CT DOT BIDS 3/12/2025
South Windsor approves solar facility, senior housing on farmland lots with developer connection
SOUTH WINDSOR — Officials have a pair of separate farmland
developments with a common history of proposed solar development.
The Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved
Tuesday night a
50-unit senior housing development on 16.5 acres of land at 186
Foster St. In a more contentious decision later that night, the commission
voted 5-2 to allow for construction of a
roughly 1.31-megawatt solar photovoltaic system at 379 Scantic Road,
on 6.35 acres of farmland owned by Draghi Farms along the East Windsor border.
In March 2024, C-TEC Solar petitioned
the Connecticut Siting Council to allow for construction of a
1.66-megawatt solar facility on the Foster Street lot, notifying officials
in South
Windsor and neighboring Manchester and drawing
concerns from both. In July 2024, South Windsor's legal counsel declined to
consent to an extension requested by C-TEC, which would have extended the
deadline for the Siting Council to decide by six months.
Roughly one month later, C-TEC filed a notice to the
Siting Council indicating it would withdraw
its petition due to an inability to "meet the timeline necessary
to proceed in this matter," though the withdrawal left open the potential
for the company to file an amended petition.
C-TEC Solar filed
with the PZC a special exception application for the Draghi Farms
project in November and a housing developer filed a plan for the Forest Street
senior housing in January.
PZC alternate Despina Buganski, who voted against the
solar application, said Tuesday that although she understands the property
owner's desire to find an additional revenue stream to keep Draghi Farms alive,
the plan is difficult to agree with.
"I do have to feel for the residents and the people
that live around it," Buganski said.
Residents, some who spoke at the meeting Tuesday night, had
voiced concerns with the proposal throughout the public hearing process
since it began in late January.
Alongside potential noise complaints that prompted C-TEC to
modify its plan, neighbors of the project site have said their residential
property values could or would go down, the natural environment would be
disrupted and the character of the neighborhood would be changed, among other
arguments.
A
recent fire at a solar facility in East Windsor also prompted
additional questions and worries about the safety of the potential Draghi Farms
solar facility as well as a modification to the plan, requiring additional
access to the site for emergency vehicles.
Some of the PZC members who approved the application said
Tuesday night that they felt the applicant had adequately addressed the
tangible concerns and that some others were impossible to pin down.
In response to property value concerns, Chairman Stephen
Wagner said although residents have cited studies showing a reduction in
property values when solar facilities are built, other studies have concluded
differently, particularly for facilities under 5 megawatts.
Paul Bernstein said he felt the applicant did a "very
good job" of addressing concerns from neighbors, though understands
neighbors might not be completely satisfied with the development.
"Zoning is about developing areas," Bernstein
said, "and unless there's a compelling reason not to approve an
application, I think it's incumbent on us to look upon it favorably."
Kevin Foley, who voted in favor, said he would rather see
the project site retained as farmland, though hopes it can be handed down to
someone who will farm it following its planned decommissioning 20 years after
completion.
Discussion of the Foster Street senior housing development
was much more limited Tuesday night, with PZC members briefly commenting on the
application's sufficiency, approval conditions and whether the project matched
the character of the neighborhood.
When James Nardozzi toured the six-story former
Odd Fellows office building in downtown Waterbury five years ago, the
long-vacant structure was in severe distress.
“The last time I was in there it was 2019 and it was raining
inside, and there were mushrooms growing on the walls and the ceilings,” said
Nardozzi, who is executive director of the Waterbury Development Corp.,
the city’s quasi-public development agency.
In another tour this February, Nardozzi saw a clean, freshly
renovated building, with small-group instructional and research spaces, student
lounges and mock hospital settings for nursing, allied health and other
programs offered by the neighboring UConn Waterbury campus.
The city claimed the neglected building, at 36 North Main
St., from a New York investor in 2013 for unpaid taxes. With lobbying
from former Mayor Neil O’Leary’s administration, Gov. Dannel Malloy
dedicated $10 million in state bond funding to help defray redevelopment costs.
