When will Stamford's Cedar Heights Road bridge be done? 12 months late, officials say.
Brianna
Gurciullo
STAMFORD — A project to replace the bridge on Cedar Heights
Road is now expected to be finished in November — a year later than initially
scheduled.
City Engineer Lou Casolo has said that the contractor for
the “extremely complex” project, A. Vitti Excavators, has needed to submit
plans for handling the flow of the Rippowam River, demolishing the more than
90-year old bridge and supporting utility lines to an inspection firm before
moving from one stage of construction to the next.
Those documents have gone through multiple rounds of
reviews, resulting in delays, Casolo has said.
While it was obtaining document approvals, “the contractor
missed the opportunity to divert the river during low flow times of the year,”
Casolo said in a recent statement.
The original completion date was Nov. 30, 2023. A. Vitti
Excavators committed to working during the winter and asked for an extension
to substantially
complete the project by May 31 of this year. Then the date changed
to June 30.
But water handling — or “physically redirecting the river
flow” so work can take place in a dry area — “was not possible due to high
water flow and further delayed their ability to continue the work to complete
demolition, support the existing utilities over the existing riverbed and work
on the west side of the structure,” Casolo said.
Questions about the bridge’s timeline were raised by several
readers and submitted to Hearst Connecticut Media’s running feature called, “What’s
Up With That Place?” where you send us your questions about a property’s
status, and we investigate.
As for Cedar Heights Road, the contractor is now aiming
for a November completion date.
“Weather permitting, they may be able to open the bridge to
traffic sooner,” Casolo said.
The flow of the river has receded, he said, and A. Vitti
Excavators was able to redirect the water and install a work platform so
workers for Frontier Communications could start the process of relocating
telecommunication lines.
Cedar Heights Road, which is just south of the Merritt
Parkway, has been closed to thru traffic during the project. A detour takes
cars along High Ridge Road and Wire Mill Road, where another bridge is in line
for construction.
Casolo has said that work on that bridge can’t start until
the Cedar Heights Road bridge, which is part of the Wire Mill Road project’s
detour route, is open.
He previously told The Stamford Advocate that about
3,800 vehicles passed over the Cedar Heights bridge on a daily basis before
it closed.
Eversource upgrades gas lines on Danbury's Main Street, with repaving work planned for July
Michael
Gagne
DANBURY — Motorists who have driven in the areas around Main
Street and Rose Street during non-rush-hour times recently have been greeted by
partial road closures, due to Eversource’s ongoing construction projects
to upgrade and replace gas lines in the city.
Along Main Street, the Eversouce crews replaced “the
existing cast iron pipe between Rose and Boughton streets with newer plastic
pipe, which is safer, more durable and better able to handle fluctuations in
underground temperatures and will also enhance gas reliability for customers,”
according to utility spokesperson Jamie Ratliff.
The utility provider is working closely with the city of
Danbury and the Connecticut Department of Transportation on the project, “and
our work will be complete in June to meet DOT's schedule for their planned work
along Main Street," Ratliff said.
That planned work includes what Danbury Public Works
Director Antonio Iadarola described as “minor restoration work,” including
sidewalk surfaces and temporary patching of the street surface “to assure the
Memorial Day parade route is safe for pedestrian use."
Then DOT will take over the project. Iadarola said that
under the current schedule for Main Street, DOT is scheduled to mill the street
surface on June 28 and pave it on July 11.
“A preconstruction meeting is scheduled on June 13 for this
work and an update will be given after the meeting,” Iadarola said.
And that’s not the only gas work to be completed on Main
Street. Additional work along Kennedy Avenue and Rose Street to upgrade the
system to a high pressure main is also underway.
Officials expected Eversource to complete the Main Street
portion of this work this week “with temporary patching of the street surface
and sidewalk areas taking place to assure a safe route for Memorial Day parade
marchers and viewers,” Iadarola said.
