two-level, 9,000 square-foot
rooftop restaurant on the southwest portion of one building, with a view of the
Connecticut River. A portion of the restaurant will be for indoor dining.
There would be another 9,000 square feet of retail space,
Bertram said.
"The views from this location will be phenomenal,"
the developer said of the restaurant. "This is an expensive amenity, but
something we think is special and noteworthy about the project.”
The hope is to bring in another restaurant next to the
Starbucks, Bertram said.The next Planning & Zoning Commission meeting is
set for April 4 at 7 p.m. To review the agenda, go to portlandct.org.
For information, visit ElmcrestPropertyInfo on
Facebook and brainerdplace.com.
BLT yanks North 7 plans over Norwalk P&Z requirement to bury power lines; 'Economically not viable'
Katherine
Lutge
NORWALK — The fate of the North
7 development plan is unknown after Stamford developer Building and Land Technology yanked
its application for a 266-unit mixed-use apartment building over a city
requirement that developers bury the utility lines.
“Mr. Chairman,
point of order, the applications are hereby withdrawn,” said BLT’s attorney
David Waters after two hours of discussion on the application in the Planning
and Zoning Commission meeting Wednesday. “There is no need to take any further
action.”
Earlier in the meeting, Waters explained that if the P&Z
Commission required BLT to place the utilities underground, then “it would
make this project economically not viable.”
“At this point, to underground the overhead utilities that
currently exist would literally cost several million dollars, and by our
consulting engineers' estimate, it would take about a year to do it,” Waters
said.
Despite BLT’s claims, several P&Z Commission members
said they believed this requirement is fair.
“I think we need to do what is best for the project, best
for the neighborhood and best for the city,” said Louis Schulman, chair of the
P&Z Commission. “I think having the utilities underground responds to all
three of those.”
“I think it also adds to the resilience, too. If the
utilities are buried underground, they are more likely not to be damaged in a
storm or have to get replaced in the storm, ensuring power for the area,” said
Steve Kleppin, director of planning and zoning.
Before the P&Z Commission officially voted to keep the
condition to require the underground utilities, Waters pulled the application
because it appeared the commission would require it.
Commissioners were shocked by the withdrawal of the
application.
“It’s a shame given where we are with it and all the work
that’s gone into it,” P&Z commissioner Nicholas Kantor said.
“I would hate to see this project go away,” P&Z
commissioner Galen Wells said.
“I don’t appreciate the attempts to manipulate us in this
way,” Schulman added.
The North 7 master plan from BLT, which also developed Stamford’s
Harbor Point, included 1,300 apartment units
across several buildings. The fate of the entire project is now at a stalemate
over who is responsible for burying the the power lines.
This application was just phase 1 of BLT’s North 7 Master
Plan, which included a 12-story,
266-unit building with retail and a town square amenity located across
the street from the newly completed Merritt
7 train station.
Earlier this month, Gov.
Ned Lamont and
other leaders visited the station to admire the new pedestrian bridge
that connects Glover Avenue and train commuters to the Merritt 7 office park
and Main Avenue. During the tour, Lamont said this new station is the blueprint
for transit-oriented development.
Waters said BLT has always supported the mission to get
power lines underground but said it should have been done by Connecticut’s
Department of Transportation during the train station project.
“This is a bit of a sore point for us because we have been
arguing about this and arguing for this for over five years,” he said. “We
completely agree that they should have been placed underground. They should
have been placed underground years ago.”
While the power lines were not put underground, they were
moved to the other side of the street by DOT, which Waters said BLT was
not pleased about.
“To add insult to injury, when DOT and Eversource did the
station improvements, they moved the overhead lines from the east side, from
the train station side of the street, over to our side of the street,” Waters
said. “So now they have impacted us even more.”
While BLT is not willing to pay for the work to put the
power lines underground, Waters said they would provide the easements, “but we
are just unable or willing to undertake that ourselves.”
Renovation of XL Center in Hartford will be scaled back after bids come in some $33M over budget
Liese
Klein
HARTFORD — When the 49 bids for renovating Hartford’s XL
Center came in earlier this year, the arena’s managers knew they had a problem
— they were going to need to scale back the project or find a lot more money.
Many of the bids came back in the $140 million range on
a project
budgeted at $107 million, Capital Region Development Authority officials
told the agency’s board on Thursday.
Higher costs for labor and materials likely pushed the bids
up above the original budget, according to Michael Freimuth, executive director
of the CRDA.
“A lot of jobs are coming in high,” Freimuth said.
The first batch of bids will be shelved due to the high
costs. The XL Center construction manager, design team, and CRDA construction
experts will work together to reconfigure the renovation plan to cut costs,
Freimuth said.
The redesigned project plan is scheduled to be completed by
mid-April and go out for a new round of bids in May.
Some planned changes to modernize the XL Center will likely
be scaled back, Freimuth said.
“What we leave on the table, I'm not yet certain,” Freimuth
said. "There are some priorities we'll have to leave behind us.”
By redesigning the project and getting more state and
private funds, the total budget could be bumped up to $125 million, Freimuth
said.
The arena's operator, Oak View Group, has agreed to
contribute more toward the project, which includes rearranging the arena’s
floor, revamping the loading dock, and rebuilding the lower bowl.
With increased private support, state lawmakers are open to
bolstering their commitment of public funds, said CRDA board member Andy
Bessette.
“I think there is real support in the legislature,” Bessette
said. “Everybody understands how important it is to downtown, to Hartford.”
