BRANFORD — Yale will pause
construction on 10 projects in the planning phase because of federal funding
concerns, a university official revealed Tuesday to area business leaders.
"We're riding out a bad period," Alexandra Daum,
Yale's associate vice president for New Haven affairs and university
properties, told business leaders at an annual Greater New
Haven Chamber of Commerce discussion on the regional real estate and
construction forecast.
The good news is that the building
boom in New Haven is continuing, leaders said. But investors and
lenders are tightening the purse strings in the wake of mixed messages and
uncertainty from the federal government, they warned. The result is that there
will be some pauses in new construction.
The panel included Daum: Robert Motley, senior
director, Cushman & Wakefield; Jake
Pine, managing director of LMXD LLC; and Henry Smith
III, partner at F.A.D. Mechanical LLC.
Asked about the current real estate and construction
environment, Daum said she didn't know she was heading into an "industry
with a target on its back when she joined Yale a year ago."
On the plus side, she said that the university's leadership
is not scared or afraid of a fight with the federal government. But the reality
is that the Yale could lose a sixth to tenth of its federal funding.
"It's clearly going to have an impact," she said.
As a result, Daum said the university will continue to
complete work on projects
already under construction, because it's more costly to stop work in
progress than finish it. But the 10 other projects that are in the planning
stages will be paused for now.
"In two or three years we'll be back investing huge
amounts of money and talent into the area," Daum said. "We're going
to be an economic driver for the next century."
Regarding office space leasing, purchase and construction,
Motley said that real estate sector is still recovering from the devastation of
the COVID pandemic and may never get back to the time before March 2020.
"We've gradually seen a return to the office
environment," he said, adding that even though companies are bringing
employees back - some on three day schedules- they have reduced the space they
need. For example, he said Prudential went from 250,000 square-feet of space to
25,000 square-feet and Anthem went from 220,000 square-feet of space to 40,000
square-feet.
Those reductions have affected cash flow and devastated the
values of office space.
The cost of building office space has also doubled or
tripled, he said.
"It's too expensive and deals don't get done,"
Motley said. The days of building on spec are gone."
On the plus side, he said that Class A office space is still
sought after because of its quality and use as a recruiting tool.
In New Haven, he said, that type of office space has a
9% vacancy rate, compared to Hartford at 32%.
"We have one of the lowest vacancy rates in the
country," Motley said, adding that five major office buildings in Hartford
are in foreclosure, compared to one in New Haven.
The current state of office space also has a silver lining
in Motley's view, even a recent sale of a $50 million building for $11 million.
"That's an opportunity for the buyer if they old on to
it for seven to 10 years," he said adding that buying mortgages at 15
cents on the dollar can also turn into wealth builders for years to
come. "Yes we have issues but I think the future is going to be
bright."
On the construction side, Smith, whose company does large
scale installation of heating and plumbing systems, said the industry is facing
challenges in funding, high interest rates and securing capital and financing.
"We're working on two projects that ran out of
funding," he said.
Another concern for Smith is sustaining and building the
workforce.
"There's going to be a problem if we don't do something
in the next few years," he said, adding that the industry needs to sell
the idea of starting work out of high school making $50,000 a year with no
college debt.
Smith said that he still believes that New Haven could
become the next biggest city between New York and Boston, but there still needs
to be more affordable housing built.
Pine, whose company is building the Winchester Green, said
they have also experienced a tightening in available capital as a result of the
uncertainty of the federal government.
Pine, whose company is involved in building projects around
the country said they rely on partnerships with municipalities to offset some
of their costs.
"I think the biggest thing is the uncertainty," he
said. "It makes it difficult for our funding partners, lenders and
investors," he said.
Pine said that New Haven has gained recognition around the
country for its efforts to include equity in development, but more attention to
affordable and workforce housing is needed.
"Just building residential is not going to work,"
he said.