The Rose Street bridge, where Eversource is installing a gas
main, meanwhile, will remain closed off by Jersey barriers, but “will not
interfere with the Memorial Day parade staging area,” he told Hearst
Connecticut Media.
Meanwhile on Triangle Street, the rightmost northbound lane
in front of the Eversource substation remains closed, with work ongoing at that
substation. Traffic has been bypassed to maintain traffic flow in both
directions, according to Iadorola.
“Work will continue through the first part of June, with
scheduled completion of this work by mid-month,” he said. “All lanes will be
reopened and the bypass area will be removed and the shoulder area restored.”
Other Eversource projects are planned for later this year in
Danbury. A second phase of the utility company’s gas main installation is
planned on West Street, from Williams Street to Main Street. The utility
company also plans to install new gas mains on Bergh, Hakim and Staple streets.
Fairfield to close part of Riverside Drive as crews rebuild culverts, tide gates to limit floods
Jarrod Wardwell
FAIRFIELD — Part of Riverside Drive will shut down for more
than a year in the coming months as construction crews rebuild coastal
infrastructure that keeps floodwaters in check.
Fairfield Engineering Manager Bill Hurley said the town will
launch a more than $5.5 million project this summer to replace the tide
gates and pipes that channel water under the Riverside Drive bridge between Ash
and Turney creeks. He said Fairfield will cordon off the east side of
Riverside Drive between the Shoreham Terrace and Bay Edge Court intersections
through the project's 15- to 18-month duration, rerouting vehicles onto Post
Road.
Pipes known as culverts form holes in the Riverside Drive
bridge and allow water to pass through self-regulating tide gates, which
typically open based on water levels.
A 2018 report by engineering consultant Tighe &
Bond references five culverts in the bridge, three of which date back to 1973
on the northeastern side facing Ash Creek. Those three were 84 inches in
diameter, and the other two spanned 48 inches, the report states.
The culvert system protects the Riverside Drive neighborhood
from flooding during high tides and coastal storms and offers the primary
outlet for a watershed that fills about 2.4 square miles, according to the
report. The report states Turney Creek continues from the bridge for about
3,000 feet past the Riverside Drive bridge before dipping underground and
reaching up to the Fairfield Woods neighborhood, where it drains part of the
Grasmere Brook watershed.
Hurley said the culvert also allows salt water moving
upstream to kill phragmites, an invasive type of reed.
"The proper design and construction of a new culvert
and tide gate structure at Turney Creek is crucial to protecting the Riverside
Drive neighborhood from both coastal and inland flood events," the
report reads.
A 2016 study of Fairfield's tide gates and bulkheads
identified the Turney Creek infrastructure as the top priority for replacement
because of its deterioration and position to control flooding, according to
Tighe & Bond.
Hurley said the tide gates were in "very poor
shape," and one was not functioning. He said the bridge is in
fair to poor condition, and the town decided to rebuild it since it was already
due for replacement in five years.
Hurley said the replacement project will also update sewer
siphon infrastructure that shuttles water underground to improve its
capacity.
He said construction should start after the town finishes
relocating utilities around the project site.
Apartment project near Dunkin' Park clears key hurdle, will bring 269 units to CT's capital city
Liese
Klein
HARTFORD — Funding secured, developer Randy Salvatore is
moving ahead with plans to build a new mixed-use complex on the edge of
downtown Hartford, confident that the demand for rental apartments in the
capital city remains strong.
A financing package to redevelop the former RPI
campus near Dunkin’ Park won key approval on Wednesday, and work has
begun to transform the 12.7-acre site at 275 Windsor St. into a mixed-use
complex with an initial plan for 269 new apartments.
“Once we have a clean site, then we’re ready to go,”
Salvatore said.
Key to ramping up the RPI project was a $3 million loan
approved by the Capital Region Development Authority board on Wednesday. The
authority agreed to secure the funds through the state bond commission in
coming months and lend the money to Salvatore’s RMS Companies at a 3 percent
interest rate for five years.
The loan is meant to offset the $3.8 million that RMS
paid for the long-vacant RPI property last year.
