Bad Bunny concert highlights need for XL Center improvements: 'Logistically, it was difficult'
Reggaeton star Bad
Bunny not only brought 14,000 fans and a financial windfall to
Hartford's XL Center early this month — he also brought 33 trucks of
gear.
Those trucks had to navigate Asylum Street and the XL Center’s out-of-date
loading docks, highlighting the need for a
$100-million-plus upgrade of the arena’s infrastructure so it can keep
drawing top shows, the facility’s manager said on Thursday.
“Logistically, it was difficult but on the other hand, they pulled it off,”
said Michael Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development
Authority, which manages the XL Center. “We're fighting antiquated electrical
systems and elevators and roofs, so that's a dynamic we're in, trying to get
through it.”
An XL upgrade
is especially urgent as UConn seeks state funding for a planned $100
million renovation
of Gampel Pavilion on its Storrs campus that could divert games from
Hartford.
OVG, XL’s operator, has been in talks with UConn on its planned project and its
impact on Hartford games, along with promoters seeking modern venues for their
shows. With pressure mounting, Freimuth said CRDA is pouring resources into
getting XL renovations started despite a failed initial round of bids.
“It's gotten white-hot and it will be for the next six,
eight months,” Freimuth said.
State officials are also working to expand the funding
for a comprehensive revamp of the XL Center after the first round of bids for
the project came in far
above the initial $100 million budget. The current funding allocated for
the project can’t accommodate some of the needed improvements, Freimuth
said.
“We're walking the line between simply rebuilding the building and trying to
build the business,” Freimuth said. “The governor did indicate he gives us a
little bit more running room on the budget.” The budget crunch — due to
higher construction costs and interest rates — has forced the CRDA to
scale back improvements to the loading docks, Freimuth said. “We're gonna have
to try to figure out how to live with that operationally.”
The new plan for the XL renovations is scheduled to go out
for bid on May 1, with bids coming in by the end of June.
Big-ticket shows and sports at the XL Center are key to
enlivening Hartford’s downtown and sparking continued economic development,
Mayor Arunan Arulampalam told the board on Thursday. The city is planning
more events around XL shows and games like the successful UConn Men's
Basketball NCAA Championship victory parade on April 13. An estimated
60,000 fans attended the parade in downtown Hartford this year, up from 45,000
at 2023’s event.
The Bad Bunny show at the XL generated nearly $4 million in
net earnings, and along with recent concerts by Andrea Bocelli and Nicky
Minaj set new revenue and attendance records for the arena.
“The economic impact of getting XL filled more nights a week
and bringing people into our city is I think potentially huge,”
Arulampalam said. “People are having a great experience in Hartford and
hopefully coming back on days when there aren't shows or parades and just
having a great time in our city.”
Danbury leaders scrap middle school in revised Career Academy plan due to high school overcrowding
DANBURY — The former
Cartus Corp. building would be used solely as a high school and not
for grades 6-8, if the Board of Education adopts school officials’ new plan for
the building.
Officials’
original plan for the building on Apple Ridge Road was to establish a grade
6-12 program dubbed the Danbury Career Academy and house the Board of Education
offices. The building that formerly housed the Cartus Corp. is slated to
open in the 2025-26 school year, three years after city voters approved
a $208 million education bonding package that included a $164 million
plan for the school.
Leaders’ original plan sought to place 1,040 grades 9-12
students and 360 grades 6-8 school students in the building — serving a total
of 1,400 students.
Now, under the plan outlined by interim schools
Superintendent Kara Casimiro Wednesday night, the building could serve 1,400
high school students instead. It would still house the district’s central
administration.
Casimiro cited the immediate need to reduce Danbury High
School’s severe overcrowding. At the same time, the city’s middle school
enrollment has remained high, but has been manageable, Casimiro said.
By narrowing the building’s grade level focus, educators
would be able to introduce a new career pathway, clean energy and green design,
into the larger citywide career academy program the district is launching with
the building’s opening. With the addition of that program, the building would
be home to three career academy programs. Officials previously proposed two.