CT lawmakers approve $6.6 billion for dozens of projects, then rewrites laws
HARTFORD — On the last day of the legislative session, state
lawmakers Wednesday approved capital projects totaling about $6.6 billion for
the two-year budget that starts July 1. That bill includes long-term
bonding for
lowering state energy bills, financing billions in school construction
projects and expanding security measures for houses of worship.
The 256-page bond bill passed 144-4 in the House of
Representatives and 35-1 in the Senate. Although the bill authorizes the
spending, projects and agencies would still face scrutiny from the Office
of Policy and Management before funding is authorized by the State Bond
Commission, which is controlled by the governor.
Buried in the package are revisions to the state budget bill
that passed the House and Senate on Tuesday. One Republican senator railed at
the errors that needed correction in the bond act and chastised Democrats for
using the package to skirt further debate on several issues.
The bond act includes a variety of legislative initiatives
that failed to win approval elsewhere in the hundreds of bills that passed the
House and Senate, including new requirements that people
who bring more than 2,500 empty cans and bottles to redemption centers
would have to present identification, including their residential addresses, in
attempt to cut down on fraud from other states that have five-cent deposits.
"We're trying to crack down on that," said Rep.
Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, co-chairwoman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding
Committee. "We see a lot of trucks - according to anecdotal evidence -
from out of state. That's really a truck full of bottles. We are also providing
resources for State Police to assist in that."
"This package confirms our commitment to special
education, clean water, aging in place for our older adults, childcare
expansion, school repairs, school and nonprofit security, affordable housing,
new home ownership, community colleges, brown field remediation, work force
development and a host of other ideas and initiatives," said state Sen.
Patricia Billie Miller, D-Stamford, co-chairwoman of the bonding subcommittee.
Sens. Derek Slap, D-West Hartford and Ryan Fazio,
R-Greenwich, said continued commitments to security at at synagogues is
important. "Nobody should be afraid to pray and nobody should be afraid to
worship at a place that is holy and special to them," Slap said during the
late-afternoon Senate debate. He noted that dozens of applications have been
filed for the support and not all have received money. "Oftentimes on
Saturday I will drive down Albany Avenue in West Hartford where there're many
different synagogues and every single one of them, there is an armed guard
outside. It's awful that this is something that's needed."
Tribe expansion and Capitol improvements
"It is vital that we prioritize, first and foremost,
the safety of our residents, especially our Jewish residents who are currently
facing the threat of increased anti-semitic attacks," Fazio said. The bond
act includes $10 million a year for increased school security and $5 million a
year for non-profits including religious institutions.
Another provision indicates that the state would challenge
attempts by any of the state's Indigenous tribes if they attempted to acquire
more land. "The conversion shall be deemed contrary to the interest of the
state and its residents," the bill said. CT Insider has reported that the
U.S. Department of the Interior is reconsidering earlier, failed efforts
by state-recognized
tribes to finally gain federal recognition.
In another section, a deadline of January, 2026 is set to
identify and possibly commission additional statues to be added to the exterior
of the State Capitol building "that reflect the diversity, character and
accomplishments of the state."
The bond act, which culminates the state budgeting process
includes grants for towns and cities, based on their size, to add to their
local budgets. The amounts range from $2,620 for the town of Andover to $13.5
million for Bridgeport, $15 million for Danbury, $10.4 million for Norwalk,
$10.2 million for New Haven and $9.9 million for Waterbury.
It also includes a $40 million increase in the current $50
million program for cleaning up old, contaminated
industrial sites, said Sen. Ronald Napoli Jr., D-Waterbury, co-chairman of
the bonding subcommittee of the Finance Committee. Napoli said that the
funding would be distributed based on a formula and individual grants.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle commended the bill's
funding to continue security efforts at religious institutions, particularly
synagogues that have been targets for extremists.
More funding will be available for the state's
aging-in-place programs. Converting abandoned retails strips and malls would
also see bonding support in a new "Greyfield program" with $50
million for public-private partnerships run by the Department of Economic and
Community Development.
