PLA mandate to stay, with exemptions: OMB
The Trump administration has indicated it will not rescind a
Biden-era rule mandating the use
of project labor agreements on large publicly funded jobs.
After months
of court cases and federal agencies announcing deviations from Federal
Acquisition Regulation rules regarding PLA use, a Thursday Office of Management
and Budget memo to federal agencies and department heads sought to unmuddy the
waters.
“For clarity, the Trump Administration supports the use of
PLAs when those agreements are practicable and cost effective, and blanket
deviations prohibiting the use of PLAs are precluded,” read the memo signed by
Russell Vought, OMB director.
The memo acknowledged concerns from federal agencies that
award large-scale construction projects regarding the ability to create
competition for fair and reasonable pricing on contracts.
As such, the OMB memo said it has added an amended rule that
allows agencies to evaluate the anticipated impact of a PLA on its ability to
conduct a competitive search for a contractor. The exception indicates “two
qualified offers should generally be sufficient to provide adequate price
competition for negotiated contracts (FAR 15.403-l(c)(l)) and three or more
qualified bids is sufficient to provide adequate price competition for sealed
bids.”
In other words, two offers may be enough for the exception
not to apply. If two or more offerers express interest in a contract but prices
are expected to be higher than the federal government’s budget by over 10% due
to the PLA mandate, the agency can also seek exemption.
“Agencies should use PLAs when practicable and
cost-effective,” the memo reads. “Agencies should rescind any deviations
related to PLAs that were issued prior to the date of this guidance.
Independent agency interpretation for PLA use should no longer occur.”
The memo indicates a continuation of policy from previous
administrations, which opponents have decried as anti-competitive.
“It is hard to see how this is not a return to the
conditions that were in place prior to President Biden’s unlawful executive
order,” Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and strategic
initiatives at Associated General Contractors of America, told Construction
Dive.
Confusion and clarity
The memo provides some clarity after confusion over whether the rule would remain and if all agencies had to follow it.
In January, a judge
ruled against PLA use on seven federal contracts, saying it would be
anti-competitive and relied on “arbitrary and capricious” policy. That
decision, however, applied only to those contracts, laying the groundwork for
other challenges.
Then, in March, President Donald Trump issued
an executive order directing rulemaking that rescinded Biden-era
guidance promoting the use of project labor agreements, but did not remove
former President
Joe Biden’s executive order, implemented in January 2024.
In May, after the Department of Defense had signaled it
would no longer follow the PLA mandate, a federal judge issued a preliminary
injunction, forcing the agency to resume the mandate.
Looking ahead
Associated Builders and Contractors has long fought the
Biden PLA rule and called
on the president to rescind the order in the name of fairness and
competition.
“[Thursday’s] decision cannot be reconciled with the
president’s philosophies of merit, fairness and nondiscrimination because it
inhibits fair and open competition and prioritizes special interests over
taxpayers and workers,” said Michael Bellaman, president and CEO of ABC.
Bellaman noted that the government can still use PLAs
without the executive order and said the use of PLAs effectively excludes
non-union builders and workers.
Turmail said the change isn’t what AGC had hoped for — which
was for Trump to remove the executive order — but it would still be better than
“what was in place with the Biden administration.”
There is still a path to challenge PLA use and potentially
receive exceptions, he said.
“In addition, given the recent court decisions, it is hard
to see how the administration will be able to impose a mandated PLA without
facing a successful bid protest,” Turmail said.
After four years of negotiation, developers planning to
build an amenity-rich, 402-unit apartment complex off Silver Lane in East
Hartford have taken possession of a roughly 25-acre property from the town.
East Hartford purchased the former Showcase Cinemas site in
2016, and then spent millions tearing down the cineplex to make a development
site. In 2021, developers Avner Krohn and Brian Zelman filed a joint response
to the town’s request for development proposals.
On Friday, the developers completed their purchase of the
property from the town for $1 — a strong signal the development, dubbed as
Concourse Park, will finally move forward.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Krohn. “This has
been a real journey. I’m just super excited for what we are going to build for
the town of East Hartford. This is the first market-rate development built in
the town in like 40 years.”