First on the agenda for the RPI
site is demolishing the main eight-story classroom building, which is
apparently riddled with the pollutants common to 1970s-era structures. Initial
cleanup has been done to remediate contaminants and pre-demolition work will
start within weeks, Salvatore said.
“By the end of the summer, the building should be down,”
Salvatore said.
The 459-space parking structure on the property remains in
good condition and will stay, Salvatore said, and pointed out the garage is
currently generating revenue for the city.
Salvatore’s RMS Companies is also developing a
mixed-use complex a block away and across
the street from Dunkin’ Park, on a parcel occupied by a surface parking lot
until earlier this year. Huge mounds of dirt sit on the property as contractors
complete initial work to set foundations. That project is slated to bring to
market 500 new apartments and retail space eyed for a much-needed grocery
store. That project and the RPI project will be built in tandem, Salvatore
said.
Salvatore said he’s confident that demand remains strong for rental apartments
in Hartford, citing the strong leasing numbers for his Pennant complex near
Dunkin’ Park and his newest completed project — the conversion
of parts of the former Hilton Hotel into affordable rentals.
About 60 of the 147 rental units in the new Revel complex inside the hotel have
been leased only months after going on the market, Salvatore said. Rents for
mini-studios at the Revel start as low as $1,150 a month.
In New Haven, Salvatore’s company is also set to finish up
the final phase of his City
Crossing development near Yale New Haven Hospital in coming months,
adding more rental housing to that city’s downtown.
Salvatore said he is aiming to get tenants into the new complex across from
Dunkin’ Park in Hartford in as soon as 18 months, hoping to capitalize on
the city’s
hot housing market that has seen rents nearly double in some areas.
“We’re trying to go as fast as we can,” Salvatore said. “There’s such demand in
the market right now.”
Pawcatuck theater developer proposes expansion of $80M project
Carrie Czerwinski
Stonington ― In a new application to the Planning and Zoning
Commission, READCO of Old Lyme and its development partner TRIO have proposed a
revision of the master plan for the former Hoyt’s/Regal Cinema property on
Route 2.
READCO plans to expand its Pawcatuck theater redevelopment
project by adding six adjacent properties, 108 more apartments and demolishing
the theater and bank buildings on the site.
“We’re actually coming back with a larger, better project,”
said Jeremy Browning, partner and managing director of TRIO Properties Inc., a
Glastonbury development and management real estate services firm, on Thursday.
READCO, which has owned the property since 1995, built the
theater there along with a Stop & Shop supermarket, McDonald’s restaurant,
bank and Stonington Medical Center offices.
The commission unanimously approved a zone change to
Neighborhood Design District for the property in February, which allowed the
developer to move forward on a project to repurpose the property as a
recreational pickleball center, 10,000 square feet of commercial space and 124
one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The change to a floating zone Neighborhood Design District
provides the commission with a great deal of discretion about various aspects
of the project, which Browning said was anticipated to cost between $70 million
and $80 million.
According to the application, received earlier this month,
READCO intends to add six properties to the zone, including the Stop & Shop
grocery store property at 91 Voluntown Road, an abandoned single-family home at
3 Voluntown Road, and four additional vacant properties.
If approved, the developer would demolish the Berkshire Bank
building and the movie theater.
“We really feel it’s a win-win,” Browning said.
Browning explained that the locations of structural support
columns within the theater would not allow room for the required court
dimensions for a recreational pickleball facility, and the building was far
larger than needed for the sports center.
By expanding the property and demolishing the movie theater,
the developer will be able to relocate the facility to the southern tip of the
property near the intersection of Liberty Street and Voluntown Road and create
a stand-alone clubhouse for residents.
Adjacent to the pickleball facility, the developer has also
proposed a two-story, 30,000-square-foot medical office building.
“We were now able to come back with a purpose-built
recreational facility that will check all those boxes in a smaller footprint,
and obviously allow us to expand the project with the extra land to provide
more housing as well,” he said.