A total revamp has been presented as vital to the survival
of the 49-year-old Hartford arena in an increasingly
competitive marketplace for hosting concerts, games, and other
events.
Not to mention future hopes like luring
a National Hockey League team to Hartford like the Arizona Coyotes, which
may be ready to relocate this year if a land auction scheduled for June fails.
Freimuth warned the CRDA board that letting the XL Center
deteriorate would deal a devastating blow to plans to gradually transform
downtown Hartford into a residential and entertainment center.
“There is the danger, the very real danger of slow, steady
reduction in events and revenues,” Freimuth said. “So I think we should push
the envelope one more time and see what we can do. My suggestion to the team is
to put it back on the street.”
Aquarion is for sale, but who will buy it? Here's a look at what's next
Luther
Turmelle
As Eversource Energy continues to explore the sale of
its Aquarion Water subsidiary,
it's unclear exactly how many companies may be interested in buying it. The
purchase, however, will have a ripple effect across Connecticut with more than
236,000 customers in 72 municipalities across three states.
Financial
analysts have said the California-based corporate parent of Connecticut Water
Co. is one of the likely suitors for the Bridgeport-based utility.
SJW
Group acquired the Clinton-based water utility in 2019 and analysts in
interviews said SJW's existing presence in the state make it a logical
acquirer of Aquarion.
"SJW was the first name that came to mind when we heard
this," said Charlie Suse, a senior analyst with Boston-based Bluefield
Research.
Richie Rathsack, a spokesman for Connecticut Water, said
neither company officials nor anyone with the company's corporate
parent would have any comment on whether they had any interest in making a
bid for Aquarion. Connecticut Water has more than 107,000 customers in 60
Connecticut towns.
Since announcing the intention to explore the sale of
Aquarion in mid-February, Eversource officials have repeatedly declined further
comment on a timetable for determining a buyer for the Bridgeport-based water
company. Eversource acquired Aquarion for $1.675 billion in 2017.
The bulk of Aquarion's customers are here in
Connecticut. where it provides water in 59 communities, although it also serves
some customers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Eversource announced its plans to find a buyer for Aquarion
almost 11 months after the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory
Authority rejected
the water company's rate hike request and instead approved a decrease of its
current revenue requirements by approximately 0.99 percent. Aquarion
subsequently appealed the decision and the case is still tied up in the courts.
When Eversource announced plans to seek a buyer
for Aquarion, company officials said "the water business is likely of
substantial value to another owner as part of a larger strategic water business
or infrastructure platform."
In a research report provided to customers in late February,
Bluefield described Aquarion being put up for sale as "a unique
buying
opportunity from which to grow."
"Since 2015, Bluefield has identified only four
transactions serving more than 100,000 customers," the report said in
part. "Considering the
amount that Eversource paid in 2017, the sale would be one of the largest water
deals in the last decade. While Aquarion’s list of suitors is likely to be
long, history indicates that some well-heeled PE (private equity) firms and
pension funds are already poised to pounce."
As an example, the Bluefield report notes that in 2018,
Dutch pension fund service provider PGGM acquired a 20 percent stake in 15
regulated utilities in New England.
Suse said if SJW doesn't make a bid for Aquarion, another
potential acquirer might be Liberty Utilities, a subsidiary of the Algonquin
Power & Utilities Corp. in Canada. Liberty acquired American Water
Company's New York American Water Co. at the start of 2022 and Suse said
Liberty officials "have said they are doubling down" on
acquisitions going forward.
Officials with Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. did not
respond to requests for comment from CT Insider.
Travis Miller, an energy and utilities strategist for
Morningstar Securities Research, said other potential acquirers of Aquarion are
New Jersey-based American Water Works or Essential Utilities, the Bryn Mawr,
Pa.-based corporate parent of Aqua America and Peoples Natural Gas.
But neither American Water Works nor Essential Utilities has
a presence in New England.
Officials with American Water Works were not available for
comment on whether the company has any interest in acquiring Aquarion. A
spokesman with Essential Utilities said Thursday the company does not comment
on potential merger and acquisition targets.
John Griffith, American Water Works chief financial
officer, told
investors in December that the company's "outlook for future
acquisitions remains very strong."
"The work to build and refill the acquisition pipeline
is continuous," Griffith said.
Another possibility is that Aquarion could be acquired
by a private equity firm or a company that does infrastructure investment,
according to Miller.
"We've seen several deals done by infrastructure
investors that are seeking long-term reliable returns on their
investments," he said.
One other scenario of Aquarion Water being acquired could
involve the state of Connecticut.
There is precedent in the state's history for the creation
of a quasi-public utility. That's what happened in 1977 when the Connecticut
legislature created the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority,
which three years later acquired the assets of the for-profit New Haven Water
Co., which
had fallen into financial difficulties.
The Regional Water Authority, which is based in New
Haven, now serves 15 communities and has 117,000 customers.
Could history repeat itself? Suse said while it is not
unheard of for government entities to acquire investor owned water utilities,
it usually involves companies that are underperforming, which is not the
case with Aquarion.
State Senator Norman Needleman, D-Essex, who is co-chairman
of the General Assembly's Energy and Technology Committee, said he is not
aware of any interest in creating a quasi-public authority to acquire
Aquarion.
"While I'm anxious to see the details of any deal for
Aquarion, I think the price (for a quasi-public authority to acquire it) would
be a real problem," Needleman said.