"As the retail mall industry continues to decline
nationwide many of our cities and towns are left with large, vacant, grey
structures," Napoli said. He said that the annual aid for town and city
roads, has been increased by 30 percent.
Veteran state Rep. John Piscopo of Thomaston, a ranking
Republican on the bonding subcommittee, said that after years of federal
pandemic funding, the state has to cut back. "The ARPA funds during Covid,
was money flying in from out of the sky for a lot of our agencies,"
Piscopo said. "A few agencies grew their bureaucracy with that money. As
that money dried up, we were worried that all the shortfalls were coming to the
bonding subcommittee."
He said that while the rule of government finance is not to
bond for ongoing expenses, there are some instances of such tactics in the bond
act.
"My idea about bonding is this," Piscopo said.
"If your town got hit by a flood and saw damage and your town
doesn't have the means to mitigate the damage, you can ask the citizens of the
state of Connecticut to help."
Other items include $75 million for information technology;
$5 million for state-wide flood and resiliency mapping; $20 million for the
Department of Veterans Affairs to fund renovations and improvements, plus $7.5
million to expand the State Veterans Cemetery in Middletown; and a $40
million program to install solar photovoltaic systems on state property.
The bonding legislation repeals a provision of the state
budget bill that reduced the annual interest on municipal tax liens that are
sold to debt collectors. The change would have reduced the annual rate from 18%
to 12%. But the interest rate would have remained 18% year for liens that were
not sold to a third party. In addition, the repealed section would have capped
attorney's fees in connection with each aspect of a foreclosure, sale, or other
disposition of these liens.
While Bridgeport lawmakers in recent days attempted to include
$100 million to help develop a site anchored by a downtown soccer
field, the bond act orders the Department of Economic and Community Development
and the Department of Revenue Services to assess the anticipated economic
impact of the proposed Connecticut United Football Club stadium, including its
economic impact and create a report on the issue by October 1. One of the
issues on the development would be "when it is reasonably likely that the
state may receive a return on a one hundred twenty-seven million dollar state bonding
investment, taking into consideration revenue generated from such proposed
stadium via payroll taxes, sales and use taxes and other revenue sources."
The day after the state budget was approved in the House and
Senate, the bonding act would also affect provisions in the previous day's
budget documents.
Amendments to previous day's budget bill
Conservative state Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, focused on a
rewritten section involving the price that could be paid for out-of-state
fabricating. He noted that it could have cost the state millions of dollars in
construction costs, but legislative leaders noticed it and changed it in the
bond act.
"This section was a stand alone bill that could have
developed a heated and lengthy debate," Sampson said. "Everyone knows
this is a highly contentious issue. The issue is, that this was passed
yesterday, as part of the budget, circumventing the minority as I mentioned,
but they discovered they made a mistake. They made a mistake by leaving out a
word, a word that would have effectively required the state Department of
Transportation to end up paying prevailing wage for countless different items
in the projects that they perform. That might, in fact result in millions of
dollars in additional costs."
The bonding bill modifies provisions related to the
development of the South Meadows section of Hartford. It requires the
state to include the site in the basis for state payments to Hartford until the
site is redeveloped and removes a provision specifying that none of the
provisions apply to the Hartford Brainard Airport. It also specifies that
the newly established South Meadows Development District’s powers or actions do
not supersede, or authorize any conflict with, federal law or any federal
aviation regulation concerning control of Hartford Brainard Airport.
Another section overturns a provision of the budget bill
that reduced the annual interest on municipal tax liens that are sold to debt
collectors. The change would have reduced the annual rate from 18 percent to 12
percent, which lawmakers have tried and failed to reduce in recent years. In
addition, the repealed section would have capped attorney's fees in connection
with each aspect of a foreclosure, sale, or other disposition of these liens.
The bonding bill also repeals a portion of the budget bill
that would have created a working group to oversee and monitor expenditures
from each reserve fund of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities
system or the higher education institutions within CSCU.
