Future of Stamford's once purple West Main Street bridge could be decided next week
STAMFORD — The Stamford Board of
Representatives could decide the future of Stamford’s once-purple
bridge on West Main Street as early as next week.
The board’s Operations Committee voted 6-3 Feb. 20 on a
resolution to restore the bridge on West Main Street and open it to pedestrian
and vehicular traffic. The resolution will go to the full board for a vote. The
cost was estimated at $6.7 million.
The bridge,
which was built in 1888, was closed to cars in 2002 and has
deteriorated ever since as local
lawmakers argued over how to replace it. The city put a prefabricated
bridge, which
cost $1.6 million and was open to pedestrian traffic only, next to the
bridge in 2023 after the original bridge was closed to all traffic.
The committee considered several options: One was to replace
the superstructure of the bridge, which could have cost around $6.5 million;
another was to replace the whole bridge, which could have cost around $9.6
million. Both would open the bridge to vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
Another option moved the bridge to a nearby park “as an
artifact,” according to a report from construction
and engineering company BL Companies and would leave the temporary
bridge open in its place. That option could cost around $1.2 million.
Some members of the committee wanted to hold a separate public hearing for
Stamford residents to review the options presented to the committee. Others
disagreed with opening a new bridge up to vehicular traffic.
Rep. Don Mays, D-19, said during the Feb. 20 meeting that a
pedestrian-only bridge “is the best solution.” He said the city did not need
another bridge that allows for vehicular traffic into the area since bridges on
Broad Street and Tresser Boulevard both do so.
“I don't believe it is appropriate for us to make a
recommendation that will cost taxpayers a tremendous amount of money for
something that is not necessarily needed,” Mays said.
He said he worried that children playing in Mill River Park
or a playground being built on the other side of the bridge may run into
traffic on the new bridge and that the city has to become more pedestrian
friendly — and another vehicular bridge didn’t help accomplish that goal. He
said a bridge with vehicular traffic would create a “separation” between the
West Side and downtown area.
“We’re going the wrong way here,” Mays said.
Rep. Ashley Ley, D-20, said she worried allowing vehicular
traffic on the bridge would disrupt residents who for 20 years were used to not
having the extra traffic come through their neighborhood. She said she wanted
to hear from the residents about the bridge replacement.
Majority Leader Nina Sherwood, D-8, however, disagreed that
a separate public hearing was needed, saying during the meeting another public
hearing would delay the process of picking a replacement for the bridge another
month.
She said Stamford residents can speak about the potential
bridge replacements during the public comment period before the next full board
meeting on March 3. She has also supported restoring the bridge and reopening
it to vehicle traffic for years.
"There has been and there is still an opportunity for
the public to speak," Sherwood said.
Rep. Chanta Graham, D-3, said she wanted to open the bridge
to vehicular traffic because an incoming apartment complex near the bridge
could produce more traffic in the area and that the bridge would “allow the
traffic to move freely.”
Jeffrey Stella, D-9, said he spoke with residents in the
area around the temporary bridge and said he’s heard that people want a
vehicular bridge.
“Many of us live in this community,” Stella said. “This is
our backyard.”
West Hartford approves 118 new homes, retail at long-vacant and 'deteriorating' former UConn campus
WEST HARTFORD — After nearly a decade of sitting vacant,
with both buildings and the grounds deteriorating, the
former University of Connecticut campus in West Hartford has found its next
life.
On Tuesday, the
Town Council voted to approve zoning changes that will pave the way for
Heritage Park, a mixed-use development that will create 118 new homes — 25
of which will be owner-occupied townhouses — combined with an assisted
living facility, a grocery store, a restaurant, a spa and more.
It's the
culmination of a lengthy and winding road to get the property redeveloped,
a timeline that saw the town itself balk twice at buying the property — which
has PCB contaminations — and another private developer bail on its plans to
redevelop the site.