And, in 2023, the city sold the decaying property to Green Hub Development for
$900,000.
Using the state’s money, and about $5 million of its own,
Green Hub performed an extensive overhaul of the building. Work wrapped up in
December, well ahead of schedule, and UConn began relocating programs there in
January.
“The only word I can think of is transformative,” Nardozzi
said after his recent tour. “It’s amazing what they have done. The quality of
work was very impressive.”
While impressed, Nardozzi was not surprised. This is the
third large downtown Waterbury building Green Hub has redeveloped since 2016.
Green Hub Development is a partnership between experienced
builder Joseph Gramando and his longtime friend Louis Forster,
both residents of New York. The firm is playing a major role in Waterbury’s
downtown revitalization efforts.
It began with Green Hub’s transformation of the top two
floors of the nearly 70,000-square-foot “Brown Building” on East Main Street,
by the UConn campus. The first floor is set up for retail. Green Hub in 2016
bought the top two floors, and an entryway on the first, and converted the
space into dorms for 92 students as part of a $5 million project.
Green Hub next rehabbed the 114,000-square-foot former
Howland Hughes Department Store on Bank Street into office space intended for
hundreds of Post University staff, a project that wrapped in late 2018.
There are other developments in the works.
“They’ve all been transformed into quality work, with a lot
of attention to detail and maintaining of historical details where possible,”
Nardozzi said. “That’s a pretty good track record.”
Forster is a general partner with San Francisco-based Green
Visor Capital, an investment firm focused on early-stage technology. He also
chairs the board of trustees at Johns Hopkins University.
Gramando started his professional career in the mid-1980s as
a union carpenter. He later led redevelopment projects for the New York City
Housing Authority, before taking a job as director of facilities for healthcare
provider Kaiser Permanente. Later, he worked for New York State overseeing
various public school construction projects.
In the early 2000s, Gramando and Forster began investing in
smaller-scale construction projects, starting with a focus on high-end homes in
Westchester County.
An architect friend working on a Waterbury project convinced
Gramando to visit the post-industrial central Connecticut city in 2015 for
lunch. During that visit, Gramando was introduced to Waterbury Economic
Development Director Joseph McGrath.
Gramando later returned for a tour led by McGrath, and then
a third time — with Forster — for a lunch meeting with O’Leary.
“We were so impressed with Neil and his passion for the
city,” Gramando said. “You knew they were open for business; they were
welcoming development.”
Gramando — who has led the Green Hub projects — said
Waterbury continues to live up to this initial impression. O’Leary and his
successor, current Mayor Paul Pernerewski, have had open doors.
Permitting, inspection and development staff have never left him waiting. The
cooperation of UConn leaders was key to creating the dorm and rehabbing the Odd
Fellows building.
Pernerewski praised Green Hub as a “great partner,” and said
the city is working with Gramando on additional potential apartment projects.
Taking root
Gramando has built out a headquarters office on the sixth
floor of the Odd Fellows building.
Green Hub’s three major projects — the dorm and two office
buildings — all received 10-year tax deals from the city. O’Leary managed to
secure $7.7 million in state grant funds to defray costs of renovating and
retrofitting the Howland Hughes building, and then $10 million more for the Odd
Fellows rehab.
In return, the city has seen iconic buildings rescued from
decay, and occupied by users that will draw workers and visitors downtown.
The roughly 26,300 square feet being leased by UConn in Odd
Fellows will give the university room to grow its in-demand health programs,
while also reinforcing and growing its community partnerships. Waterbury high
school robotics club students are using the former Odd Fellows banquet hall as
practice space, for example.
“UConn Waterbury’s expansion into this historic space is an
investment in our students, faculty and the greater community,” said Fumiko
Hoeft, UConn Waterbury’s campus dean and chief administrative officer.
Access Rehab Centers — a partnership between Waterbury
Hospital and Easterseals — is renting 4,000 square feet of ground-floor space
in the Odd Fellows building, where it offers occupational, physical and speech
therapy to an underserved population, especially those without ready access to
transportation, said Brian Emerick, president of Access Rehab.
