Lamont, DeLauro Tout Vision of Shoreline Stratford Redevelopment at Site of Aircraft Engine Plant
STRATFORD – U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Gov. Ned Lamont
turned up to tout the completion of $74.6 million of dredging along the
shoreline of the former Army Aircraft Engine plant, calling it the beginning of
a new era for the historic property.
The removal or reuse of as much as 233,000 tons of
PCB-contaminated sediment allows the state to begin the next phase of the
project – a boardwalk or nature trail connecting the restored Housatonic River
tidal flats at 550 Main St. to Short Beach and Stratford Point Lighthouse and
the Birdseye Street Boat Launch area, officials said.
Meanwhile, property owner Point Stratford Renewal continues
to raze the rest of the 77-acre former plant to make way for what developers
envision as a hotel or apartment complex with commercial and retail businesses
within the next five years.
Lamont said the project is expected provide needed housing
and generate $10 million to $20 million in property taxes for the city.
“This gives young people a place to be, for workforce
housing to be,” Lamont said. “That helps as well. Growing the economy, growing
opportunity makes a big difference. So I’m really proud to see this reimagining
of this location that has such a storied history, and it’s just getting
started.”
The rebirth of the tidal flats is well ahead of schedule and
under budget according to the developers. By using sheet pile walls to create a
temporary reservoir, allowing the dredging to proceed without the influence of
tides, and safely burying and capping the sediments within the property, the
developers cut 24 months and more than 2,000 truck trips from the project’s
schedule to save $60 million, according to Jim Cabrera, a partner at Point
Stratford.
“What was built on this property over the last hundred years
is now history,” Cabrera said. “What we build here in the next hundred
years is the future.”
And what a history it has had.
The Sikorsky Aircraft plant now owned by Lockheed Martin is
near where Igor Sikorsky piloted his first flying boat in 1926 and where the
first tethered helicopter took flight on Sept. 14, 1939. The first successful
free flight came on May 13, 1940.
About 7,000 gull-winged Vought-Sikorsky F4U Corsairs,
fighter planes flown by U.S., Australian and British marines and navy pilots in
World War II and Korean conflict, were manufactured there.
The Stratford property was the workplace of Rosalind Walter
– or Rosie the Riveter — an exemplar of the civilian war effort during WWII.
Aviation pioneers Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes and Charles
Lindbergh visited there. Sikorsky’s presence there led to the legendary U.S.
Army 56th Pursuit Fighter Squadron testing and training on the first batch
of Republic P-47 fighters at Bridgeport Municipal Airport in July, 1942, seven
months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Corsair and P-47 both used the Pratt & Whitney
R-2800 Double-Wasp engine pioneered and manufactured in East Hartford. The
Stratford engine plant manufactured the Avco Lycoming gas turbine engine used
in Sikorsky helicopters and the M1-Abrams tank.
The plant was also the center of a political fight in the
1990s, said DeLauro, who recounted her unsuccessful efforts to keep engine
manufacturing in Stratford before the plant closed in 1995.
“I have to say, there’s a couple of short stories here, and
to the Army folks who are here, I fought like Hell with you guys to keep this
plant open, and it had no business going to Alabama, but so be it,” DeLauro
said.
State Rep. Jim Gresko, who represents Stratford as the 121st
House Assembly District, remembered how the engine plant dominated that end of
town. In the 1970s, when he was growing up on Mary Avenue in the west end of
town, he said he knew better than to go anywhere near the army engine plant on
weekday afternoons. Cars flooded Main Street as hundreds of workers hustled
through shift change at the plant, owned at the time by AlliedSignal. Rosie’s
Pizza, Cricket Car Hop — then on Main Street — bars, gas stations and grocery
stores would be packed with customers.
“With all the traffic, you learned pretty quickly to never
come down here at three in the afternoon,” the 62-year-old Gresko recalled.
Hanging over the ceremony were hopes that Point Stratford
would spur a 21st-century version of the plant’s success.
Plans for the property are vague, but Mayor David Chess
promised the cleanup would spur water-view housing, shopping, restaurants,
perhaps a hotel, a conference center, a sports facility and some sort of
performance space.