But WeHa Development Group LLC is moving forward with its
vision to transform the site at 1800 Asylum Ave. into a place that combines
living with retail and recreation, including public spaces and the expansion of
the town's Trout Brook Trail through the campus. The group first
revealed its plans to redevelop the site in October of 2022.
Those final plans also included the redevelopment of 1700
Asylum Ave., the parcel that sits across Trout Brook Drive and was used as the
campus' parking lot. Those plans
to build 322 new multifamily homes were separately considered by the
Town Council and were approved last April. The development group has
since sold that site to another developer for $22 million.
But in all, the two parcels will account for 440 new homes
in West Hartford, which town leaders have repeatedly expressed a need for as
Connecticut faces a housing crisis. Of those new homes, there will be 31
affordable housing units spread between both properties. The project
is part
of 11 ongoing housing developments in town and is certainly the
biggest development in West Hartford since Blue Back Square.
"We have been talking about this particular development
for years," said Mayor Shari Cantor at Tuesday's Town Council meeting.
"Since (UConn moved) that property has been left fallow and has been
deteriorating in front of people's eyes. It’s overtime to do the right
development there and that's what I think we have seen."
The development, which needed zoning changes in order to
build multifamily housing on the site, passed with a seven to two vote, with
two Republican councilors — Alberto Cortes and Mary Fay — voting against
the project.
While Cortes called it an "exciting project" that
adds homes for sale, he also wondered whether the Town Council was settling for
this project, citing concerns over some retail vacancies in Blue Back Square.
Deputy Mayor Ben Wenograd said he didn't feel like they were
settling at all.
"This is a high quality project with a developer who
has bent over backwards to meet every reasonable and some unreasonable,
frankly, demands we have put on them," Wenograd said. "It’s
complicated to build on this site. They figured out the way to do it and make
this work. It’s time to move it forward. If we want to build things, we have to
build things. The best way to build housing is to build housing. And we need
it."
East Haven to Pay $11M Settlement in Quarry Lawsuit
Nick Sambides Jr
EAST HAVEN — A Willington businessman will receive an $11
million settlement after suing the town for $55 million, alleging officials
illegally shut down his Barberry Road quarry for corrupt political reasons.
The settlement, announced Wednesday, resolves claims filed
in 2017 against the administration of retired Republican Mayor Joe Maturo Jr.
It follows a federal judge’s ruling awarding quarry owner John Patton $9.47
million in damages, plus more than $1 million in prejudgment interest and
attorney’s fees, according to Ed Sabatino, the city’s assistant director of
administration under Democratic Mayor Joe Carfora.
“The Town’s liability would have risen to over $12 million
in the coming months, and had the case not settled, post judgment interest
would have continued to accrue at approximately $38,000 per month,” Sabatino
said in a Wednesday statement.
Patton was unable to be reached for comment.
Carfora’s administration, which inherited the case when
Carfora took office in 2019, began negotiating a settlement with Patton’s
counsel in December.
Patton, the managing member of the quarry’s corporate owner,
One Barberry Real Estate Holding LLC, originally filed a $30 million lawsuit
against the town and a second $25 million federal complaint against Maturo,
former Zoning Enforcement Officer Christopher Soto and former Assessor Michael
J. Milici.
The city argued that the shutdown, which occurred in May
2017, occurred because the multimillion-dollar basalt trap rock quarry violated
town zoning regulations. Patton argued that the quarry, which he rented in 2013
and purchased in 2016, was a non-conforming use that predated the town’s zoning
laws by many years.
‘Conscience-shocking’ corruption
A 119-page
ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Sarala V. Nagala in 2023 cleared
Milici of wrongdoing, but said that Patton and One Barberry had “proven by a
preponderance of the evidence that the Town, Maturo, and Soto deprived them of
substantive due process protections in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment.”
The amendment guarantees due process and equal protection
under the law.
