Cheshire plans soft opening for $8 million Bartlem Park South expansion with fields already done
CHESHIRE — Construction is nearing completion on
the Bartlem
Park South project, a nearly $8 million expansion of the town's major
park on South Main Street across from Cheshire High School, officials
said.
New playfields, including a new turf field with lighting,
are done. Work is expected to be complete near the end of the year on a new
bandshell, officials said.
"I think right now it's set for delivery ...
potentially in late November or December," said Town Council Vice Chairman
Jim Jinks, D-2. "Overall, it's a great example, I think, of the community
and the town working together."
"We're planning some sort of soft-opening celebration
for the holidays, and also a grand opening for the spring," Jinks
said.
The total cost of the project is $7.9 million. Of that, $2
million came from American Rescue Plan Act funds, plus $750,000 in additional
state grants. Contractor DeRita & Sons Construction Co. began site work and
excavation for the project in March 2023.
The master plan for the project, approved in 2021, includes
a Great Lawn and a bandshell to be used as a community gathering place for
activities ranging from concerts to movie nights and other events, officials
have said.
A splash pad adjacent to the town pool will come later,
Jinks said.
"A lot of people wanted to leave the park to be sort of
open space, not to be overly-structured," Jinks said. "Previously,
there were gravel walking trails. Now, they will become paved paths in what's
called the Great Lawn Area, and also in the front corner."
In addition, the plan calls for a passive recreation picnic
grove area, multiple fields, walkways throughout, a new bathroom facility and
additional parking spaces, including in the pool parking lot area.
"We hope to officially open soon," said Town
Manager Sean Kimball. "We accepted the turf field back in the
spring."
He said they got the lights on the field turned on and
inspected about two weeks ago. The field is used for lacrosse, field hockey,
soccer and football.
"The rest of the park is really close," he said.
"We're excited."
Town officials are planning the improved park's first public
event, a holiday winter festival and tree lighting celebration in early
December, Kimball said.
"We're incredibly proud of the park," Kimball
said. "It was the result of years of planning."
Kimball said in two recent reports that most of the
construction was nearing completion, with final topsoiling and landscaping
being done this fall. Scoreboard footings were being installed in September.
The town's electrical work was done and approved by town inspectors. Paving was
complete with the exception of final work around the bandshell area.
Kimball told the Town Council this month that the turf field
lighting was operating and four bleachers had been purchased along with benches
with backs.
Bartlem Park was named for the town's first recreation
director, Richard C. Bartlem, who served as director from 1968-1993. The park
includes the Cheshire Community Pool, a 90-foot baseball diamond, soccer,
lacrosse, a playscape, a pavilion, a picnic area, community gardens and a skate
park.
Remington Woods' owner unveils new vision for Bridgeport's urban forest
BRIDGEPORT — Three years ago city planners approved
a new land use policy allowing construction of an office park
at Remington Woods, 419 acres of forested property with a large lake.
That arrangement was less permissive than the then-existing
regulation and also encouraged setting aside open space. Proponents deemed it a
"compromise" in the face of calls for the entire site to be saved
from redevelopment.
But this month the property's owner, Sporting Goods
Properties Inc., a subsidiary of Corteva Agriscience of Delaware, gave the
preservationists hope by announcing a new "reuse vision."
That plan, outlined on a just-launched website, lakesuccess.net, would set aside 358
acres for "conservation space" and use the remaining 61 acres for
"renewable energy" projects. It also proposes construction of a
"natural science center (to) offer visitors an educational and immersive
experience with the region's wildlife and forest ecosystem.
"I will say I was pleasantly surprised," said
Jhoni Ada, community organizer for the Sierra Club Connecticut.
Her organization has been among the group of entities and
individuals lobbying hard for Remington Woods to be left in a natural state for
some passive recreation once Corteva completes a lengthy environmental cleanup.
The company's estimated completion date for the cleanup is early 2026.
Last February, the Sierra Club helped organize a petition
drive on behalf of the urban forest, delivering
2,300 signatures to the owner.
"Organizations always have free will to choose how they
want to respond to community," Ada said. "So seeing them (Sporting
Goods Properties/Corteva) respond in a way that is reflective of community
needs I think is a very beautiful thing.”
