Middletown Details First Projects Under $42.5M Infrastructure Bond
Ally LeMaster
MIDDLETOWN — The mayor and members of city staff announced
initial plans to improve local infrastructure as a part of a $42.5 million bond
referendum approved by voters in November.
Mayor Gene Nocera, joined by city public works officials and
the city water and sewer director, held a press conference on Tuesday to
provide updates on plans to address upcoming improvements to city buildings,
roads and sewers.
Back in November, residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of
a $42.5 million bond referendum, where $33 million will go toward improvements
to city-owned buildings and roads and a separate $9.5 million toward improving
the city water and sewer system.
On Tuesday, Acting Deputy Public Works Director Brian
Gartner said about $15 million will be spent on repairs for nine city
buildings. Nocera identified the parks department building, the city yard and
the tradesman building as projects the city will prioritize.
“We have allowed some of the buildings to slip away from us
because revenue is difficult to keep up with, and the cost to maintain these
buildings is growing and growing,” Nocera said.
Due to deferred maintenance, the parks department facility
has been closed due to “extreme amounts of water infiltration,” Gartner said.
He said city staff are currently working out of a rental trailer while awaiting
repairs to the facility.
While the parks department facility will need to be gutted,
the bond money will likely pay for other repairs such as updates to the HVAC
system in town hall, Gartner said.
Public Works Director Bob Russo said the city will also
focus on paving roads in the north end, including Ferry Street, Green Street,
Liberty Street and Prospect Street, as well as roads in more rural areas of the
city.
As for sewer repairs, city water and sewer director Joe
Fazzino said his department is looking at replacing sewer mains, some of which
date back to the 1890s. He also plans to update the sewer system in the north
end and install a new sewer pump station on Bartholomew Road.
While these are the initial plans for spending the bond
money, all projects will need to be approved by a newly formed building
committee that will oversee the process by establishing budgets and
timelines. Members of this building committee are still being sworn in, and
have yet to schedule a meeting, Gartner said. He emphasized that this will be a
“very public process.”
Asked about timelines for these projects, Nocera said bonds
like the one passed in November are typically spent over four to five years.
New Orleans developer buys Trumbull office building once approved for self-storage redevelopment
A New Orleans-based commercial real estate development firm
plans to demolish a three-story office building in Trumbull that it purchased
for $2 million, according to property records.
Trumbull CT Development Company LLC, controlled by Gordon H.
Kolb Jr. of New Orleans, purchased the 62,464-square-foot building, at 6
Cambridge Drive, in late December.
Kolb is president of GHK Developments, a commercial real
estate development firm that focuses on acquiring and developing commercial
properties.
GHK is working with the town on getting permits to redevelop
the 4.54-acre property, but would not disclose what it plans to build there.
“This is something that will be helpful to the community,”
said William Henderson, co-founder of Texas-based commercial real estate firm
AIE Partners who is partnering with GHK on the redevelopment. “Getting rid of
this blighted property is very beneficial for the area.”
The purchase comes about 18 months after the town’s Planning
and Zoning Commission in June 2024 approved a proposal by Newman Realty
Partners to demolish the long-vacant, blighted office building and replace it
with a 112,000-square-foot, three-story self-storage facility, according to
meeting minutes.
On its website, GHK lists self-storage among its key
markets, along with retail, medical office and other commercial development. It
also lists ExtraSpace Storage as a featured client. Meanwhile, AIE says it has
underwritten, developed and acquired more than 2 million square feet of storage
projects nationwide.
Cambridge Office LLC — controlled by New Orleans-based Group
7 Holdings LLC — was the seller. Group 7 bought the Cambridge Drive property in
2015.
The building, which sits on 4.54 acres and was built in
1985, was appraised at $1.24 million and assessed at $868,000 in 2023.
Developers proposes more than 430 apartments in upscale CT suburb town center
The developer building Heritage Park at the former
UConn campus in West Hartford is proposing a project in another town.
It’s 266
apartments just off Glastonbury’s Main Street, with nearly a third of them
to be priced at state-designated “affordable” rents.
Domenic
Carpionato of Rhode Island wants to put up a series of three- to
four-story buildings near Main Street at Griswold Street in what would become
one of the largest residential complexes in town.
It’s one of two major developments envisioned for
Glastonbury’s Main Street: The Greenwich-based HB Nitkin Group is proposing
about 170 apartments in a mixed-use project that would entail
demolishing a pair of existing commercial buildings.
The projects aren’t linked, but if both are built, they’d
significantly change the appearance of the town center. Both developers are
going before town environmental boards on Thursday to discuss their plans.
The proposal from HB Nitkin involves a significant amount of
first-floor retail along with market-rate apartments, and is subject to
standard zoning review. But Carpionato’s
proposal was filed under Connecticut’s 8-30g law,
which gives affordable housing developers a powerful advantage by making many
zoning standards irrelevant to their applications.
The 8-30g law applies to towns with less than 10% of its
housing designated as affordable by state measurements. Glastonbury
stood at just 5.23% in 2023.
Glastonbury has acknowledged it needs more rental
housing, The town had just under 14,500 housing units in 2023, with the
vast majority of them single-family homes.
Glastonbury’s housing authority keeps a list of more than
1,100 applicants for its inventory of fewer than 470 homes, and most town
residents report they personally know people who could use moderate-priced
local housing, a local affordable housing committee concluded.
“Almost 60% of community survey respondents indicated they
knew someone who could benefit from affordable housing. The wait list and
community awareness of need demonstrate that Glastonbury needs additional
affordable housing units,” according to Glastonbury’s
2022 affordability plan.
Carpionato, executive vice president of the Carpionato Group
that built Avon Village
Center, is the chief developer of Heritage Park, the sprawling
residential and commercial complex planned at the former UConn campus in West
Hartford.
The 266-apartment proposal will go to a Planning and Zoning
Commission hearing on Jan. 20, and Carpionato is asking the Conservation
Commission on Thursday to give it a positive endorsement.
Plans show a four-story building with 71 apartments, four
three- to four-story buildings with between 40 and 62 units each, and a
clubhouse. The 8-30g application requires the developer to set aside 30 percent
of the apartments at state-approved affordable lease rates for 40 years, but
the other 70 percent can be rented at market rates.
A few blocks to the south, the HB Nitkin Group wants to put
in a mix of ground-floor retail and upper floor apartments on the west side of
Main Street between Hebron Avenue and Rankin Road. The company on Thursday
night will be asking the inland wetlands board for a permit to redevelop that
half-block of Main Street.