Not all Green Hub projects have come off without a hitch,
however.
In December 2018, Post University celebrated its move to the
rehabbed Howland Hughes building and pledged to bring 400 office workers
downtown. Local retailers and restaurants looked forward to a much-needed
boost. But Post sent its workers home with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,
and the university has not mandated a return.
Today, about 50 Post workers use the downtown office on any
given day, according to the university.
Post said it anticipates increasing that number to support
growing enrollment at its Waterbury campus, but did not provide specifics.
Gramando says the university still pays its rent, but he
would like to see more use of the building.
“We want the people because we want the city to do better,”
he said. “We are working hard to work with them and see what they want to do.”
More to come
Meantime, city officials recently selected Gramando as the
preferred developer to convert the former St. Mary’s Grammar School campus on
the edge of downtown into apartments for healthcare workers.
Forster isn’t involved in the project.
St. Mary’s closed in 2018. The city purchased the 2.2-acre
property on Cole and East Main streets, near St. Mary’s Hospital, for $1
million in 2023. The property hosts four brick classroom buildings ranging in
size from 7,875 square feet to 15,525 square feet, and dating back between 1936
and 1945. The city issued a request for proposals seeking a development partner
last September.
Gramando offered the city $1.6 million for the property and
believes he can fit 44 apartments inside the existing buildings in a
redevelopment effort he hopes to launch this summer.
In a second phase, he would add a new 48-unit building. He
hopes to tap more state funding for the project, and include space for a day
care and recreation center.
“I’m trying to build a little community there,” Gramando
said. “Even though this is affordable housing for healthcare workers, I’m going
to build them the highest-end I can. I want them to be a showcase.”
Gramando said he also has his eye on another downtown
Waterbury building for conversion into 10 apartment units. He is considering
state grant programs to make the numbers work.
Gramando said government support has been necessary for his
Waterbury projects because rents for housing and office space in the city are
not yet equal to renovation costs. At the same time, Waterbury leaders, like
officials in many cities, see housing as crucial to their downtown revival
efforts.
O’Leary said the success of Green Hub’s efforts,
particularly with the Odd Fellows building, demonstrate the value of
perseverance, since each project took years to come together.
“They (Green Hub) have become really attached to Waterbury
and invested millions of their own dollars in these projects,” O’Leary said.
Large construction firms expand backlogs as smaller firms struggle
Construction
backlog declined to 8.3 months in February, down about 1% from
January, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors survey conducted
from Feb. 20 to March 5.
Work in builders’ pipelines fell for contractors with less
than $100 million in annual revenue, while firms with over $100 million in
sales booked more work, softening the drop.
Overall contractor confidence held firm in February even as
profit margin expectations declined and sales expectations stayed level,
according to ABC.
Dive Insight:
The decline in February’s backlog highlights a growing
divide between large and small contractors, according to the report.
Larger firms, or those with over $100 million in revenue,
are expanding their project pipelines. Public construction firm executives
recently brushed off tariff
and policy concerns, citing strong demand for massive infrastructure, data
centers and energy projects.
Smaller firms, on the other hand, face headwinds as backlog
declines. Nevertheless, the industry still expects a bounceback in business
conditions this year.
“While many other economic sentiment readings have
deteriorated in recent months, contractors remain optimistic that business
conditions will improve through the first half of 2025,” said Anirban Basu, ABC
chief economist, in the release.Despite the decline in backlog, hiring expectations jumped
over the course of the month, according to ABC. Its survey showed nearly 60% of
contractors plan to increase staffing levels over the next six months.
That’s the highest metric for contractors planning to add to
their payrolls in over two years, said Basu.
“These hiring expectations suggest that the recent slowdown
in industrywide employment is largely confined to the residential segment,”
said Basu in the release. “Yes, there are some broader signs of emerging
economic weakness, but the results of this ABC member survey suggests that
contractors will remain busy over the next few quarters.”