"You've got Seaside Park for the shoreline, Beardsley
Park for recreation. Now you would have upland forest so people can experience
nature and the like," said state Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford.
Gresko has been involved in trying to save Remington Woods
because a portion of it is located in Stratford, and also because Gresko works
for Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim in the city's sustainability office.
There is, however, a bit of a catch to Corteva's
revised approach. The new website also makes it clear that while conservation
is now the over-arching goal, the company wants someone else to own and manage
the land, name-dropping in particular the "State of Connecticut" as a
possibility, along with an unspecified "conservation steward" to
manage the site.
Thomas Stilley is vice president of environmental affairs
for Sporting Goods Properties helping to oversee the remediation of the woods.
In a statement, he explained why Corteva's approach to the property altered
from three years ago,
"Corteva’s 2021 plan identified significant areas of
the site to be conserved, so that part ... has not changed," Stilley said.
"What has is that we are working with a renewable energy group to bring
battery storage and solar energy to the site. This maximizes the sustainability
of the site while benefiting the regional electric grid and generating
lease revenue that could possibly be used towards the future maintenance of the
site."
Gresko said he helped introduce the parties.
"I knew they had pivoted (from an office
park) when they started to entertain the conversations with the groups of
investors who want to put battery storage and solar onsite," he said.
In terms of any negotiations with the state or other
potential new owners, Stilley said, "We are now in the process of
connecting with the many public and private stakeholders that could play a
significant role in the conservation of the site, including the State of
Connecticut."
He continued, "While our plan is conceptual in nature
and could change, we feel very good about the plan that we are working to
implement."
Stilley declined to get into whether, should a sale not
proceed, Corteva would remain committed to the open space/renewable energy
vision or reconsider building an office park.
"Right now, our only focus is on developing the
approach that we presented," he said.
The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection,
which would likely be involved should Connecticut buy Remington
Woods, did not respond to a request for comment.
Gresko would like to see the DEEP involved in some capacity
but wants to be sure that agency can handle taking on the responsibly of more
parkland and is not "overextended." He also believes Corteva is
open to leasing the property under certain conditions. Overall, he called the
change in plans "encouraging."
Thomas Gill, Bridgeport's economic development director,
said the city only recently learned of Corteva's revised plan with the rest of
the public and was not involved in developing it.
"It's only under consideration," Gill
emphasized. "The city has not been involved in any discussion regarding a
sale to the state. (And) the city has no idea what Corteva will do if they do
not sell to the state."
David Brant, executive director of the Aspetuck Land Trust, which
has nature preserves throughout Fairfield County, is also keenly interested in
the future of Remington Woods. He confirmed that nonprofit is open to
being part of the site's future.
"There's a lot of questions and issues that would need
to be resolved regarding funding, ownership of the property and
liability," Brant said. "We are interested in being involved in some
way, shape or form if we could work out the other issues.”
Like the Sierra Club's Ada, Brant said he too was
"pleasantly surprised" to learn Corteva had "changed
their orientation towards preservation versus the business park."
"It has significant conservation value," Brant
said of Remington Woods. "Geez, criminy it's a big piece of
land."
Waterbury Branch Line to return to service 10 weeks after floods washed out large sections of track
Train service will resume later this month on the Waterbury
Branch Line following weeks of repairs to sections of track that were washed
away during Connecticut’s historic
August floods, officials announced Friday.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation said that
service along the line will resume Monday, Oct. 28 with a 4:45 a.m. train
departing from Waterbury, followed by a 7 a.m. from Bridgeport. Afterwards, the
service will resume its normal
schedule.
Rail service on the route was suspended on Aug. 18 and
replaced with buses while workers raced to replace nearly 7,000 tons of washed
out trackbed near the Kinneytown Dam in Seymour.
Another washout along the tracks in Beacon Falls also
required repairs, according to the DOT.
“The damage sustained along the Waterbury Branch Line was
devastating and access to these areas was incredibly difficult,” DOT
Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto said in a statement Friday. “It’s remarkable
what crews and contractors have been able to accomplish in two months to get
trains running again ahead of our initial timeline.”