The interim superintendent also cited a potential cost
savings by narrowing the program’s scope to high school. Casimiro shared the
findings with the Board of Education’s Sites and Facilities Committee.
Casimiro cited projected middle school enrollment figures
over the next eight years. Those enrollment numbers showed the building
capacity for the city’s current middle schools can accommodate 2,824 students.
The projections forecast 2,783 middle school students would be enrolled in the
2024-25 school year. The projections forecast an enrollment surge in the
2028-29 and 2029-30 school years, based on the fact that there is a large
number of students currently enrolled in second grade who by then will be in middle
school. After that peak, leaders expect enrollment will decline in both the
2030-31 and 2031-32 school years.
Casimiro said educators “have since lived through the
enrollment bubble” in the middle schools. Now that bubble is moving into
Danbury High School. The city currently has a large population of second grade
students who will enter the city’s middle schools in the 2027-28 school year,
spurring what leaders expect will be a three year long bubble during that time.
Projections showed middle school enrollment could exceed building capacities
during the 2028-29 school year, for example, by more than 50 students.
Casimiro said the middle schools will be “able to tolerate
being a little uncomfortable” enrollment wise for a couple of years, as the
enrollment numbers are expected to stabilize after those three years.
Furthermore, “it’s far less money to expand high school than
to have a separate high school and middle school component,” Casimiro
said.
According to figures the interim superintendent shared, the
6-12 program is expected to cost $13.8 million. That total includes salaries
and benefits for teachers, administrators and other support staff, as well as
the cost of student transportation and start-up materials. The cost of
launching a program focused solely on high school would be just over $11.1
million.
Casimiro said leaders have had conversations around the
usage of the Cartus Corporation building itself. Budget considerations are one
of the reasons for those revisited conversations. Another reason, Casimiro
said, is that leaders are “really trying to maximize everything we’re doing on
the site and on the campus.”
The interim superintendent said having middle school and
high school programs on the site lacks scalability — “when you’re talking about
having to bring all of the same staff over, nurse, secretaries, custodians,
social workers, psychologists and auxiliary staff for 360 [students]. It’s the
same amount of staff that you bring over to do a school set up for a 700-seat
facility."
Casimiro said the setup is something that not everyone was
comfortable with. The thought process, she said, was to help alleviate the
population of students who are already in the middle schools and now into the
high school, which has a “big clog,” Casimiro said.
The new proposal, Casimiro said, would allow leaders to
better use the space and achieve a greater return on the investment toward the
project.
Casimiro said by only enrolling 360 middle school students,
the original plan is “not enough to make the impact for the level of
investment” the city is making.
By increasing the high school enrollment, the building would
enable leaders to spread out that enrollment “a little more and create more
ideal conditions than what we have now.”
Board members had questions about how the projected savings
would be achieved and sought specifics about the staffing of building
administrators.
Board member Juanita Bush Harris asked specifically about
staffing. Casimiro responded that leaders estimate the program will need 30
fewer full-time employees, including certified educators, administrators, and
auxiliary staff, than under the original proposal.
“I need to see the details for the new staffing, what we
need, as opposed to what the original plan was,” Bush Harris said.
Developers withdraw plans for vacant Regal Cinemas in Branford
BRANFORD — The vacant Regal Cinemas building may stay that
way for some time after developers shelved plans
to redevelop the site at one of the town’s busiest
intersections.
CP Branford
LLC withdrew its application at the Planning and Zoning Commission’s April 18
meeting.
Developers wanted to transform the theater, which closed in
2022, into a self-storage facility, add a three-story 116-unit apartment
project and a commercial building to house an urgent care center and coffee
shop.
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The attorney for the applicant, John Knuff, was not
available for comment Wednesday.
Perry Maresca, Branford’s Economic and Business
Development manager, however, says he is “definitely confident” the developer
will be back before the commission with a revised plan and a new application.