The bond act delays the effective date of a new property tax
exemption for property located on reservation land that is held in trust for a
federally recognized Indian tribe by one year to Oct. 1, 2026.
The bonding bill repeals a provision in the budget bill that
eliminated both the $150 application fee and $155 annual renewal fee for a
paramedic license. Instead, the bonding bill eliminates the $150 application
fee but retains the $155 renewal fee for the license.
Lamont's surprise visits
It's a semi-tradition for governor's to address joint
gatherings of the House and Senate at the end of the session. This year, Gov.
Ned Lamont decided to pay informal visits to first the House and then the
Senate, during a quick 45-minute jaunt through the State Capitol. Upon entering
the bustling House chamber shortly after 8, Speaker Matt Ritter suggested that
Lamont was available for members to detail their grievances.
State Rep. Bill Buckbee, R-New Milford, offered the
governor some candy. "We've got a budget that I think most of us are proud
of, and even if you didn't support it, proud of the process we went
through," Lamont told reporters. "We did it with good humor with each
other. We're not Washington, we're Connecticut.
On the two-year $55.8 billion state budget:
"At the end of the day look at what we did on child
care, look what we did on special ed, look at what we did to make a big
difference for our towns and cities for years to come."
Plainville approves $12 mil worth of projects in referendum
Brian M. Johnson
PLAINVILLE - Residents approved all five referendum
questions for public works projects totaling more than $12 million on Tuesday,
including road work, a new pump station and a new public works building.
Chris Wazorko, town council chair, said all of the “budget
neutral” projects were approved with roughly a 2 to 1 vote during Tuesday’s
all-day budget vote at the firehouse.
“These are all items that we’ve wanted to get done for a
while now,” he said. “I’m happy to see that we had the support of the
community. The good news is that the budget has already passed and money was
already approved for these projects. So there will be no further tax
implications.”
Wazorko said that, from what he has seen over the last 10
years, town residents generally support projects that “help make the town a
better place.”
The following were the vote numbers for the referendum
questions:
– $3,16 million for the Shuttle Meadow Road pump station
rehabilitation project – 408 yes, 128 no
. $6 million for the road and related improvements program –
408 yes, 126 no
– $1 million for the acquisition of a new public works
facility – 357 yes, 177 no
– $1 million for Board of Education mechanical improvements
– 382 yes, 152 no
– $1 million for town mechanical improvements – 388 yes, 142
no
Out of 12,740 registered voters in Plainville, 527 cast
votes on Tuesday – a 4.1% turnout.
Wazorko said he anticipates that the mechanical improvements
in the town and school buildings will “move very quickly.”
The school improvements at Plainville High School include
replacing the emergency generator, upkeep to the pool and replacing the pool
room heater, replacing the rooftop units over the technology education
classrooms, and rehabbing the press box at Tinty Field. The school funds will
also go towards repointing brick at Toffolon and Linden Schools. The $1 million
for town improvements include replacing the HVAC systems at the Plainville
Public Library, Plainville Senior Center and Plainville Fire House – as well as
replacing the library roof.
The pump station replacement is expected to be paid by a
$3.18 million state loan, to be repaid over a 20-year term at an interest rate
of 2% for this project. Wazorko said work will begin “sooner than later.” The
road improvements will likely come next year after this year’s roadwork wraps
up. He said there may need to be a few more logistics discussed for the new
public works building, but that project will also move forward now.
Wazorko said previously that the town is looking to have its
Public Works Department and Roadways Department consolidated into one new
building, replacing the two 50-year-old building the departments currently use.
He said that this will save the town money in the long run versus renovating
both existing facilities.
“I talked to a lot of people about this and nobody remembers
why the two departments were separated to begin with,” Wazorko said. “Most
towns have both of those departments operating under the same roof.”
The new building will be located on a parcel of land on Camp
Street owned by Aiudi Construction.