Officials initially estimated that it would take between
four and five weeks to restore service to the line, before pushing
that timeline back to mid-November after encountering difficulties
accessing the largest portion of affected track, which sat on a steep
embankment overlooking the Naugatuck River.
The repairs ended up taking about 10 weeks to complete, and
necessitated the construction of temporary access roads to move equipment to
the washed out areas.
Crews will be out over the next week operating test trains
in both directions between Waterbury and Bridgeport to inspect the tracks and
railroad crossing along the entire line. The DOT cautioned the public to follow
posted signs and avoid walking along the railroad tracks.
Prior to the floods that washed out sections of track
and damaged
homes and businesses within the Naugatuck River Valley, the Waterbury
Line had been experiencing a post-pandemic resurgence with more than 138,000
riders over the six months of the year.
Jim Gildea, the chair of the Connecticut Public
Transportation Council and a Waterbury Branch rider from Derby, said credited
DOT with “exceeding expectations,” in light of the extent of the damage.
“The storm damage just did an absolute number on the
Waterbury Branch Line and we certainly did not expect it to come back this
early,” Gildea said. “They did a great job.”
The department did not reveal a final cost Friday for the
repairs, which were contracted to O&G Industries out of Torrington.
Earlier estimates placed the price tag at around $11 million, with the
state seeking
federal disaster relief funds to help cover the cost.
Old Lyme Sewers Move Forward, Bid Expected By End of Year
Francisco Uranga
OLD LYME — The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved an
agreement this week for wastewater treatment that town officials said would
allow the sewer project for the Old Lyme beach communities to go out to bid
before the end of the year.
The agreement voted at a special meeting last Tuesday
established the
terms of service that the New London wastewater treatment plant would
provide to Sound View neighbors and residents of the private beach associations
Old Colony Club, Old Lyme Shores and Miami Beach. These include a reserve
treatment capacity of 170,000 gallons per day for these communities and the
definition of all costs associated with the service.
Steve Cinami, chair of the Old Lyme Water Pollution Control
Authority, told the CT Examiner on Thursday that he estimated the service would
cost between $450 and $600 a year for each resident, based on what residents of
East Lyme and Waterford currently pay.
Residents of Sound View and the neighboring chartered beach
associations would have to pay that amount — which includes the cost of
treatment, the so-called initial connection cost and capital costs — in
addition to the cost of sewer construction. Cinami estimated that for the
construction, financed over 20 years, Sound View residents would pay $1,350 per
year for an equivalent dwelling unit, or EDU. An EDU represents a standard
dwelling in the area. More than eight out of 10 residents would pay for an EDU,
according to Cinami.
In addition, homeowners would need to hire a contractor to
hook into the sewers, according to Cinami, at a cost of between $4,000 and
$6,000.
The construction of sewers on the Old Lyme shoreline is
a project that has been under discussion for more than a decade and is
intended to replace the area’s septic systems to solve a water pollution
problem identified by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental
Protection — a problem that many in the neighborhood dispute, pointing to a
lack of up-to-date data on water pollution, to cheaper alternatives, and to the
cost burden for less-well-off residents.
DEEP committed to paying up to 50 percent of the estimated
$53 million project cost through a grant and a forgivable
loan from the Clean Water Fund to reduce the burden on residents.
First selectwoman Martha Shoemaker said at Tuesday’s meeting
that because of the size of the project they had looked at all of its aspects
but said she was concerned about the possibility of losing state funding if
they did not move forward quickly.
“This is a very difficult situation because this is a
forever thing. Once this project begins, there’s no going back,” Shoemaker
said. “My concern is not to lose that funding. If this project has to move
forward, it’s certainly unaffordable without the funding.”
Graham Stevens, chief of water protection and land reuse at
DEEP, told CT Examiner Friday that the money was not going to be “committed
forever for this project” but that funding was not in doubt either. Steven
explained that the agency has a list of priorities that it reviews annually
and, in the event that there was no significant progress on the project, it
could move down in priorities but that was not the case for Old Lyme.
“There’s not a written deadline. There is a need for
continued collaboration and partnership as we’ve been doing,” Steven said. “I
don’t think that there should be any fear that the state is poised to take away
without significant discussion any money that has been committed to this
project.”