“We’re starting a new chapter that will transform not only
this place, but one that will put Stratford on the map as a destination,” Chess
said. “We will be opening up miles of waterfront to the public for the first
time in over a century. It’s a reminder to have boardwalks, we’ll have
attractions, and we’ll have green space for people to come together.”
“This next phase will take a community, another great
collaboration. It will require public-private partnership,” Chess added. “None
of us do any of this stuff alone. It will require thoughtful planning and
multi-tiered financing. The good news is we have all the right ingredients
right here.”
Gresko said that he hoped that the waterfront project could
begin next year. The two-mile boardwalk is envisioned as key to the project,
allowing visitors to experience the Sound and imagine what the property can do
for the town, he said.
“People have been promised this and they’ve been cut off
from this for so long that I just think it’s criminal not to allow the public
to now have access,” Gresko said.
The next meeting for the project leaders and residents is
set for Sept. 2. Point Stratford representatives have also been meeting with
town civic groups and neighborhood associations throughout the last two months.
DOT’s new freight plan steers $84M in federal funds to three highway projects
Connecticut transportation officials have released a draft
freight plan that would direct $84.4 million in federal funding to three
highway projects through 2031 while identifying truck parking shortages, rail
bottlenecks and highway congestion as the state’s biggest challenges.
The draft plan, released Wednesday, outlines Connecticut’s
freight investment priorities for the next five years. Federal law requires
states to periodically update freight plans to remain eligible for National
Highway Freight Program funding.
About $77.6 million would fund improvements at two
interchanges, the junctions of I-91 and I-691 with Route 15 in Meriden and
Middletown. The projects carry total costs of $273.3 million and $379.2
million, with the remainder funded through other state and federal sources.
The third project is an $18.6 million widening of I-84 in
Waterbury that would extend an existing truck climbing lane near Exit 17 into a
continuous auxiliary lane to Exit 18. The corridor is one of several where
trucks make up 20% or more of all traffic, according to the plan.
Trucks moved 127.6 million tons of goods worth $293.9
billion through Connecticut in 2024, accounting for about 76% of all freight.
The DOT expects the value of freight moving through the state will nearly
double by 2050.
The plan also identifies an ongoing shortage of truck
parking. The state has roughly 1,238 truck parking spaces, and 92% of demand is
concentrated on I-95, I-84, I-91 and I-395, mostly overnight. Demand is
projected to grow 18% by 2040.
Drivers often must either stop early to secure a parking
space or continue driving and risk exhausting their federally mandated hours of
service before finding parking.
A $31 million statewide expansion of truck parking is
underway, according to the document. The first phase added 12 spaces at the
Middletown rest area on I-91. A second phase will add 30 in Southington, and
planned phases in Madison, Vernon and Enfield are slated to add another 320.
The DOT is also working with the University of Connecticut to assess a real-time parking
information system and companion app that would tell drivers where spaces are
open.
The plan documents continued opposition to Connecticut’s
Highway Use Fee, which took effect in January 2023. Trucking groups have
objected to the fee’s impact on shipping costs and the logistics of mileage
reporting, the plan notes, and lawmakers shifted reporting from monthly to
quarterly in 2023 to address some concerns.
In the DOT’s own survey of truck drivers and law
enforcement, conducted last fall, the Highway Use Fee ranked fourth among the
industry’s top concerns, behind congestion, safety and poor pavement and bridge
conditions.
The plan also identifies significant constraints on
Connecticut’s freight rail network. Currently, much of that network cannot
accommodate standard 286,000-pound rail cars, even as the industry moves toward
heavier 315,000-pound cars.
Clearance restrictions also rule out double-stacked
container cars, and growing passenger service on the Hartford Line has narrowed
the windows available for freight trains.
The plan recommends upgrading “all feasible rail lines” to
the heavier standards but does not attach a cost. The DOT has secured $20
million through its Rail Freight Infrastructure Program, including funding for
added siding capacity on the Housatonic Railroad.
