DOT to upgrade two historic stone bridges in Preston
Daniel Drainville
Preston — Two old stone bridges are proposed to be upgraded
by the state Department of Transportation, despite being previously reinforced
with modern technology.
The projects call for adding new roads over the bridges,
which officials said will address deficiencies, ensure the spans meet required
load standards and retain the bridges' historic significance. The work will
cost an estimated $5.4 million.
DOT officials presented both projects at a virtual public
information meeting last week. The department rates the conditions of bridges
on a scale of 0 to 9. Both bridges are rated a 5, which equates to
"fair" condition.
Project Engineer Jonathan Carelli explained the first
bridge, located on Parks Road and spanning Broad Brook, consists of a stone
bridge built in 1900 which was reinforced in 1960 with concrete slabs. The
two-lane roadway has a width of 21 feet.
A part of the original stone bridge, which is eligible for
entry on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in a
"clapper" style, or one found primarily in the rural landscapes of
Britain.
Time has loosened some of the span's fillers stones, eroded
soil at the base of the bridge and caused other stability issues. There are
gaps and voids in the original stone bridge, something Carelli said was fairly
normal for the structure's age.
The proposed work calls for adding a new concrete layer on
top of the bridge and re-constructing the roadway to be longer and wider. The
updated span would include two 10-foot travel lanes and reinforced concrete
abutments.
The $2.8 million in upgrades would not disturb the original,
underlying structure, officials said.
The second bridge carries Cooktown Road traffic over an
unnamed brook and was originally connected to the foundation of an old mill
structure, Carelli said.
He did not identify the age of the original mill bridge, but
said the bridge was rebuilt in 1988 with a timber deck added.
The bridge surface suffers from splits and misalignment, and
there is leaning in the supporting wingwall below, Carelli said. The stone
bridge has gaps in the stones. Like the Broad Brook bridge, the $2.6 million
project will include building an entirely new roadway and adding a concrete
slab, along with other structural improvements.
Designs for the bridges are expected to be complete in
August. Construction would begin in April 2027 and finish in November of that
year. During construction, detours would go into effect.
"These two bridges were going to be included in our
capital plan — so that's a savings to the local residents here," First
Selectwoman Sandra Allyn-Gauthier said. "So we're appreciative of
that."
She added that protecting the rural integrity and historical
aspects of both bridges is "very important to the community."
Ashon Avent named NPU chairman as Norwich utility upgrades ramp up
The Norwich Public Utilities Board of Commissioners has
appointed Ashon Avent as its chairman for the coming year, according to a
community announcement.
Avent, who has been an NPU commissioner since 2021, is the
owner of T-Shirt World and a resident of Norwich for over a decade. He holds a
degree from Eastern Connecticut State University, an MBA from Albertus Magnus
College and is pursuing a Doctorate in Business Administration from Southern
Connecticut State University.
“I am very excited to serve as chairman of the Board of an
organization that plays a such vital role in our community,” Avent said in the
announcement. “This is an exciting – and challenging – time for NPU with so
many projects underway. It is important that our Board and our employees
continue to focus on what is best for all of our customers every single day.”
The board also appointed Commissioner Bill Warzecha as vice
chairman and Commissioner Stewart Peil as secretary. Peil served as chairman
for the past three years.
NPU is currently undergoing extensive upgrades and
construction throughout Norwich. This includes a $200 million upgrade of its
wastewater treatment plant, over $20
million in modernization work across its natural gas service territory,
several projects to upgrade and improve its water system and extensive planning
to upgrade its electrical system in the coming years.
Chris LaRose, general manager of NPU, expressed his support
for Avent's appointment.
“We congratulate Ashon on being selected as our new chairman
and look forward to working with him during this pivotal time for our
organization and our community,” LaRose said in the announcement.
DOT agrees to remove race, gender-based criteria from DBE program
The DOT has agreed to settle a case challenging the
constitutionality of its Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, effectively
barring women- and minority-owned companies from automatic inclusion in the
initiative.