The approval of the agreement with New London is a step
forward but it is not the first time the project has reached that stage. Cinami
recalled that Old Lyme had signed a similar agreement with New London before
and it
expired in 2023. The new agreement, Cinami said, is five percent more
expensive than the previous one and the initial connection costs are funded at
a higher rate. The project’s shared infrastructure had also been bid in
2021, but
the bids exceeded the amount approved in the 2019 referendum.
For Cinami, bidding again before the end of the year would
be a key.
“If the bids are under budget, that’s the point of no
return,” Cinami said.
Cinami warned that residents would have to start paying back
the cost of the design loan starting in January if the project fails to move
forward, and Clean Water Funds aren’t available.
He told CT Examiner that Sound View residents, the only ones
relying on the town’s WPCA, asked for a six-month extension for the payment
deadline but that the beach associations did not have that option because they
had asked for the extension before.
The agreement with New London calls for 50,000 gallons per
day of treatment capacity for Sound View and 120,000 for the beach
associations, with the possibility of extending up to an additional 130,000
gallons per day.
The cost of treatment would be the same as that paid by New
London residents since the plant would not charge a profit for the service. The
current rate is $2.5 per 1,000 gallons, but the rate could change in the future
given actual audited costs.
Residents of the sewered area would also be charged an
initial connection fee, which corresponds to the payment for accessing the
service and would be financed over 20 years at a rate of 2.625 percent. Sound
View residents would pay about $700,000 while the beach associations would pay
more than $1.5 million.
Sound View residents would also pay 0.5 percent of the
treatment plant’s capital costs and the beach associations would pay 1.2
percent.
Barry Weiner, chair of the New London WPCA, said the $2.25
million the city expected to receive over the next 20 years as a so-called
initial connection cost could be used to fund future plant expansions, and the
agreement is also expected to improve facility efficiency.
“In the future, we may be able to do this for a lower cost,
but I’m not going to project rates will go down,” Weiner said. “They will be
stabilized and that itself will be a tremendous benefit for the people in New
London.”
Weiner said that the agreement still needs to be discussed
and approved by both the WPCA and the New London City Council, but he was
optimistic it would pass.
“This is a win-win-win. It’s great for the environment, it’s
great for the parties involved and it shows cooperation between multiple
towns,” Weiner said. “It’s another example of how New London is stepping up and
leading the area in regionalization and helping others with the resources that
we have.”
Joseph Lanzafame, New London’s Director of Public Utilities,
said the agreement would not have a considerable impact on the city given the
scale. New London’s treatment plant has a capacity of 10 million gallons per
day and the agreement requires less than 2 percent of that.
“We’re trying to help the beach communities get to their end
goal. And, frankly, if we weren’t cooperating, we probably would have a consent
order from the Connecticut DEEP, forcing us to do it anyway,” Lanzafame said.
“We’re trying to be good neighbors to the surrounding towns.”
Lanzafame said the town’s current wastewater treatment plan
usage averages between 3 and 6 gallons per day, although it can reach 9 gallons
per day during storms.
The opposition
Dennis Melluzzo and Mary Daley were two of four people in
the audience at this week’s special Board of Selectmen meeting. Melluzzo and
Daley are Sound View residents, members of the Old Lyme WPCA and the most
active opponents of the project.
Leaving the meeting, Meluzzo questioned the beach
associations and especially the role of the Old Colony Club Beach Association,
which is going to be responsible for raising the funds to pay New London under
the terms of the agreement approved this week.
“They want to keep the whole carriage. They want the money,”
Melluzzo said. “Since when does a private beach association do the work of the
Old Lyme Finance Board? I don’t trust them.”
Melluzzo also criticized the
role of the Old Lyme Sewer Shared Sewer Project Alliance — a group
formed with neighboring chartered private beaches.
“We don’t know what they’re doing behind our backs,”
Melluzzo said.
Melluzzo and Daley also questioned Cinami’s role as
president of the Old Lyme WPCA and said it could be a “conflict of interest”
since he works in the construction industry and builds sewer projects in other
towns.
Asked later by CT Examiner, Cinami dismissed the criticism
as “crazy” and said it was better for the town to have someone with 40 years of
experience in the business.