Nagala wrote that Maturo, Soto and other town officials
engaged in a lengthy fight, from approximately 2008 to 2017, against quarry
operations at 1 Barberry Road near the East Haven-Branford line in response to
heavy residential opposition to quarry operations. They repeatedly shut down
the quarry and delayed its blasting permits in attempts to harass Patton,
Nagala wrote.
Maturo, mayor from 1997 to 2007 and from 2011 until his
retirement in 2019, was accused of repeatedly demonstrating selfish political
motivation in battling the quarry and using his influence to effectively neuter
the Zoning Board of Appeals as an independent body when Patton appealed city
actions.
She called the actions of Maturo and Soto
“conscience-shocking.”
At one point, Maturo directed Soto to issue a
cease-and-desist order against the quarry. Trial evidence revealed that he
partly attributed his 2007 mayoral loss to the controversy surrounding the
quarry. Over the years, he repeatedly pressured Patton to make decisions
against his own interests and leveraged his connections with other town
officials to turn them against Patton while bolstering his own 2017 reelection
efforts, Nagala wrote.
“Maturo acted in selfish pursuit of his own political
interests,” Nagala wrote.
Nagala wrote that Soto ignored the law in deciding on one
occasion to shut down Patton’s operation on false claims of an alleged lack of
safety in quarry operations. Nagala cited how Soto’s testimony at trial
contradicted his actions with the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Soto testified to the board in support of a cease-and-desist
order shutting down the quarry “that he observed numerous rocks and boulders
rolling down the hill on the property, which he believed to pose a risk of
danger. But he did not show the Court the photos or video that he showed the
ZBA evincing that multiple rocks and boulders were indeed rolling down the hill
on the property,” Nagala wrote.
Soto told the ZBA that the zoning office’s phone log
contained 35 phone messages demonstrating many complaints about the quarry, but
“relatively few of those messages were complaints about the quarry,” Nagala
wrote.
“A zoning enforcement officer cannot simply choose which of
his predecessors’ binding decisions he likes and does not like, and ignore
those with which he does not agree, to the detriment of an individual’s
property interest; such conduct is, by its very nature, arbitrary,” Nagala
wrote in her decision.
Insurance coverage
The town and Patton reached a tentative agreement to settle
the lawsuit about two weeks ago. The final settlement terms were recently
completed, and the necessary documents have been submitted to the court.
Dismissal documents will soon be filed with the Second
Circuit Court of Appeals, Sabatino said.
Town officials, expecting a settlement of some sort since
August, deposited $13.5 million into a restricted interest-bearing account to
secure the judgment rather than purchasing an appeal bond and incurring its
associated costs.
The account has accrued over $220,000 in interest. The
settlement payment was made from this account, and the remaining balance of
approximately $2.7 million was returned to the town, Sabatino said.
The town, meanwhile, is pursuing a claim against its two
insurance carriers, arguing that the carriers should have indemnified the town
against the lawsuit from the beginning, he said.
Norwich awards $4.7M construction management contract for two new schools
Daniel Drainville
Norwich — The School Building Committee has chosen
Torrington-based O&G Industries as the construction manager for the Uncas
and John M. Moriarty schools, the second two of four schools that will be built
as part of a $385 million citywide school construction project.
The new Uncas and Moriarty schools are in the early phases
of being designed, building committee Chairman and Alderman Mark Bettencourt
said Wednesday.
The first two schools, Stanton and Greeneville elementary
schools, are closer to being built and expect to break ground this spring. The
construction manager for the first two schools is Downes Construction.
The new Stanton, Uncas and Moriarty buildings will be built
on the grounds of the current schools while they continue to operate. Once
completed, the old schools will be torn down and used to create playgrounds and
athletic fields.
Greeneville, meanwhile, will be built on the grounds of the
demolished Greeneville School and adjacent land on Golden Street.
The overall project also calls for Teachers’ Memorial Global
Studies Middle School to be either renovated or replaced, and for the former
Samuel Huntington Elementary School to be converted into a central office and
adult education building.