Krohn and Zelman say they have spent millions of dollars on
planning, design, legal fees and other soft costs so far.
The town incentivized the project with a tax abatement and a
sales price of $1. Officials also worked with the Capital Region Development
Authority to secure $10 million in public financing for power, water and
roadway infrastructure into the site.
The CRDA will oversee the infrastructure work.
Friday’s closing on the property further cemented the
commitment of local officials and the developers to the project.
Krohn and Zelman were able to close on the property by
demonstrating they have access to $70 million in financing needed to complete
300 apartment units, the minimum amount required under their development
agreement with the town. They said they plan to build more than the minimum
requirement.
East Hartford Mayor Connor Martin said the town provided
incentives to ensure the development was economically viable. Over the long
run, any concessions will be outweighed by the benefit of new taxes and
elevated economic vitality, he noted.
“We have to show that East Hartford is open for business,”
Martin said. “And we have to exhaust all efforts to try and bring development
to East Hartford.”
Zelman estimated total project costs at $120 million.
Krohn said he expects CRDA’s infrastructure work to begin
within four months. The first eight, three-story buildings will host a combined
309 units. Krohn said he expects the first units to begin opening for tenants
in about two years.
A four-story, 93-unit building will launch sometime after
the first phase is underway, he said.
The development will also include a clubhouse, mail and
package building, dog washing station, pool, party room for rent and coworking
space. One apartment will be set aside as a hospitality suite that can be
rented for short stays by guests of a tenant, Krohn said.
Krohn and Zelman both praised the level of cooperation
demonstrated by town and CRDA officials.
“It’s been a very long time in the making,” Zelman said. “We
are very excited for this step and the next steps.”
$90M AI center in CT could project new hub of technology, bring jobs and economic development
The design of an estimated $90 million applied
artificial intelligence center is everything the rundown building that
it would replace is not: a structure that conveys an image of a city and state
as a hub of emerging technology.
An LED billboard atop the structure would cycle through
graphic depictions of the work taking place inside the Connecticut Center of
Applied AI sending that visual message to the hundreds of thousands of
motorists that travel though the city weekly on Interstate 84 and Interstate
91.
The applied AI center could rise in the North Crossing redevelopment
where a long-abandoned, bank data processing center — just east of Dunkin’ Park —
now dominates the landscape and projects a much different image today: decay.
The bunker-like,
contaminated structure — with enough space to fill a Super Walmart
— is
expected to be torn down, beginning this summer, to lay the groundwork for
the proposed AI center.
“The symbolism of an old vacant data center that had been a
source of blight for a number of years, highly visible off the highway and also
visible to those folks coming into town for Yard Goats games — and everything
else — turning into a center for applied AI, it’s really a symbol of the
resurgence of Hartford,” Arunan
Arulampalam, the city’s mayor, said. “Our goal is to create one of five
best AI centers in the country. ”
The development of the nearly 3-acre site at 150 Windsor St.
would be paired with the separately-financed construction of a $30 million,
120-room, boutique hotel and a 200-space parking garage. In addition to the
hotel, with a possible rooftop lounge overlooking the ballpark, and the AI
center, the garage could provide parking for Dunkin’ Park.
The video player is currently playing an ad
But the construction of the AI center isn’t yet a lock.
The city is seeking about $52 million to
finance the project from the state’s $100 million “Innovation
Clusters” program, which seeks to promote the expansion of
next-generation technology such as AI and quantum computing that are expected
to drive future economic development and job growth.
Hartford also is competing with New Haven and Stamford
as finalists
for funding from the state’s program. A decision on how the funding
will be carved up is now expected in late summer.
If it were successful, the city said it is confident it
would have lined up the balance for the AI Center not covered by the Innovation
Clusters grant. The city declined to identify those sources of funding.
Jeff Auker, Hartford’s director of development services and
a former executive at information technology giant Infosys in
Hartford, said the AI center would be separate from what the corporations
are spending on AI — estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
But collaborations with them — especially in insurance and health care — are
absolutely foreseen, Auker said.