“I have no conflict of interest. I have no financial
interest in this project. I’m not bidding for the job. I’m not running the
work,” Cinami said. “I could, but if someone wanted to hire me to run the work,
I would probably leave WPCA because this is what I do for a living.”
Looking forward, Melluzzo raised concerns that the project
was approaching a point where it could no longer be stopped.
“We care about our neighbors, we care about their finances,”
Melluzzo said. “When it passes, it’s going to be a financial burden on the
majority of our community who are on fixed incomes.”
Proposed development in downtown Naugastuck advances following zoning commission approvals
ANDREAS YILMA
NAUGATUCK – The proposed residential/commercial development
at Parcel B downtown is moving closer to fruition after more approvals. The
Zoning Commission opened a hearing Wednesday at Town Hall for the special
permit application for phase two of a proposed residential and commercial
development for the property at 90 Old Firehouse Road.
The commission extended the hearing to Nov. 20 at 6:05 p.m.
before giving applicant Pennrose Properties more green lights to move ahead to
ultimate development. Those approvals include architectural renderings for
phases one and two of the commercial/residential buildings and a revised
landscaping plan for phase one with a condition to add a general access path to
Blue Star Memorial. The commission also approved to revise a landscaping storm
water quality and sediment and erosion bond with a reduction of $25,000 to
$209,000.
The commission previously approved the special permit for
Phase 1 of the transit-oriented project at the end of 2022.
Pennrose Senior Developer Karmen Cheung said each phases
will include 60 units consisting of one or two bedrooms with solar panels on
the roofs and retail space in each building. Financing has been approved for
the project with work expected to begin in the Spring of 2025.
“We’ve also been coordinating a lot with the Department of
Transportation because a part of the whole revitalization and redevelopment
effort is to bring transit right next to where we have housing,” Cheung said.
Phase one of the project will be at the corner of Old
Firehouse Road and Maple Street while phase two will be placed on the other end
by Rubber Avenue. The middle of Parcel B will hold phase three. As DOT expects
to be under construction with new train station in the next couple of years,
phase three will be the lay down space that will be shared, Cheung added.
Project Manager and WRT architect Sergio Duran said they
have placed the retail spaces on the side to trigger connections throughout the
downtown.
“We want to make sure that we capture those spaces to
activate the engagement with pedestrians, the connection to the site, to the
Naugatuck town green and to really activate the connection to the train station
as pedestrian areas,” Duran said.
The phase one site plan calls for a few retail spaces with a
couple on the Maple Street side and another on the opposite site along with a
residential community rooms some gardens and outdoor seating and lawn as well
as several plantings of trees, flowers, and shrubs
Landscape architect WRT Paul McGehee said the Blue Star
Memorial on the corner of Old Firehouse Road and Maple Street will remain in
place with plantings.
“We are conceiving this site to be open and green and
flexible to allow for larger community events that happen in Naugatuck’s
downtown along the streets,” McGehee said. “So we want to be able to pair this
street, with street activity with soft green space.”
Duran said some of the materials for the building will
include masonry, fiber cement panels, fiber planks and brick which relate to
the materials that are found throughout the borough.
McGehee said the shrubs will grow about eight feet tall and
wide in order to provide some screening for residents. The grass will be a
no-mow lawn where it will require little maintenance.
The idea is to provide a secondary network of circulation
with the primary circulation along Old Firehouse Road. Developers have these
paths and walkways that would bring people to the entrance of the building,
both front and back, to these retail places and for egress to get out of these
community amenities.
“We (Pennrose) are a long term owner/operator of these
projects. We build them and we don’t plan to sell them so often times when we
start designing, our goal is how do we make sure that the project is something
that we can maintain in the long term,” Cheung said. “We have a property
management company that’s affiliated with us that will be the property
management company here so when we start designing something, we get their
feedback from day one.”
Remediation has already begun on the parcel.
Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess said the material that had to be
taken off site by the borough for phase one has been taken away.
“Whatever is really bad has been taken off site,” Hess said.
“Whatever doesn’t have to go off site will be capped with an asphalt parking
lot and the other areas where the grass is will be treated in accordance with
all appropriate environmental standards.”