In a joint motion filed May 28 in U.S. District Court for
the Eastern District of Kentucky that still needs a judge’s approval, DOT
agreed to no
longer defend gender and race as presupposed qualifications for
inclusion in the program. “USDOT has determined that the race- and sex-based
presumptions in its DBE program can no longer pass constitutional scrutiny,”
the agency wrote in court documents.
The move essentially abandons the fight taken on by former President Joe Biden’s administration to defend the program’s constitutionality after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling banned affirmative action in higher education admissions in 2023.
Although the proposed settlement casts uncertainty around
the future of the DBE program, which was started
in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan, it isn’t an absolute death
knell.
For instance, the DOT could change the criteria for
inclusion in the DBE program to look at specific circumstances, much as the
Small Business Administration did for its similar 8(a) Business Development
Program after a separate challenge was successful against that
initiative.
“What this means is that, if the consent order is entered,
companies who qualified as DBEs due to race or gender alone will likely need to
be recertified as disadvantaged based on a unique narrative of what they’ve
actually experienced over the course of doing business,” said Christopher
Slottee, an attorney at law firm Schwabe in Anchorage, Alaska, who specializes
in federal contracting. “They’ll need to show they’ve actually been harmed due
to their race or gender.”
The settlement also still needs to be granted by the judge
in the case. Beyond that, Democracy Forward, a liberal advocacy group that has
been a vocal legal challenger to President Donald Trump’s policies during both
of his terms, recently won a minor victory in gaining approval to
intervene in the case, which is still ongoing.
“The participation in this case is essential to allowing
minority- and women-owned businesses to fight for themselves and their
communities, and we are pleased that the court will allow their voices to be
heard, said Sarah von der Lippe, counsel for the Minority Business Enterprise
Legal Defense and Education Fund in a May 21 Democracy
Forward news release praising that decision.
Whatever the ultimate outcome of the case, the DBE’s future
administration will likely be dramatically curtailed and increasingly complex,
according to Slottee. He said based on the settlement in its current form,
state DOTs would need to re-certify all existing DBE contractors without using
an assumption of disadvantage based on gender or race alone to award any
contracts under the initiative.
In effect, the “DOT may not approve any federal, state or
local DOT-funded projects with DBE contract goals where any DBE in that
jurisdiction was determined to be eligible based on a race- or sex-based
rebuttable presumption,” Slottee said in an email to Construction Dive.
That means just a single participant certified under DBE’s
old rules could now effectively block the program from making new awards going
forward.
“For example, if a single, individually owned company in the
State of Alaska was certified as a DBE due to the rebuttable presumption, the
DOT would be barred by the proposed consent order from approving any projects
in Alaska that had DBE goals,” Slottee said.
Affirmative action ruling
Shortly following the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on
affirmative action in higher education, the Wisconsin Institute for Law &
Liberty, a conservative advocacy group, filed
suit against DOT on behalf of two White-owned businesses,
Jeffersonville, Indiana-based Mid-America Milling Co. and Memphis,
Indiana-based Bagshaw Trucking.
It claimed that the DBE program, which aims to award 10% of
federal contracts to disadvantaged businesses, was a legalized form of reverse
discrimination, since women- and other non-majority-owned firms received
automatic — or “presumed” — certification to participate based on race or
gender alone.
“All we want is a level playing field,” Kramer Koetter,
president of Mid-America Milling, said
in a news release. “If my team can put forth the best product or service at
a reasonable cost, then we should be rewarded for that. The DBE’s removal
returns common-sense back to contracting.
Four more locations identified with contaminated soil from Norwich's Ponemah Mills
Daniel Drainville
Norwich — The project manager for the Ponemah Mills
development said Tuesday that four more locations have been identified as
receiving contaminated soil excavated from the mill site.
Phil Biondo told members of the Commission on the City Plan
on Tuesday that in addition to the contaminated soil already found at a
construction site in Franklin, the soil has also been found at sites in Preston
and Jewett City and two in Norwich.
He said One Key LLC, the New Jersey-based developer, is
working with the state Department of Environmental Protection and the federal
Environmental Protection Agency to remediate and dispose of the materials.
One Key has been renovating the historic cotton mill complex
into a mix of market-rate and affordable apartments and amenities. The larger
mill building on the site, which contains 237 apartments plus another 77 in a
rear wing, has already been completed and is housing tenants.