With the Shuttle Meadow Road pump station, the town will
replace existing pumps and motors with submersible style pumps, mixers,
instrumentation, equipment, piping and valves within a new precast wet well and
valve vault. They will replace the existing control and generator building with
a new pre-engineered and fabricated electrical building. This will include all
new electrical pump controls, instrumentation, a generator, new VFDs(variable
frequency drives), modifications to the existing wet well and targeted
demolition of existing components and site work.
Waterbury developer wants to rezone 27 industrial acres on Danbury’s west side for 225 apartments
DANBURY – The owner of a 27-acre forest on the New York border where
a residential building
boom is underway at the nearby Reserve on Danbury's west side wants
to change the property’s industrial zone to allow construction of 225
apartments.
“There has not been significant interest in developing this
property with (light industrial) uses,” writes Thomas Beecher, an attorney
representing Blasius Enterprises of Waterbury, which bought the
land for $2.3 million in 2022. “It is a large 27-acre parcel. Despite some
slopes and wetlands, the site is still appropriate for a residential apartment
development.”
The property, south of Interstate 84’s Exit 1 and north of
the Crown
Point apartment complex on Saw Mill Road, is across from the sprawling
hilltop development of condominiums and apartments known as the
Reserve, where there is a new wave of new residential and commercial
construction.
“We are looking for every opportunity to bring taxes to our
grand list,” said Farley
Santos, a state representative and Mayor Roberto Alves’ economic and
community development adviser. “All the uses around that property are some kind
of residential, so it does make sense. We also want to be sure we are
responsible with our growth, so we will watch the process.”
The process will begin with a public hearing before the nine
elected members of the city’s Zoning Commission on July 8. Should the
commission agree to rezone the property to allow for multifamily residential
development, it would be up to Blasius or another developer to propose a site
plan, which would require a new round of land use review and a public hearing.
Frederick “Fritz” Blasius, a managing member of the company
that owns the property, is also a principal in the family-owned Blasius Auto Group, with 10
dealerships in Brookfield, Stratford, Torrington and Waterbury,
among other Connecticut locations.
If rezoned, the Blasius property could have as many as 293
apartments by taking advantage of incentives in city zoning for developers that
include affordable housing in their projects. However, the wet and sloping
terrain of the Blasius property would make that number hard to build, Beecher
said in a letter to the Zoning Commission.
Also, the Saw Mill River snakes along the property’s eastern
border.
“Our analysis is that the gross number of units will be well
under the maximum allowed by formula due to topography and wetlands and other
site considerations,” Beecher’s letter said.
The apartments would be one- and two-bedroom units, Beecher
added.
What about traffic on Saw Mill Road and the nearby Mill
Plain Road corridor – which is the busiest and most congested commercial strip
on the west side of Danbury?
Compared to the traffic that would be generated by a
160,000-square-foot light industrial use on the same site such as an office
building, the apartment complex would mean less traffic, according to an
analysis.
“(T)he proposed zone change from (light industrial) to
(multifamily) with the density bonus for the Saw Mill Road parcel will not have
a significant impact on traffic operations or safety on Saw Mill Road,” says
the analysis by Tighe & Bond. “The analyses show no existing collision
patterns and net peak hour vehicular development-generated traffic is expected
to decrease under the proposed future zone condition.”
The Blasius proposal comes at a time when building is
booming at the Reserve and construction activity is on the rise on the west
side, which continues to lead Danbury in economic growth.
In the Reserve alone, a total of 177 single-family homes and
townhouses are either built or are now under construction. At the office park
known as the Summit within the Reserve, the second phase of a 360-unit
apartment project is currently converting offices to living space. At the same
time, a rehabilitation hospital is nearing completion at the Reserve.
Elsewhere on the west side, developer Dan Bertram’s
ambitious plan to convert
a defunct hotel at I-84’s Exit 2 into 200 microapartments has been
approved, and a $96 million cancer center utilizing proton technology is
scheduled to break
ground this summer.
Norwich seeks $8.8 million state grant to revitalize lower Broadway
Daniel Drainville
Norwich — New York-based developer Ernest Tollja, the owner
of the blighted Fairhaven building at 26-28 Broadway, said Tuesday part of the
side of the building has now fallen apart.
