General Dynamics Electric Boat recently paid $5.5 million
for a nearly 55-acre property in North Stonington, where the Groton-based
submarine builder plans to construct a roughly 480,000-square-foot warehouse.
The property at 45 Frontage Road, right off Interstate 95,
currently hosts a 40-year-old, 5,000-square-foot garage.
The property was sold by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal
Nation in a deed recorded by the town on Jan. 2. The tribal nation paid
$2.85 million for the property in 1995.
North Stonington’s Planning and Zoning Commission, on Dec.
12, unanimously signed off on Electric Boat’s site plan application for a
400-foot by 1,200-foot warehouse. The plan calls for 13 loading docks, three
vehicle ramps into the building and 75 parking spaces.
The site plan, prepared by SLR Consulting, notes three
shifts at the warehouse, with 73 employees maximum on a shift. The company
employs about 23,200 people between its shipyards in Groton and Rhode Island.
John Cafasso, a principal of Colliers, brokered the sale on
behalf of the tribal nation.
Colliers marketed the site for about two years, advertising
it for lease or build-to-suit for a tenant. There had been steady interest but
no deal before a buyer came in with an unsolicited offer to purchase, Cafasso
said Thursday.
“We are thrilled to have facilitated the sale of this
exceptional property,” Cafasso said. “This transaction highlights the strength
of the North Stonington market and its appeal for corporations seeking
high-quality construction on a larger scale.”
An Electric Boat spokesperson confirmed the purchase of the
North Stonington property but declined comment on plans for the site.
Susan Cullen, North Stonington’s planning
development zoning official, noted the new warehouse will be about halfway
between Electric Boat’s Quonset Point Facility in North Kingstown, Rhode Island
and its Groton facility. The Frontage Road property is also within a district
targeted by the town for industrial and commercial development, she said.
“The town is very much looking forward to them being here,”
Cullen said. “It will provide more jobs. And I think it impacts the region in a
very positive way.”
Six decades later, New Haven gets $2 million planning grant to knit together areas split by I-91
NEW HAVEN — The way sweeping 1950s-era "urban
renewal" and transportation projects have shaped New Haven comes
up frequently in discussions about the city's past, present, and future. Now,
the impact of the most significant project — the construction of Interstate 91
— may finally be on the way to being fixed.
The city was approved for a $2 million federal grant to come
up with ways to knit back together neighborhoods cleaved when I-91 was built in
the 1960s, officials said Thursday.
The "Reconnecting Neighborhoods" grant comes from
the U.S.
Department of Transportation.
Among other things, the $2 million grant will pay for design
and a related community engagement process to find out how residents would like
to see the long-bisected areas of the city stitched back together, said Mayor
Justin Elicker.
Elicker said there's potential to reconfigure physical
barriers that have scarred the city for decades, using vehicles, bikes, or
pedestrian pathways.
"The planning grant will help us engage the community
and do some of the engineering and design work," Elicker said.
Among the areas the project is likely to affect are Fair
Haven, Cedar Hill, East Rock, Wooster Square, Long Wharf, and the Hill, along
with Downtown, said Alder Carolyn Smith, D-9, whose ward includes parts of
the East Rock and Fair Haven sections.
Fair Haven and East Rock are two areas that I-91's
completion split apart.
"I'm absolutely thrilled. I'm beyond thrilled,"
Smith said.
Elicker said there is also potential to improve and unlock
long-tied-up land at the Trumbull Street and Willow Street exits.
"Clearly, if we are going to change highway exit ramps,
it will be an immense undertaking," Elicker said. "But it could be
very worthwhile."
Smith said that many of the project's details will be worked
out during the planning process. "It's a planning grant. The central
pillar will be a lot of community engagement and how they do that."
The stretch of I-91 from Meriden south to New Haven
connected the highway to the Connecticut Turnpike, Interstate 95. It opened on
Jan. 6, 1966.