The second half of the renovation is underway at the south
mill, where One Key is working on a $40 million project to create 146
apartments along with a restaurant in a smaller building to the west.
In March, DEEP ordered One Key to stop removing soil from
the site until it could determine whether the excavated material was
contaminated, and where it was trucked to. Uncas Health District Director
Patrick McCormack had written to the city saying he had asked a One Key
representative at the site where the material was being stored on the property,
where it was being taken and who removed it, but the representative didn't
know.
A few weeks later, Franklin officials said they'd received a
complaint from a neighbor of a home building project at 49 Town Line Boulevard,
saying a pile of soil there looked contaminated. Franklin officials said they
were told by the DEEP that the soil had come from the Ponemah site. The DEEP
would not confirm the contaminated soil was at the Franklin site and would not
discuss any other locations where contaminated material was deposited, saying
it was continuing to investigate.
In the nearly two months since then, DEEP has provided no
update on its investigation.
Asked Wednesday about the locations cited by Biondo, DEEP
Director of Communications Will Healey wrote in an email that the department
"is actively working to assure that polluted fill brought from Ponemah
Mill is removed and properly disposed of and that the remediation of the mill
site itself complies with all state and federal standards and
requirements."
"This is an ongoing case, so I'm unable to provide more
detail at this time," he said.
Healey would not confirm the new locations, whether any
others existed, or provide an update on when the investigation would be
complete.
The EPA, meanwhile, said Wednesday that it "is working
closely with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
to ensure that the contaminated fill at the site is properly addressed and
remediated."
Biondo shares details
Biondo said the material excavated from the southeastern
portion of the mill site and taken offsite was "not identified as being
contaminated" in all three studies One Key had done.
But after being removed from the property, the soil was
tested and found to exceed some of the residential standards for contamination.
DEEP and One Key are now beginning work to clean up the
sites the soil was deposited, Biondo said.
He said the EPA just approved the removal of the soil and
remediation in Franklin. The EPA was involved because PCBs were found in the
soil, Biondo said.
He added the sites in Preston and Jewett City have not yet
been cleaned up, but said those sites will now be remediated, with the soil
disposed of in a proper landfill.
Biondo said the two sites in Norwich that received
contaminated material have already been remediated.
Richard Shuck, the city's zoning enforcement officer, said
he has had no updates from DEEP about the investigation.
Because of the concerns about the contaminated soil, the
Commission on the City Plan had previously tabled a decision on One Key's
application for a site plan modification for the Ponemah site which calls for
adding parking for a planned restaurant in a two-story building there.
On Tuesday, commissioners approved the modification.
Developer proposes 305-unit, affordable apartment building in downtown Stamford in large-scale redevelopment
Stamford's skyline will get a new look if a developer gets
its wish.
St. John Urban Development Corp. has filed a proposal with
the city to demolish two, 17-story cylindrical apartment towers that it built
in 1971, at 109 Tresser Blvd., that have a total of 240 affordable units, and
replace them with with a 10-story apartment building that will have 305
affordable units.
“The ground floor will activate the street with a welcoming
residential lobby and integrated amenity spaces positioned at the prominent
corner of Washington and Tresser Boulevard and cover nearly the entire street
frontages,” the application said. “The double height lobby and amenity spaces
provide rich visual interest to the building while concealing the two levels of
garage from public view.”
The new building would have 101 one-bedrooms units, 100
two-bedrooms units and 104 three-bedroom units for families earning 30% to 80%
of the area median income.
According to the project application, the two existing,
mostly vacant residential buildings -- known as the St. John’s Towers --
consist of 240 units and were constructed with a third tower consisting of
another 120 units.
That third tower was demolished in 2019 to make way for a
new apartment complex known as The Smyth, which was developed by Charlotte,
North Carolina-based developer Quarterra.
The Smyth, which debuted in 2023, is a 507,009-square-foot
apartment building with 414 market-rate units, on 1.7 acres at 100 Tresser
Blvd.
Stamford’s Planning Board is scheduled to hold a public
hearing on the major proposal on June 10.