The city also isn’t focusing on the incubator space for
start-ups that could too easily relocate, Auker said.
Auker said Hartford’s sweet spot is the area between the
large companies and the start-ups. This is where new ideas — some developed at
colleges and universities — are tested and worked on in a lab using digital
tools that are commercially available.
But a key part of the vision also targets training to
prepare a workforce for using AI, which many believe will be the most
consequential technology in the future, its impact even deeper than the
development of the internet.
“In the urban centers, we certainly have not provided
on-ramps, points of access for our residents and some of our small businesses
who don’t have the capital to invest in some of these technologies,” Auker
said. “So, the essence of this is really to create a center and then make the
declaration that Hartford is here to unlock the value of AI.”
That means also collaborating with institutions of higher
learning and nonprofits focused on technology “to really funnel that into ways
that our residents and our small businesses can get access to those skills and
capabilities that AI is transforming all around us,” Auker said.
Alignment of missions
Worries over how AI will impact the existing workforce,
especially in lower-paying jobs vulnerable to automation, have been highlighted
in several high-profile studies. One, from consulting firm McKinsey & Co., pointed to a deepening
of the racial economic divide because a disproportionate number of low-wage
jobs are held by people of color.
But the 2023 study also noted that AI could “unlock” the
path to more high-paying jobs based on experience rather than solely the
college degree.
The city has had early discussions with MakerspaceCT, a skills development center
now located at 960 Main St. in Hartford, about becoming a tenant in the AI
Center. A previous plan to partner with East Hartford-based Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology on
the AI center project did not work out because of the timeframes involved in
the project, Auker said.
Devra Sisitsky, MakerspaceCT’s founder and executive
director, said the non-profit already had been planning an AI and robotics
center. And the proposed AI center’s purpose to fill in gaps in skills fit well
with Makerspace, Sisitsky said.
“I’m absolutely delighted to be at the table,” Sisitsky
said. “There is such an obvious alignment between our missions to support
Connecticut, to be an open welcoming place for people to come in. We’re a
destination also.”
The city won’t own the AI Center building or operate it. A
non-profit, which still needs to be created, would likely take ownership and in
turn, space would be leased to a tenant such as MakerspaceCT. The center would
be run by the Cambridge Innovation Center,
an “ecosystem catalyst” that applied to the state to be part of the
Innovation Clusters program.
CIC has designed, built and managed over 1.5 million square
feet of innovation space in nine cities: Cambridge, Boston, Providence,
Philadelphia, St. Louis, Tokyo, Berlin, Warsaw and Rotterdam. Pending projects
are upcoming in Seoul and Fukuoka, Japan.
The new, 133,500-square-foot Al center wouldn’t begin
construction for at least a year and would take another two years to build. But
Auker said the city hopes later this year to identify temporary space in
downtown Hartford where the AI center could start to be formed, with sources of
funding still being determined. One location under consideration is space
within the Trinity College’s Liberal Arts Action Lab on Constitution Plaza,
Auker said.
‘A nucleus for a lot more’
Up until now, Hartford’s North Crossing’s development around
Dunkin’ Park has focused squarely on apartments and storefront space.
The AI Center and the accompanying hotel are departures, but
North Crossing’s developer, RMS Cos. of
Stamford, welcomes the diversification.
“To be on the cutting edge of some of these technologies
right now and to have a center to allow that to happen in the center of
Hartford and to be able to interact with all the corporations and insurance
companies, with Al, with how fast it’s going is such a great thing,” Randy
Salvatore, the founder and chief executive of RMS, said,
The parcel of land planned for the AI Center, hotel and
garage are part of North Crossing and all three structures are expected to be
developed by RMS.
In Hartford, Salvatore renovated and reopened the historic,
Goodwin Hotel. Local development officials say there is now a need for more
hotel rooms in Hartford.
