Fairfield's Dwight School to get 75% reimbursement from state for $76M project
FAIRFIELD — A new elementary school building in Fairfield that has been
discussed and debated for about two decades is now slated for construction.
The new Dwight
Elementary School is expected to be constructed
on the campus of the current building, and the state has agreed to pay for
75% of the work, a development that was recently celebrated by local officials
and Gov. Ned Lamont during
a press conference at the school.
“When I was on the Board (of Education) we were talking
about the prioritization of Dwight needing this work, and year after year would
kind of get bumped,” said state Rep. Jennifer Leeper, D-Fairfield, a
former member of the Fairfield Board of Education and current co-chair of the
state’s legislative Education Committee, during the June 22 press conference.
Leeper described the new Dwight, which will replace the
current 1962 building and will cost $76 million, as “transformative for our
community.”
Construction is currently slated to begin in early 2028 with the fall of 2029 the tentative opening date for the new school. The current Dwight School will remain in use during construction.
Fairfield First
Selectperson Christine Vitale, whose children attended Dwight, said the
need to replace the aging school has been a topic in town for years.
“For many years there was concern about indoor air quality:
it was too hot, it was too cold,” she said. “Every once in a while, there was
an odor, there was concern about a failing septic system.”
Dwight School has also had moisture infiltration issues,
particularly inside its media center. School officials considered
shuttering the school in 2022 due to concerns about the cost of
renovating or replacing the building.
The new school will have dedicated space for the
district’s Early
Childhood Center as well as special education classrooms.
Lamont touted the inclusion of dedicated special education
space inside the new building as a way to prevent some students from having to
attend out-of-district schools, which can put a strain on local budgets and
create long commutes for students.
“For a lot of our towns, a lot of our smaller towns, it’s
really hard sending these kids a long way out of town, out of state, costing
hundreds of thousands of dollars, lots of transportation,” Lamont said of some
out-of-district placements.
He said that wouldn’t happen at the new Dwight School.
“You’re going to have an amazing special (education)
facility made for these kids to make sure they get the very best opportunity,”
he said.
Vitale credited Dwight families for advocating for a new
school and putting pressure on officials to replace the building.
“You never gave up, you continued to advocate for our
children,” Vitale said.
Superintendent Michael Testani echoed those sentiments.
“Their relentlessness and advocacy throughout this process
got this project through,” he said, referring to Dwight families. “They never
wavered.”
Demolition of former Sports Haven horse-racing complex in New Haven to start in July
The full demolition of the former Sports Haven betting
parlor in New Haven's Long Wharf section will begin sometime in early or
mid-July, a city official said Monday.
Right now, the building on Long Wharf Drive is undergoing an
environmental assessment, said Robert Dillon, a city building official. Part of
that assessment includes determining whether the building has any
asbestos-laden tiles, according to Dillon.
The environmental assessment is the latest step in a process
that started in February when a liability
company affiliated with Queens, N.Y.-based Criterion Development submitted a
the application to city planning officials for demolition plans. The
demolition plans, which were approved by city officials, were approved to begin
after a cooling-off period that ended on May 27.
Criterion hasn't been clear about what it plans to do with
the property. Sports Haven closed
for good at the end of November 2025, having
been purchased by Criterion in March 2021.
Brian Alcorn, a development manager for Criterion, did not
immediately respond to requests for information about the company's plans for
Sports Haven property.
Mike Piscitelli, New Haven's economic development
administrators said Criterion officials have not indicated to city officials
what their plans for the property are. But Piscitelli said a responsible
growth plan released in 2019 for the city's Long Wharf section calls for a
mixed of residential and large commercial uses.
An example of large format commercial use, according
to Piscitelli, could include a grocery store or other type of large retail
store.
CT mega-church wants to build 146 apartments. It would be mostly affordable housing on a large site
First Cathedral this week will present details of its plan
to build more
than 140 affordable apartments along with a day care center on its
sprawling Bloomfield property off Blue Hills Avenue.
The mega-church envisions
a first phase of 101 apartments spread between two four-story buildings, with a
later phase to add a five-story building with 45 more.
First Cathedral last
September first floated the idea of hosting affordable housing, and
was scheduled to present detailed plans to the Planning and Zoning Commission
on Thursday evening. It has requested an extension, however.
Last year the church was planning three five-story
buildings, but has made changes since then — most significantly by lowering the
height of the first two.
New paperwork filed with the commission shows that First
Cathedral in conjunction with the nonprofit Grow America wants to use about 15
acres of its auxiliary parking lot for the new project. Leaders of the church,
which lists its membership at 11,000, have been talking for years about how to
best use the surrounding acreage.
First Baptist Church of Hartford bought the property in the
1990s and built a 53,000-square-foot church in 1998. It claims a seating
capacity of more than 3,000.
“When we bought the property, we bought 40 acres of land,”
Pastor LeRoy Bailey III said last summer. “We wanted to build a future and
develop it.”
The church has been working for more than a year with
Manhattan-based Grow America, which helps secure funding and technical guidance
for community-based projects in low-income areas.
The organization’s website says that for 30 years, its
mission has been to foster development and preservation of affordable housing
and advancement of livable communities.
Construction
plans show the first and second buildings would be mostly identical,
with roughly a dozen apartments per floor. There would be one- and two-bedroom
units, with sizes ranging from 550 to 1,123 square feet. Most would be in the
700- to 900-square-foot range.
Each building would have a library, bike storage room and
laundry area, and a community room would be available to tenants. Each would
have two elevators and a pair of indoor staircases.
The church hasn’t specified what it anticipates charging for
monthly rents, but has said the first 101 apartments would all be limited to
tenants making no more than 30% to 50% of the area’s median income. Plans list
the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and the state housing department as
the primary financing sources.
In a later phase, the church plans a five-story building
holding another 45 apartments with a mix of affordable and market-rate units.
It would also include a 90-child day care center.
Later work would include enlarging the cathedral, expanding
the sidewalk and adding replacement parking for the overflow spaces lost to
construction of the first phase.
First Cathedral leaders have said they believe that
expanding affordable housing options in town is part of the church’s mission.
Even though it has an affordable housing rate of 11%, the town still needs
more, according to its 2023 affordable housing plan.
“Planning for affordable housing is foundational to
maintaining a vibrant and prosperous community. Without safe, quality,
affordable housing, Bloomfield will struggle to maintain its prosperity,”
according to the plan. “This affordable housing plan is aimed at positioning
Bloomfield to compete for wealth and investment and to maintain a vibrant and
prosperous community for generations to come.”