“It wasn’t withdrawn with a ‘that’s it we’re out of here,
we’re going to another town,'” Maresca said. “There’s no reason to believe
they’re not going to be moving forward with the project.”
Maresca added, “This happens all the time, especially with
larger projects. They’ll pull back, and they’ll tweak some things, and that’s
pretty much what it is.”
First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove said redevelopment
of the high-profile site would benefit the town.
Because of its “close proximity to the interchange exit 55,
Route 1, we don’t what to see any parcel or building remain
stagnant,” Cosgrove said. “If it’s a development that will enhance further
economic activity, it would be very welcome to see.”
“The site, the location has a lot of potential to not only
be productive, but also to have a positive impact on some of the neighboring
properties, businesses, as well the town as a whole,” Cosgrove said.
The plan, which first went before a public hearing March 21,
encompassed the 13.75-acre property at 329 E. Main St., near the southwest
corner of the Exit 55 interchange between Interstate 95 and Route 1.
That public hearing was continued to April 4, then postponed
and continued again to April 18, when the plan was withdrawn.
Currently, a Walgreens occupies a corner of the parcel,
which is assessed at $6.6 million by the town, according to town records.
Developers were seeking to have the parcel rezoned as a
Planned Development District (PDD) that would allow the multifamily development
and self-storage facility not currently permitted in the Local Business (BL)
District. A commercial building, allowed in the BL zone, was to have housed the
coffee shop and urgent care medical center.
CP Branford LLC submitted four separate applications for the
site with three different architects for each portion of the project: the
theater, which would be remodeled as the self-storage facility, the new
apartment complex and one commercial building for a medical office and
drive-thru coffee shop.
One application was for a zone change to a PDD as part of
the town’s Master Plan; another was for the site plan to be approved as a PDD;
the third application was for subdividing the property; and the final
application was a special exception for grading.
Town Planner Harry Smith had given the applicants a 12-page
memo days before the first public hearing that suggested several changes to the
plans, a few of which the applicants made before the March hearing.
The applicants modified the apartment complex from a
four-story U-shaped building with 119 units and 10 percent deed-restricted
affordable housing to two connected three-story buildings with 20 percent
affordable housing.
The latest version of the apartment buildings was to give it
a “traditional New England mill village” look, the architect for that building
told the commission.
The other planned buildings were to be designed in keeping
with that style using materials that would complement it.
Smith had suggested there be more green space for passive
recreation. He also listed suggestions for lighting and landscaping in addition
to comments on the exterior design of the self-storage building.
Smith said in the memo that the project’s scope presented
“some very unusual challenges in creating a cohesive site layout.”
Cracks filled, lane reopens on I-95 in East Lyme
Elizabeth Regan
East Lyme ― Cracks about 60 feet long on Interstate 95 north
between exits 74 and 75 closed the right lane Thursday afternoon for several
hours while crews investigated the integrity of the road and worked to resolve
the problem.
The fissures were due to settling caused by the failure of a
temporary retaining wall designed to support the highway as part of a
four-year, $148 million reconstruction project, according to resident engineer
Bob Obey of the GM2 project management firm.
The closure was announced at 1:06 p.m. by the state
Department of Transportation. The highway was reopened around 5:35 p.m.
“There are lots of cracks and big cracks,” Obey said of the
damage covering the right lane. “Major cracking.”
The retaining wall is being installed by contractor Manafort
Brothers of Plainville to allow for the expansion of the bridge over Route 161.
The soil nail wall design involves nails drilled into the earth with grout
reinforcements.
Before the lane reopened, Obey said workers were reinforcing
the wall and bringing in asphalt to patch the road.
“We’re going to obviously look to minimize the duration (of
the closure) but at the same time it’s got to be safe,” he said. “Safety has to
be the number one driving force.”
He attributed the problem to soil conditions on the
northbound side of the bridge abutment. The same retaining wall design was used
successfully on the other side of the bridge, where the soil was not as sandy.
“We’ll have to go back to the drawing board for a different
solution than what we’ve been using,” he said of the design.