The AI center could spawn other commercial uses on land
nearby including the former, 12-acre campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute. Salvatore bought the former campus — now demolished — in
2023 and has said it could be redeveloped as a mix of housing and business
uses.
“What it will lead to is offshoots,” Salvatore said, of the
AI center. “It will be an incubator for so many things. And then it starts to
spread beyond just this one building. That’s the goal: that this thing becomes
a nucleus for a lot more.”
The city is cobbling together funding for the $9.4 million
demolition of the old data center. Last week, it received a $4 million state
grant from a program aimed at cleaning up contaminated properties. Another $4
million is expected soon — half in another brownfields cleanup grant from the
state — to give the city enough funding to pay for the demolition.
Tearing down the building could be completed in a year, with
a groundbreaking of the AI center coming soon after that. But Salvatore said he
hopes to start construction on the hotel and parking garage even sooner.
Arulampalam, the Hartford mayor, said he believes the
approach of the center rather than promoting AI-related start-ups is the best
path for Hartford to follow.
“This is a really transformative project that could guide
the way for job growth for the future,” Arulampalam said. “It really builds out
a pipeline for what the economy of the future could look like in Hartford.”
Westport RTM OKs $103M for construction of new Long Lots Elementary School
WESTPORT — The Representative
Town Meeting approved construction of a new
Long Lots School with a $103 million price tag, the largest such
expenditure in the history of the town of Westport.
The RTM’s vote was unanimous for the new school, which at
long last will replace one that is well loved by families and staff but has
deteriorated to the point where some classrooms are off limits due to mold
issues.
This process has been in the works for several years, and $6
million has already been allocated to the project, bringing the overall total
budgeted to some $109 million.
“I’m gushing with excitement,” Superintendent
Thomas Scarice told RTM members during the meeting Thursday, June 12.
“A school is not about bricks and mortar; it’s the people in the building. We
now can make the brick and mortar match the incredible people and programs in
the school.”
The current building has some classrooms that are one-third
the size of comparable classrooms in other elementary schools in the district,
Scarice said. With several classrooms closed due to mold issues, the district
has used
portable classrooms to meet the space demands, which has come with an
annual rental cost.
Plans for a new 128,000 square foot Long Lots Elementary
School — which also houses Stepping Stones Preschool — will be built next to
the existing one on Hyde Lane. The new building is expected to be ready by the
fall of 2027.
“We are thrilled and grateful for the approval of the new
Long Lots and Stepping Stones Schools,” Board of Education Chair
Lee Goldstein said.
“This beautiful, safe, inclusive — dry — school will serve
our community for generations,” Goldstein added. “Thank you to the numerous
boards, commissions, committees and individuals who worked tirelessly to make
this happen.”
Once complete, plans call for razing the existing building
and completing the work on the athletic fields and parking areas.
“We have long known that the Long Lots facility has reached
the end of its useful life,” Scarice said in an email to staff and families
Friday, “and that the miraculous work in Stepping Stones Preschool has been
performed in subpar settings.
“This decision marks a transformative moment for our
students, our educators and the entire Westport community,” he added.
Scarice praised the Long Lots School custodial staff for
keeping the facility “spotless in spite of worsening conditions” as well as the
staff for delivering quality education “through disruption, facility failures
and emotional distress.”
He also praised parents, who he said, "Spoke up, showed
up and never gave up, even knowing your own children might not benefit
directly.
“You stood up not just for your own families, but for future
generations of Westport students. Your selfless advocacy is a powerful reminder
of what it means to believe in something bigger than ourselves,” Scarice added.
Waterbury scales back Roberto Clemente school expansion project to $37 million from $81 million
WATERBURY — School officials have scaled back a project to
expand the Roberto Clemente International Dual Language School to
accommodate plans to bring enrollment up to grade 8, lowering the proposed
cost from $81.4 million to $37 million.
The Board of Aldermen will conduct a hearing on a $37
million bond request June 23 at 5:45 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chambers of City
Hall and a vote is expected to follow that night.