The city has hired Construction Solutions Group as project
manager and DRA Architects as the project architect for all four projects.
Impact of Trump tariffs
The amount the city can spend on all six buildings is the
$385 million approved by voters in 2022.
“We had to modify some plans for the future due to budgetary
considerations,” Bettencourt said, adding that the total cost hasn’t changed at
this point.
Bettencourt said that once the city gets proposals back for
subcontracting work, it will have a better idea about the actual project costs.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed
proclamations that will place 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and Canadian wood.
Bettencourt said the building committee is concerned over
the effect of the tariffs. He said costs will depend on where the materials are
procured and their cost at the time.
The design work for the new Stanton and Greeneville schools
is complete, Bettencourt said. In November, the school board approved new
designs that will save money.
The state is reimbursing the city for 80% of the costs for
the Greeneville and Stanton schools, Bettencourt said. After that, it will
reimburse the city a minimum of 67% for the other four buildings.
Bettencourt said the city has tried to separate the timing
of the projects so that all four schools are not being built at the same time.
O&G is one of the region’s largest providers of
construction services. It was one of four companies in to submit a proposal to
the city to oversee the building of the Moriarty and Uncas schools but was not
the low bidder. Three of the four were interviewed this week. Downes had also
submitted a bid but was not chosen.
Cost was just one of the various factors considered by the
committee in choosing a firm.
According to bid documents, O&G will charge the city
$2.3 million for constructing the Moriarty school, and another $2.4 million for
Uncas. Bettencourt said the city still needs to negotiate the terms of its
contract with O&G.
Bettencourt said committee members had been impressed by an
O&G employee they met while another committee member had experience with
O&G on a previous school project.
According to its website, O&G has experience building
hundreds of schools, including providing construction management services for
the building of the Groton Consolidated Middle School, along with the Thames
River Magnet School and Mystic River Magnet School.
Thursday meeting for controversial Old Lyme project postponed
Jack Lakowsky
Old Lyme — The Zoning Commission, at the request of First
Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker, postponed a Thursday meeting about a
controversial zone change that would allow mixed-use development on Halls Road.
The plan is aimed at revitalizing the commercial area that
includes the Old Lyme Shopping Center, whose sign is cracked and coated in
lichen, and Big Y.
The Halls Road Overlay District plan has drawn vocal
opposition and support, and aims to change the area’s zoning to allow
multifamily housing, which is currently not permitted.
In a letter to Zoning Commission Chairman Paul Orzel,
Shoemaker said she and the Halls Road Improvements Committee “acknowledge that
the zoning commission has received many additional exhibits and request
additional time to review them.”
Shoemaker requested a postponement until late March.
She declined further comment Wednesday, instead pointing to
the dozens of letters the town had received in the last few weeks.
A petition submitted to the town Tuesday has almost 950
signatures opposing the project, and states that although its signers
“understand the need for thoughtful progress and economic growth, we believe
this specific project will negatively impact the character, environment, and
quality of life in our cherished community.”
Halls Road business owners were hesitant to speak about the
project Wednesday, worried they’d alienate customers. Attorney Conrad Ost
Seifert, whose office Seifert & Hogan is in the Old Lyme Marketplace across
the street from shopping center, said that he felt neutral about the meeting’s
postponement and that it’s better to do things right even if it takes a bit
more time.
“We have a housing crisis going on, and we don’t want to
prevent affordable housing, especially on this strip where it’s possible,”
Seifert said.
In 2015 the Halls Road Improvements Committee began
discussing measures to improve conditions for pedestrians in the commercial
district, such as adding sidewalks. But as the group worked, members heard
about the declining value of strip malls and the growing importance of bringing
affordable housing to town, committee Chairwoman Edie Twining said last week.
Seniors and young families have struggled to keep up with the local cost of
living, she said.
Members envisioned more retail buildings facing the road
while residences would be located behind the businesses, according to a plan
developed by the committee and attorney William Sweeney.