That's in addition to the boarded windows, which were
already broken when he bought it last year, and the sagging roof and the
decrepit outdoor steps to the building.
"The building is in bad shape," Tollja said.
"It will need a lot of money to get it structurally safe, and obviously to
finish the apartments."
Tollja and his brother Albert Tollja, under TT Investments
LLC, purchased the Fairhaven and two other lower Broadway buildings for a
combined price of $810,000 last January. They could soon receive some help with
the cost of restoring the Fairhaven into 21 apartments.
The City Council on Monday authorized the Norwich Community
Development Corp. to apply for an $8.8 million Community Investment Fund grant
that would help fund a major project that would revitalize several properties
on lower Broadway.
NCDC President and Executive Director Kevin Brown said the
idea is "to take this stretch of lower Broadway that sits prominently
right in front of our City Hall, and bring the standards for those buildings —
and what they represent to a vibrant downtown — up to what that historic City
Hall deserves."
Brown said the properties that would benefit from the grant
include the "collapsing" Fairhaven building, an adjacent 0.11-acre
grassy lot, known as Jubilee Park, the Norwich Arts Center and an office
building at 4 Broadway. The city is expected to apply for the grant by Friday.
The total project cost would be $11.9 million, Brown said.
TT Investments would contribute most of the rest of the funds, not covered by
the grant.
The Fairhaven building, which has sat "dead and
blighted" for more than two decades, is the largest component of the
project, Brown said.
Tollja said if substantial grant funding is not approved,
restoring the building on his own budget would be impossible.
The other main component of the project seeks to take the
Jubilee Park, which sits between Castle Church and the Fairhaven building, and
transform it into what Brown described as a "dynamic, downtown public
space."
The city submitted a similar application that the CIF board
denied in 2022. Feedback after the denial said the city hadn't done enough
diligence with the project, Brown said.
But Brown said he is hopeful as the city now has more in
place than it did then: construction documents for the Fairhaven and Jubilee
Park, and a new developer for the Fairhaven that is willing to invest
substantial funding.
The design plans for Jubilee Park call for a two-tiered,
terraced park with a glass enclosure for arts events, flea markets or other
public gatherings.
Brown envisioned the park being used by nearby courthouse
employees, people who attend Castle Church and residents of the
soon-to-be-completed Reid and Hughes building, and already-completed Water
Street Lofts in the area.
The overall project also involves upgrades to Norwich Arts
Center and the office building at 4 Broadway, which is visible from the park.
Norwich Arts Center President Faye Ringel said the more than
$1 million, which would go to improving the center, would upgrade the
building's façade back to its historic appearance and add UV-graded windows to
protect the artwork in the first-floor gallery. She said that problem had been
temporarily fixed at least five years ago with the installation of a window
film.
"With the grant, we have the chance to have properly
historically accurate frames for the windows, plus restoring the
brickwork," she added.
Decorative ironwork would be restored, and some modern glass
removed and replaced with a historic counterpart.
The city will hear the results of the application in
mid-September, and if it's successful, the city would receive the funding in
late 2025, Brown said. If the project is approved, the earliest construction
would start would be next fall, he said.
"We're really just trying to get this to look like this
complete street that everybody wants to talk about," Brown said.
TT Investments, meanwhile, has nearly finished work to
restore the nearby 59-61 Broadway building it purchased with the Fairhaven.
Tollja said the building, abutting Billy Wilson's Ageing Still on the right,
should be completed this week, and will house four apartments and a commercial
space.
"We're hoping by the end of this month to have that
building ready to go to market for rent," he said, adding he's hoping a
restaurant will inhabit the first floor there.
The third building the Tolljas purchased, 51-53 Broadway, on
the other side of Billy Wilson's, was finished last fall, and they are still
marketing its first-floor commercial space.
Tollja said he hopes the improvements of all three will
provide for a more vibrant downtown area.