Southington's old library building is demolished now that the new one is open
SOUTHINGTON — Crews have been hard at work demolishing the old Southington Public Library at 255 Main St. now that the new, 30,000-sqaure-foot library opened next door in December.
The older building had
served as the library's location for about 50 years, but officials
said it had become too small and outdated. It was dedicated on June 21, 1975,
according to the library.
Efforts to build a new, state-of-the-art building have been in the works for several years, including residents' approval of $16.9 million for the project in 2021. A $5 million state grant was awarded in 2023 to increase the square footage and improve the architectural features of the building. The total cost of the project was $21.9 million.
The new library has two floors. The first floor includes a
program room, circulation workroom, lobby, friends' workroom, book sales, and
more. The second floor includes an information office, teen room, study areas,
books, and seating.
The Southington Public Library recently shared a
video to its Facebook page that showed Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. in
the end stages of demolishing the old building.
Plan to turn former West Hartford UConn campus into housing, retail come before Town Council Tuesday
WEST HARTFORD — The proposed redevelopment
of the former University of Connecticut campus into housing and commercial
space will be the subject of a Town Council public hearing on Tuesday.
WeHa Development Group LLC is seeking a zoning change for
1800 Asylum Ave. that would allow them to convert the long-vacant property into
Heritage Park, a development consisting of six duplex townhomes, 93 rental one-
and two-bedroom units, 19 townhomes that will be for sale and a 90-unit
assisted living facility combined with a grocery store, a spa facility and more
than 42,000 square feet of other retail uses, including a restaurant.
The proposal is among
nearly a dozen active and in progress housing developments in town.
Mayor Shari Cantor said Monday that the public hearing is
scheduled to proceed.
It has been a
long road to redevelopment for the former UConn campus, which has been
vacant since the university moved the school to downtown Hartford around eight
years ago. The site, which has precarious wetlands and contaminant conditions,
has had multiple owners in that time, with some plans failing and fizzling out.
The Town Council even voted to buy the property in 2016 before backing out on
the deal after discovering PCB contaminants.
But now, it seems that the
site is poised to be the latest housing development approved in West Hartford.
And combined
with the 322 multifamily housing units the same developer already gained
approval for across the street at 1700 Asylum Ave. in the former
campus parking lot, the project's full scope would be the largest
development in town since Blue Back Square, bringing 440 new homes to the
area, along with 90 assisted living units, combined with retail.
Residences at Heritage Park at 1700 Asylum Ave. has
since been sold off by WeHa Development Group LLC to Garden Homes, who will
oversee the construction and management of the site.
The plans for the former campus, which still retains rundown
university buildings that first welcomed students in 1970, has already received
approvals and recommendations from both the town Plan and Zoning Commission and
the Design Review Advisory Committee.
Currently, the plans call for 5% of the 93 rental units to
be set aside as affordable housing, which is around five units. Staff comments
included in the public hearing's documents suggested developers increase that
number to 8%. West
Hartford town leaders and elected officials have been seeking more affordable
units in housing developments and could make the request at Tuesday
night's Town Council meeting.
The Plan and Zoning Commission, in its approval, also asked
the developers to "fully address the traffic and associated bicycle and
pedestrian related comments."
Residents will have their chance to address the Town Council
about the proposed development at the public hearing, which begins at 5:30
p.m. on Feb. 11. The Town Council could make their decision on whether or
not to approve the development at its regular meeting that will follow the
public hearing.
Struck gas line in Waterbury spurs evacuations, Baldwin Street closure, police say
Jessica
Bravo, Bruno Matarazzo
WATERBURY — The loud hissing sound of natural gas venting
out of a high-pressure gas main on Baldwin Street filled the neighborhood on
Tuesday afternoon after the line had been struck by a work crew.
A handful of homes near the breach on Baldwin Street near
Warren and Laval streets were evacuated and buses were brought in to provide
warmth from the near-freezing temperatures outside.
Waterbury Fire Deputy Chief Stephen Ayotte said two crews from Eversource responded to the scene to dig two holes on both sides of the breach to "squeeze the line down" and cut the flow of gas.
Ayotte said a crew from Feeney Brothers Utility Services was
working on Baldwin Street to replace the gas main where it had been
struck.
The road was closed between Warren and Laval streets, according to Waterbury police Lt. Ryan Bessette.
New tariffs on steel, aluminum draw mixed reactions from Connecticut businesses and industry experts
Having
threatened, implemented and then
pulled back on tariffs involving imports from Canada and Mexico earlier
this month, President Donald J. Trump has now
implemented 25 % tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.