Along the way, it cut Wooster Square in half and separated
that area, East Rock and the State Street corridor from the Mill River area and
Fair Haven.
The I-91/I-95 interchange also cut off Downtown from Long
Wharf and the Hill, something the city has been trying to rectify with the
separate Downtown
Crossing project.
Elicker said city staffers worked hard on the grant
application, and during the process, "we talked about the importance of
making right some of the significant things that impact the city."
That was "done very successfully along Route 34
corridor with the Downtown Crossing project," Elicker said.
Smith joined City Plan Executive Director Laura Brown to
present the grant application to the Board of Alders' City Services and
Environmental Policy Committee in early October. The committee and,
subsequently, the entire Board of Alders approved it.
Other alders whose wards would be significantly affected by
the work include Hill, City Point and Downtown Alder Carmen Rodriguez, D-6;
Downtown, State Street and Wooster Square Alder Eli Sabin, D-7; and East Rock
Alder Anna Festa, D-10. Festa chairs the City Services and Environmental Policy
Committee.
Work at several key intersections in Smith's ward that were
affected by I-91 is likely to come out of the process, including State and
Humphrey streets, State and James streets, and James Street and Grand Avenue,
she said.
"I think about what kinds of investments can be made on
either side of the underpasses" to enhance traffic safety, unlock
additional land for housing, and improve traffic patterns," she said.
"Each underpass is an opportunity for work to make it safer."
Several I-91 underpasses
also have been transformed in recent years by murals, she said.
Naugatuck’s downtown project picks up speed
ANDREAS YILMA
NAUGATUCK – The borough’s $14.8 million downtown
infrastructure project is scheduled to be completed by Oct. 15, Mayor N. Warren
“Pete” Hess said.
The project involves upgrading Church and Maple streets, the
Maple Street bridge and the intersection near Water Street. A little more than
$9.2 million of the funding will come from the borough’s American Rescue Plan
Act money.
The Board of Mayor and Burgesses on Jan. 2 approved an
agreement to accelerate the Church Street infrastructure project by working
through the winter. The agreement includes resolving all relocation and related
delay issues with Eversource Energy.
The board in 2022 hired Kleinfelder Northeast, a national
engineering firm with an office in Rocky Hill, for the final design of sewer
upgrades and streetscape designs for Church and Maple streets. The firm is
collaborating with Richter & Cegan, a landscape architecture and planning
firm from Avon, for the streetscape portion.
Hess said there are two crews working on Church Street
installing sewer pipes. Also, Eversource has finished three of its four vaults
in the middle of the road, a process disruptive to traffic. The underground
work is expected to be done in the heart of winter, he noted.
“The demolition of the sidewalks will occur in the winter,”
Hess added. “They’re going to do the best they can with businesses to try to
make sure there’s as little disruption as possible, but Church Street will be
complete in May or June.”
Workers should be laying the first coat of asphalt on Church
Street in June before they move their work to the town Green. This will be
followed by Maple Street and lastly the Maple Street bridge, Hess said.
He has said the infrastructure work will resolve storm-water
and sewer issues that have plagued the west side of the borough for many years,
particularly during heavy rainstorms in a short period of time.
Neil Kulikauskas, Kleinfelder’s senior program manager, has
said hydraulic testing of drainage systems uncovered significant issues, noting
the drainage system on Church Street is undersized with broken and segmented
pipes.
Workers this week also will begin digging the foundation for
the Pennrose mixed-use residential development, with the start of the building
construction planned for the spring, Hess said.
The state Department of Transportation is scheduled to start
construction of the new train station in May, Hess said. DOT already allotted
funding for the relocation of the Naugatuck station from Water Street near The
Station Restaurant to the middle of Parcel B.
The Parcel B plan calls for three four-story buildings
divided into three phases with 60 units in each structure consisting of 29
one-bedroom and 31 two-bedroom units. The borough board chose Pennrose and
Cloud Co. to develop the vacant 7.75 acres at the corner of Maple Street and
Old Firehouse Road in 2022.