The timetable is tight for obtaining state funding and
remaining on schedule for gradually adding grade levels in the magnet school
that offers a language immersion program, teaching students English and Spanish
simultaneously up to the eighth grade. There is little room for delays whatever
the cause.
"It is going to be tight," Mayor Paul K.
Pernerewski Jr. said.
The Board of Education is facing a June 30 application
deadline to apply for state funding for the expansion project. The Clemente
project must make the annual school construction priority list that will be
forwarded to the state legislature in late December for consideration in the
2026 legislative session.
The Roberto Clemente International Dual Language School
opened in the former Saints Peter and Paul parochial school on Beecher Avenue
in 2021 to an evenly divided mix of 112 native English- and Spanish-speaking
students in prekindergarten, kindergarten and first grade. The academic plan
called for adding a new grade level each year until the school reaches the
eighth grade in the 2028-29 school year.
The ability to maintain this schedule and fulfill the
commitment to Clemente families and students to provide a bilingual education
up to high school depends on the timely approval of a school construction grant
and completion of the expansion project.
Superintendent Darren Schwartz told the Board of Aldermen
last Monday the current 39,500-square-foot school building will be able to
accommodate the fifth and sixth grades over the next two school years, but
there will not be enough space available for a seventh-grade class in
2026-27.
"We'll fit the sixth grade into the current building.
It might require a year of 'art on the cart' and a few things like that.
Nothing that I don't think parents would be willing to do for a full gamut to
the eighth grade," Schwartz said. "But this would the year we would
have to make the decision to put it up to eighth because after that we couldn't
fit the seventh grade in the school."
Pernerewski said in a subsequent interview he is confident
accommodations could be made to permit the enrollment rollout to continue if
the expansion project gets held up, including the use of temporary classrooms
for the first anticipated seventh-grade class.
"I think if we needed a year to transition, we’d be
able to find a solution if we have to," he said. "We'll find a
way."
The biggest constraint facing the expansion of the magnet
school and its language immersion program is the size and condition of the
school building.
The revised $37 million project plan comes a year after the
first proposal to construct 87,000 square feet of building additions was
withdrawn because the $81.4 million cost was too high for Pernerewski and the
Board of Aldermen. The city's share after state reimbursements was estimated to
be $31.4 million. At that time, it was decided to explore other options even
though that meant pushing the timetable back one year.
The scaled-back plan proposes to renovate a vacant convent
building abutting the rear of the school building and connect the two
buildings. School officials reported inspections determined the two-story,
brick building is structurally sound and suitable for its planned school uses.
School officials plan to locate the seventh and eighth grade classes in the
renovated convent building.
The redesign reduced the original $81.4 million project cost
by 54%. School officials said state reimbursements could cover up to 80% of the
revised $37 million project cost based on initial consultations with state
officials.
The projected reimbursement rate is 78.9%. That would
represent $29.2 million of the cost. School officials reported the project
could be eligible for up to an additional 5 percentage points because Clemente
offers full-day kindergarten classes.
After the Saints Peter and Paul school closed in 2019, the
city acquired the property for $1.75 million in 2020 and the Clemente
International Dual Language School opened a year later. The three-story main
school building was built in 1926 and a two-story addition in 1962. The convent
building was erected in 1970.
The project plan calls for constructing a new cafeteria, a
full-size gymnasium, dedicated art and music rooms, a media center, and the new
seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms in the former convent building. There
would be elevators in both buildings. The roofs on both buildings would be
replaced, with new heating and air conditioning systems for each. There also
would be added security protections.
Enrollment is expected to increase to nearly 320 students
when Clemente adds its fifth-grade classes next year, and its projected to
range between 460 and 480 students after the eighth-grade classes are added,
according to enrollment projects.
The school was renamed in 2024 after Roberto Clemente, a
Major League Baseball Hall of Famer from Puerto Rico who played for the
Pittsburgh Pirates and a humanitarian who died at age 38 in 1972 when his
chartered plane crashed as he was on his way to help earthquake victims in
Nicaragua.
"The goal is to get this going and get moving on
it," Pernerewski said.