The Stop & Shop and a McDonald’s restaurant on the site
would remain in place, and the bank would be relocated to the mixed-use
building.
Three additional apartment buildings would be added for a
total of six, three-story buildings each with 36 units. With the units in the
mixed-use building, the property would house 232 apartments.
The developer is applying for financing through Build4CT, an
affordable housing financing program through the Connecticut Housing Finance
Authority, which requires that 20% of units be affordable to individuals
earning 80% or less of the area median income.
For a single individual, median income is $63,000 a year.
Additional planned site improvements include potential
outdoor recreational facilities which may include green space, sports courts
and a pool.
Browning said he anticipated the 36-month construction
project would begin this summer, and said they are simultaneously pursuing site
plan approval for the 124 apartments and 10,000 square foot, mixed-use building
that were part of the initial application as well as the stand-alone clubhouse.
Middletown Residents Push Back on $143M Route 9 Revamp
Emilia Otte
MIDDLETOWN — Residents are urging the Common Council to
request a delay from the state Department of Transportation on removing Route 9
traffic signals, citing negative economic and environmental impacts.
At a Thursday meeting, locals aired their concerns to the
council for nearly three hours, discussing potential consequences to the
riverfront development plan, air pollution, water quality and environmental
justice questions.
During a presentation to residents on April 30, DOT project
manager Stephen Hall told residents that the traffic lights were causing a
“significantly higher” number of traffic accidents compared to other parts of
the highway. Hall said there had been 500 crashes and 161 injuries over the
last three years, the equivalent of a crash every other day and an injury once
every week.
“The goal is to improve the safety by removing those
signals. However, that can’t be at the detriment of Main Street or downtown,”
he said.
The purpose of the April 30 meeting was also to gather
feedback, Hall explained, and to determine what kind of environmental impact
review was necessary.
But on Thursday, Ed McKeon, a former Democratic council
member, criticized the DOT for refusing to hold a public hearing and listen to
residents’ concerns.
“This approach demonstrates an arrogance of power, a misuse
of authority, and a disingenuous approach to gathering public input,” McKeon
said.
The project is estimated to cost $143 million, with 80%
covered by the federal government and 20% covered by the state. If the design
is approved by the end of this year, construction could begin as early as 2027
and would take approximately four years.
Only the chief executive of a town is required to approve
the plan, and residents at the Thursday meeting criticized Mayor Ben Florsheim
for his absence.
According to the DOT website, discussions about removing the
traffic lights near Middletown began in the early 2000s. Before the April 30
presentation, Florsheim noted that his plan had developed differently than
previous ones.
“What I think that this plan has done is go back to the
drawing board [and] try to make Route 9 operate better as a road through the
center of Middletown, to try to slow traffic down in a way that is organic and
safe,” he said.
At the April forum, Florsheim stated that Middletown’s
Department of Public Works had multiple discussions with the Department of
Transportation, exchanging feedback and gathering resident input on the plan.
He did not respond to CT Examiner’s request for additional comment.
The Middlesex Chamber of Commerce has also endorsed the
plan. But council members seemed less certain.
On Thursday, council President Eugene Nocera told CT
Examiner that he intends to meet with members next week to discuss asking the
DOT to pause its public comment deadline of May 31 and address some of the
residents’ concerns at an additional forum.
“You can hear from tonight’s presentation, there still
remain a lot of questions. Very important questions,” Nocera said. “This is a
very, very well-informed community.”
Minority Leader Linda Salafia said she agreed with taking a
pause.
“I hate to say it, but for 40 years they’ve been doing
this,” she said. “I don’t think that it’s going to work.”
Residents’ concerns
Residents were particularly concerned about a proposed exit
from Route 9 northbound leading to a three-leg roundabout on River Road.
McKeon said the exit location — the former Omo Manufacturing
Site — contains hazardous materials that have yet to be cleaned up. The site is
adjacent to Sumner Brook, which flows into the Connecticut River.