Bradley International Airport, Connecticut’s only cargo
airport, is expected to see air freight volumes increase 85% by 2050. The
Connecticut Airport Authority is planning a cargo expansion capable of
accommodating wide-body freighter aircraft.
Public comments will be accepted through Sept. 4 before DOT
submits the final plan for federal approval.
NE states must bring in more energy, or accept rolling blackouts
Multiple heatwaves have sizzled New England this summer,
sending families looking for local pools, fleeing to the beach, or cranking up
their air-conditioners to combat the sweltering heat. The most intense of the
heatwaves – the week leading up to the fourth of July holiday – had several
days of temps soaring well into the 90s, even hitting triple digits in parts of
the state, with intense humidity creating a dangerous heat index.
Stretches like this are when our region sees demand for
electricity skyrocket and, at the beginning of July, we faced the very real
threat of controlled, rotating power outages – commonly referred to as rolling
blackouts.
While you likely didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary
with your electricity, behind the scenes a lot was happening.
ISO-NE, the regional grid operator for New England, forecast
zero energy supply surplus for the evening of July 3 – meaning the risk there
wouldn’t be enough supply to safely operate the grid was high. To make matters
worse, a local power plant experienced issues that could have reduced available
supply. If demand outpaces supply, it can lead to brownouts or, in the worst
case, a total system blackout.
Avoiding that situation requires emergency action,
potentially resulting in controlled rotating power outages. Yes – this would be
intentional power outages that ISO-NE would direct electric companies
throughout New England to implement, typically on the hottest or coldest days
of the year when demand is highest. ISO-NE and all utilities in New England
spend a lot of time preparing, planning and strategizing for this possibility.
Fortunately, the power plant issue was resolved and actual
demand was less than forecast. It was yet another very close call.
Coming back from the brink isn’t a success story; it’s a
warning. Without meaningful, structural change that brings more energy supply
to New England at a faster pace than the demand for it, it’s not a matter of
whether there will be rolling blackouts, but when.
In addition to the Northeast continuing to experience
prolonged extreme temperatures creating periods of surging energy use,
Massachusetts wants to build more housing, bring in more manufacturing,
increase economic development and has ambitious decarbonization goals. All of
that produces greater electric demand, but where is the equally ambitious plan
to bring in more supply to meet that demand?
The delicate balance of energy supply and demand is on the
edge of falling apart with the grid seeing many years of successive power plant
retirements not equally matched by new generation.
As our region skirts closer to this edge, customers have
been feeling the pain of a constrained energy supply for quite some time.
Approximately half of an electric bill is dominated by supply costs, and it’s
by far the most volatile portion of the bill. We’ve seen wild price swings from
one year to the next due to weather and global events having a strong and
direct impact on a limited energy supply. We all know, in any market sector,
what happens to supply prices when a commodity is “scarce.” So, let’s stop
kidding ourselves when we hear that someone has a brilliant solution to address
energy affordability without mentioning adding new supply.
As valuable as programs like Eversource’s ConnectedSolutions
are – where customers enroll to shift energy use away from peak periods in
exchange for incentives – or the adoption of rooftop solar and battery storage,
when it comes to solving resource adequacy in New England, unless paired with
new baseload generation, they’re a bandage on a serious wound requiring
surgery.
Demand response programs and rooftop solar paired with
battery storage cannot adequately replace retiring baseload power plants or
solely handle the increasing pressure of demand.
Over the years, we’ve acted to increase generation capacity
by supporting the development of hydropower from Canada and the transmission
upgrades required to deliver it; interstate gas transportation to support
electric generation; and offshore wind. While some offshore wind generation has
come online, it’s not nearly as much as had been hoped for just a few years
ago, and those efforts are stalling.
Even under optimal circumstances, the growing demand for
affordable energy cannot be met by offshore wind alone, nor by simply paring it
with solar, batteries and virtual power plants. We support all efforts to bring
additional supply to the region and are ready to connect those new energy
sources to the grid through the necessary upgrades to our transmission and
distribution systems.
Energy affordability and reliability are inextricably
connected, and if the amount of supply in the region doesn’t increase, costs
and the looming risk of rolling blackouts will.