Monday's tariff hikes impact Canada and Mexico the most
because those countries, along with Brazil, are the top three foreign trade
partners in terms of steel imports.
As of Tuesday evening, it was still unclear how much
steel Connecticut businesses purchased from international sources in 2024. But
according to American Iron and Steel Institute, Canada was the top importer of
steel into the United States in 2024 with 6.56 million tons, followed by Brazil
with 4.5 million tons and Mexico with 3.52 million tons.
With that in mind, here are some things to know:
What is a tariff?
A tariff is a tax on imported goods and services, according
to Michael Stanaitis, a senior lecturer on global inquiry at American
University in Washington, D.C. It is a type of trade regulation designed to
protect domestic industries and increase revenue for the government.
Who pays for tariffs?
Technically speaking, importers pay for the tariffs,
Stanaitis said. But he said most economists agree that much of the cost of
tariffs is paid by consumers in the form of a higher price for the goods they
purchase.
What will the impact of the latest tariffs be on
Connecticut?
The response depends upon who you are asking.
Brian Raff, vice president of the Chicago-based trade group
American Institute of Steel Construction, said the tariffs are beneficial to
the domestic industry as a whole, whether it involves producers, fabricators or
even end users. The trade group represents about 1,000 steel fabricators across
the country, including about 17 in Connecticut.
"The steel industry is painted with a very broad
brush," Raff said. "You've got a very robust supply chain that is
willing and able to take care of any additional demands that these tariffs may
produce domestically. The United States makes 100 million tons of steel per
year, 10 million of which can be used for construction; there's plenty of
capacity here."
What the Trump tariffs that were put in place Monday do that
wasn't done in the president's first term, according to Raff, is close a
loophole that allowed foreign steel manufacturers to skirt paying the levy on
their imports. That loophole, he said, allowed steel that was produced in
foreign mills and modified by foreign fabricators to flood the U.S. market at a
price that domestic companies couldn't compete with.
"Foreign steel producers discovered that if they sent
their steel to foreign fabricators, who then sent the fabricated steel to
America, they could avoid the tariffs," he said. Fabricated steel, Raff
said, is any process that takes raw steel and changes it to the specifications
that are need for its inclusion in whatever finished product it is becoming
part of.
To illustrate his point, Raff said that in 2024, imports of
fabricated steel from Canada represented 25% of all imports in that category —
an increase of 8% over 2023.
"That's the equivalent of 50 Brooklyn Bridges worth of
steel," he said.
Raff said he doesn't expect the latest Trump tariffs to slow
down any supply chains of projects that use steel.
"Big projects that use steel take a long time to
develop," he said "It's not as if the switch flips and the
tariffs screw up everything. Projects that are being considered now won't be
started for a year to 18 months. And you've got a very robust supply chain in
this country, companies that are willing and able to take on increased
demands."
One of the nation's three largest structural
steel product makers has a mill here in Connecticut, according to Raff.
North Carolina-based Nucor Corp. has a plant on Toelles Road in
Wallingford. Company officials announced last month that the Wallingford plant
would stop making wire rods because of what Nucor executives termed challenging
market conditions.
The Wallingford plant
still produces wire mesh, rebar and bright basic wire, a general purpose
product for a broad variety of industrial and commercial uses.
Howard Lohmann Jr., who runs Meriden-based Logan
Steel with his brother Erik, said "the impact is that there is going to be
a short-term demand increase" as well as an increase in prices. But Howard
Lohmann, who everyone calls "Junior," said the tariffs will
ultimately encourage more domestic production of steel.
"There's going to be a little hiccup," Lohmann
said. "But it's going to keep more material locally produced."
For big projects like hotels or office buildings, he said
the tariffs are likely to increase the total cost of the work by a percentage
point or two.
Lohmann said the tariffs will be the most painful to the end
user, whether that is a airline buying a plane or jet engine, a hospital or
healthcare practice buying a new piece of diagnostic equipment, or someone
purchasing a new car.
Steel fabrication is listed as one of the things that Logan
Steel does for customers. But Lohmann said he prefers to view the company's
primary business as "something that adds value customers."
"Fabrication is anything I can do to a piece of
steel," he said. "But we also do work for fabricators, so I like to
consider us a value added shop."
Following Trump's return to the White House, Lohmann
said Logan Steel started buying as much steel as it could in an effort to lock
in prices.