The site is also located in a flood plain, which will
require the DOT to unearth soil from an area along the riverbank large enough
to catch any floodwater before it reaches the roundabout. In his presentation,
Hall stated that the “cut” would go largely unnoticed, despite residents
pointing out that it would affect the same area designated for outdoor
educational facilities in the riverfront master plan.
“This roundabout is sized properly to handle any size
highway vehicle and does a tremendous job of naturally reducing speeds and
improving safety,” Hall said.
But residents questioned the impact the exit would have on
Middletown’s plans to redevelop the
waterfront, which includes creating spaces for restaurants, parks, walking
trails and boat docks.
“I would call going from zero cars at this spot to 4,500
cars a day an adverse effect, especially when you consider that River Road is
where we were hoping to build a tranquil, pedestrian-oriented path and park
along the waterfront,” said Jennifer Alexander, the owner of Kid City on
Washington Street. “It’s right by the Peterson Oil property where we pictured
an outdoor music venue. That just can’t happen at a spot where trucks are
coming off a highway into a rotary.”
In addition to the new exit, the project will reconfigure
the exit from Hartford Avenue to Route 9, creating a northbound and southbound
on-ramp and eliminating the left turn from Route 9 North onto Hartford Avenue.
Rapallo Avenue would become a one-way street. The plan also includes a
pedestrian bridge over the highway connecting the downtown to the
riverfront.
Alexander and other residents also criticized the department
for not doing more to make the existing intersections in Middletown safer in
the short-term.
“I feel like the DOT is like a hammer where … everything
looks like a nail. The DOT is looking at our situation and their solution is
big, expensive construction projects — $143 million. Imagine what we could do
with $143 million to simply make the existing intersections more safe,”
resident Kate Ten Eyck said.
Barry Chernoff, a wetlands scientist and professor of
environmental studies at Wesleyan University, recommended that the DOT conduct
an environmental impact assessment, and said that the area near Sumner Brook
functioned as a wetland. He also expressed concerns about the effects the new
roundabout could have on water quality, as the pumping stations for Middletown
Water were located adjacent to that site.
McKeon said the new exit would shift more cars onto the
streets in the North End of Middletown and place Route 9 close to Walnut Street
and Maplewood Terrace — areas that are disproportionately low-income.
“It transfers noise and pollution to at-risk neighborhoods
on DeKoven, Rapallo, Portland Street, Bridge Street, and it shunts traffic
through the North End. It harms vulnerable neighborhoods where people of color
and people struggling financially live,” McKeon said.
Multiple residents shared how they valued Middletown’s
walkability, and said they feared the impact of increased traffic within the
city on pedestrian safety. Alexander said having more cars driving on Main
Street or DeKoven Drive could hurt downtown businesses.
“Economic development on a traditional main street is a
tricky thing. It requires slow enough travel speed, about 20 to 25 miles an
hour, so that people can easily see the storefronts, and a pace where diagonal
parking is safe and convenient — not like where you feel like you’ll be trapped
because there’s constant backup behind you once you park,” she said. “Main
Street does not need an influx of cars who don’t want to be there, the kind
that’s trying to get through each light as quickly as they can.”
Diane Gervais, owner of Amato’s Toy and Hobby on Main, said
the plan would make businesses less accessible, decrease the appeal of dining
outdoors at restaurants and devalue local neighborhoods. She said that her
family had to close the store they operated in New Britain after another
highway construction project disrupted the city’s downtown.
“We will lose most of our access to and from Route 9. Our
downtown streets will be forced to take on the burden of the traffic that has
historically been on Route 9. The walkability of our downtown will be
minimized. Our businesses will suffer. Eventually, our tax base will erode and
we will become another statistic like New Britain, Manchester, Meriden,
Hartford and countless others,” Gervais said.
Catherine Johnson, an urban architect and Democratic member
of the Planning and Zoning Commission, suggested that the DOT focus more on
expanding public transit options rather than “monkeying around with exits onto
city streets.”