According to the overlay zone plan, 10% of housing units
must be affordable while no new building could be longer than 200 feet or
taller than 35 feet.
The opposition petition states that the overlay zone could
add up to 1,600 residences, bringing 3,200 new residents to the town,
“potentially stressing our schools, public safety and, ultimately, our taxes.”
The committee has said the 1,600 figure, based on the town’s
limit of 40 residential units per acre, ignores that the overlay zone does not
apply to every lot within the district. The committee says its highest estimate
is 400-450 units, assuming no additional restrictions imposed by septic systems
and the environment.
“When those factors are taken into account, the number that
could actually be built may be 220-225,” the committee wrote.
But the petition states that the proposal has “egregiously
expanded” in one year — for example, by allowing concrete parking garages up to
three stories tall. Current regulations prohibit stand-alone garages but allow
parking structures tied to specific projects.
The opposition petition also states that the overlay
district is adjacent to wetlands and that the Lieutenant River and will affect
critical wildlife and habitat. The petition raises concerns about stormwater
runoff and light pollution. The committee, though, has said these environmental
concerns are “misguided” and that the developments along Halls Road are decades
old and built before existing, more stringent environmental laws. New
developments, the committee said, would adhere to current laws, improving
existing conditions.
The opposition petition states that the project would create
a “multitude of 200-foot-long, 40 foot-deep retail and high-density housing
buildings along Halls Road, all three stories tall and set back zero to 15 feet
from the street,” with similarly sized parking garages.
The committee has said this claim ignores limits the town
already has in place. The committee’s proposal says the new zoning would allow
multifamily housing when the majority of a parcel’s Halls Road frontage is
developed with businesses.
Some residents have signed a letter expressing support for
the plan. The letter says Halls Road should be developed with the “aim of
making it look, feel and function as a pedestrian-friendly town center.” It
points out that with existing zoning, only stores can built, and that the
town’s housing stock is overwhelmingly single-family.
Smith Neck Road resident Peter McKillop wrote that “the
zoning board can maintain a decaying strip mall or push ahead with a
well-designed mixed-use community that preserves the best commercial and
residential values” of the town.
UConn board of trustees set to approve extra funding for $290M science building renovation
Amassive renovation of UConn’s Edward V. Gant Science
Complex, which is entering its third phase, is expected to cost an additional
$121.5 million.
The uptick brings the total cost of the project to about
$290 million.
Today, UConn’s board of trustees is expected to approve an
additional $21.5 million to begin the third and final phase of the
renovation.
The money will allow the design of the third phase to be
completed and for demolition and environmental remediation to begin, members of
the board of trustees’ finance committee said during a meeting Tuesday.
In addition, the $21.5 million allocation will be used to
purchase long-lead items for the last phase of construction.
The project will go out to bid this summer. After that, the
board will request the remaining $100 million, committee members said.
The landmark academic building on UConn’s Storrs campus
features three wings for the math, physics and materials sciences departments,
including dozens of classrooms and labs. It’s also home to the Up & Atom
Cafe.
The U-shaped building currently spans 285,000 square feet.
The renovation will add 25,000 square feet of new space.
As part of the project, the building facade and roof are
being reconstructed to provide better energy performance. Also, the exterior
and plaza areas are being improved to make them “more inviting and accessible.”
The first two phases, which included work on the south and
west wings, and the addition of an amenity space, have been completed and are
being used by UConn students and staff.
Phase one was completed in 2019, and phase two was completed
in 2021.
Phase three, which includes the north wing renovation and
expansion, is expected to be finished in fall 2027.
The goal of the renovation is to “expand educational
opportunities, research and innovation in the science, technology, engineering,
and math disciplines at UConn,” the university said.
The Gant complex, constructed between 1974 and 1978, was
named for Edward V. Gant, a longtime civil engineering professor at UConn. Gant
served as acting president in 1969, 1972-73 and 1978-79. He died in 1985.