"We felt it was coming and so we locked in prices for
90 days," he said. "We consume about four tractor-trailer loads a
week and we have about 20 truckloads worth of inventory left."
Each tractor-trailer load holds about 25 tons of steel,
according to Lohmann.
"We have seen an increase of $100 per ton in the last
week or so," he said. "So that translates into $2,500 more per
truckload."
The price spike, according to Lohmann, is because
"there is an increase in demand because of shortage of imported material
on the market."
Lohmann said his primary focus is serving the needs of his
regular customers.
"If I get a call from someone who I haven't done
business (with) before, I have to evaluate what he's looking for," he
said. "If that type of customer is looking for a large amount of steel, I
will probably tell them I can provide a smaller portion or let them know I
can't help them. I always want to cultivate new business, but not at the
expense of my regular customers."
Less optimistic views of the new tariffs
Chris DiPentima is president and chief executive
officer of CBIA, the state's largest business organization, with thousands of
member companies of all sizes. Price increases will be hard to avoid, he said
of the tariffs, depending upon the individual circumstances of each company.
"Talking to the raw material suppliers today, they're
going to pass it (the increased costs) all along the supply chain,"
DiPentima said. "The supply chain is the bread and butter of the state's
aerospace, medical device and manufacturing companies across the board. The
challenge for each individual company is will they able to pass along the
increase in their costs in the form of higher price or are they bound by
contract to a lower price."
If they are forced to keep their prices down by contract or
for other reason, they will have to find other ways to offset their increased
production costs, he said.
"They may have reduce the number of workers or postpone
technology upgrades, which hurts innovation," DiPentima said.
"Business like predictability and security."
Small and mid-sized companies will be hurt the most by the
tariffs on steel and aluminum, he said, because of the comparatively short-time
in which the Trump administration has enacted the levies.
"When there's a longer runway the companies have more
lead time to react and stockpile" raw materials, DiPentima said.
"Smaller and mid-sized companies don't have the financial resources to
cover the increased costs from the period of time that it takes to purchase the
materials you need, produce the product, sell it and then wait to get paid.
You're still sitting on that cash increase for an extended period of
time."
Even one of Connecticut's marquee companies, Groton-based
Electric Boat, is showing signs of feeling the economic pinch, he said.
"The president of Electric Boat mentioned recently
that there's cost pressures on them because tariffs," DiPentima said.
"They are building subs that came from contracts that were signed in 2019.
That has resulted in Electric Boat scaling back its hiring efforts from 5,000
workers a year to 3,000 a year, he said.
"It doesn't make sense for them to keep hiring if they
don’t have the parts to do the work," DiPentima said.
Mohammad Elahee, a professor of international business at
Quinnipiac University, said that the tariffs would result "in a lot of
losers at companies and among consumers alike.
"U.S. steel producers may get some temporary relief,
but companies in the aircraft and manufacturing sectors will be hurt,"
Elahee said, "So will producers who need steel or aluminum to put their
products in. And ultimately, consumers will pay higher prices for a variety of
products they buy."
Elahee said that while the U.S. government needs "to do
something to protect our steel industry," tariffs aren't the answer.
STAMFORD — An extended-stay hotel next to Curley's Diner on Main Street has been given the green light, but with conditions and final approval pending once the conditions are met.
The Zoning Board's conditional approval includes a demand
that the developers would have to add some kind of physical barrier to
a passageway along the side of the property that would be shared by
motorists and pedestrians and could be dangerous for the walkers.
A large-scale developer based in Greenwich, Wellbuilt
Company, is proposing the project. The hotel would house 99 units in a
10-story structure at 0 West Park Place on a city-owned parking lot
next to Curley's Diner.
The conditions attached to the approvals stated that the
developers would add "physical barrier between vehicles and pedestrians to
ensure safe pedestrian access" before a building permit was issued, with a
recommendation for how to make the fix.
"It needs to come back to the board for our approval,
and we recommend bollards be utilized," said Board Chairman David
Stein. Bollards are sturdy, short vertical posts.
While some area residents and nearby merchants expressed
concerns about the project, the proposal also had strong support from the
business community.
Heather Cavanaugh, president of the Stamford Chamber of
Commerce, said the hotel would be a good addition to community and provide new
options for business travelers in the region, as well as other visitors drawn
to the city.
Downtown Stamford already has a number of hotels operating
in the district with another one is being
proposed at the office building at 300 Main St., the former Stamford Trust
Company.