“The problem is, here in Middletown, the DOT is
treating us like a highway that inconveniently has a downtown bordering it. But
we’re a downtown … that happens to have a highway travel through it. It needs
its own civilized way of passing through,” she said.
State Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, who also attended the
meeting, told CT Examiner he planned to meet with the DOT “in the near future.”
He agreed with Florsheim that this version of the project differed from past
attempts.
“It’s always difficult to get 100% of a community on board
with any kind of infrastructure projects,” he said. “It’s my hope to continue
to work with the community to make sure we get this right.”
As a Middletown resident, Lesser said he also had questions
about the project’s implications for quality of life in the city.
“I’m trying to get my head around it and listen to smart
people who I trust in the community,” he said.
In response to questions about the riverfront redevelopment
project, traffic in the North End neighborhood, the exit’s location and
potential negative effects on the downtown, DOT spokesperson Josh Morgan told
CT Examiner that the issues “have been answered and addressed in the previous
public meetings and forums we’ve held this year.”
Morgan said the people who attended the April 30 forum were
able to ask questions and “had their comments entered into the record.”
The DOT will be accepting public comment on the proposal
until May 31.
Ex-CT Deputy Budget Director Diamantis linked to bribery scheme years after Torrington courthouse project
BRIGITTE RUTHMAN
TORRINGTON – Former Connecticut deputy budget director Kosta
Diamantis wasn’t yet part of an alleged extortion and bribery scheme involving
school projects when the masonry company he is accused of gaining contracts for
in exchange for kickbacks went to work on the city’s new county courthouse 10
years ago.
Diamantis, 67, is accused by the FBI of extorting private
contractors into paying him thousands of dollars in bribes as the director of
the state’s Office of School Construction Grants and Review.
A lawyer and former state representative, Diamantis posted a
$500,000 bond following his arrest on 22 charges, including extortion, bribery,
conspiracy and making false statements from 2018 to 2021. He is alleged to have
demanded and received tens of thousands of dollars in payments in exchange for
directing work on large state-funded construction projects.
Federal authorities also said three executives with two
private contractors – one the masonry business and the other a construction
management firm – entered not guilty pleas two weeks ago to conspiring to bribe
Diamantis.
The 35-page indictment offered electronic communications to
demonstrate the link between Diamantis and Salvatore Monarca and John Duffy,
the president and vice president of Acranom Masonry Enterprises in Middlefield.
The firm was picked as a subcontractor in the two and-a-half-year, $92 million
project on Field Street in the city constructed by KBE Building Corp., which
has offices in Farmington.
Acranom also worked on a school project in Tolland for which
Diamantis is said to have received money.
In its portfolio of projects, Acranom lists the Litchfield
Courthouse saying construction required 282,000 bricks while working with the
KBE Corp. The project began in 2014 and was completed in 2017.
Diamantis made it clear through messages that he expected a
percentage of the contract fee.
“I am very good at what I do and always do what I say,
Johnny knows,” he said of Duffy, his former brother-in-law. “And usually work
at 5% of total, FYI.”
Diamantis claimed to have needed the money and fast. Despite
hefty payments, the probe found that at one point his bank account was
overdrawn by $276.
Both Monarca and Duffy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to
commit extortion. Neither could be reached for comment.
Diamantis was involved briefly with the Torrington school
project, appearing once with a building committee and an architect in October
of 2021 to discuss the $179.5 million build, but left after receiving a phone
call, Committee Co-Chair Edward Arum said. It was when Gov. Ned Lamont’s office
said steps were taken to remove him from his government jobs in light of
ethical improprieties, including the school projects role he was hired for in
2015 by former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
Money is also said to have changed hands for projects in
Hartford, Tolland and New Britain, according to the indictment.
Courthouse construction projects, like school projects, are
handled by the Department of Administrative Services.
No one at DAS could be reached for comment.
Diamantis was a state representative for parts of Bristol
from 1993 to 2005 and is drawing from a $72,514-per-year state pension.