Demolition of Sports Haven & its 100-foot horse mural begins, with the artist looking on
NEW HAVEN — Of the estimated 140,000 vehicles that
whizzed by the giant horses and jockeys painted on the former Sports
Haven video off-track-betting facility in the city’s Long Wharf
section Tuesday, few if any stopped to witness the
start of its demolition.
But Tony
Falcone was there, joined by Robert
Greenberg.
They didn’t come to mourn the demise of Sports Haven
(originally called Teletrack)
and its 100-foot-tall very public art mural installation, but to celebrate the
fact that it was there as long as it was, as well as to document it and
hopefully preserve some small part of it for posterity.
But you can understand if they might get a little
misty-eyed.
Falcone is the guy that painted those giant horses on
the building at 600 Long Wharf Drive beginning in 1995 and finishing in 1996.
Since then, they’ve been seen by millions and millions of people passing by on
one of Connecticut’s busiest stretches of highway.
Greenberg is the guy who a few years ago founded the Lost
in New Haven Museum at 80 Hamilton St., which works to preserve classic,
lost icons of New Haven just like this.
They came out of their visit with a promise from Johnny
Carabetta, a member of the
family that owns demolition contractor J & J Demolition — and the
one operating the excavator that was working around the edges of the building
Tuesday before things ratchet up further on Wednesday — to try to keep
some good-sized chunks intact to go in the museum.
“Even a fragment will tell a massive story,” said Greenberg.
“I’ve run every emotion,” said Falcone, who lives these days
in Cheshire and has a studio in Prospect. He said he has been thinking about
the demolition “since it first got announced” and was cheered because “I
started to hear how much this means to so many people,' he said.
“Now I’m feeling kind of elated” after talking to Johnny
Carabetta and hearing that he didn’t think it would be too much trouble to
preserve some large pieces of the mural.
Carabetta said the work on Tuesday was just some “cleanup”
to get ready for bigger-scale demolition on Wednesday and beyond.
Falcone also has done many other pieces of public art in New
Haven — including whimsical murals of the Greater New Haven shoreline that
used to decorate the cafeteria walls of the old New Haven Register building at
40 Sargent Drive, where Jordan’s Furniture now does business.
He painted the east wall of Sports Haven in 1995 and the
north wall in 1996, he said. It took him about 3 ½ weeks on location, with
about the same length of time in preparation before he got there, he said.
“We’re celebrating the mural. We’re not not mourning,” said
Greenberg. “We’ll celebrate the fact that the mural has existed — and now
the fragments will live on in the museum. ‘I’m here to salvage some of the
fragments of the mural,’ he said.
City officials, including Robert Dillon, New Haven’s
building official, have been very understanding and accommodating, Greenberg
said.
“We’re very excited to be here,” Greenberg said. “We’re here
to tell their story… We’re hoping to get a piece of the eye, a piece of the
head.”
In fact, they’re already telling the story of the Sports
Haven mural in a new exhibit that opened last week in the museum, which
features a number of Falcone’s sketches and studies for the murals — their
actually are two of them, although they originally were meant to link up and
stretch all the way around the museum.
The exhibit also has a table-sized 3-D model of Sports Haven
depicting the murals as they originally were conceived.
“The goal in my mind was to make an exhibit,” Greenberg
said, pointing out that the site that Sports Haven and Teletrack before it have
long stood on once was Sargent Manufacturing — and before that it was
underwater.
As he spoke just after noon, a big Carabetta excavator
started up and rolled over to a spot just beneath the Sports Haven sign, with
Johnny Carabetta at the controls.
His brother Joe Carabetta also was on hand — and at one
point their mother, Anna Carabetta, stopped by with some cold water and
fresh-baked peach muffins to help them along.
The muffins, or at least fresh-baked sweets, aren’t entirely
a sidelight to the story.
Ever the artist, Falcone looks at the oil tanks just across
the road in the 85 East Street Tank Farm and sees an opportunity.
“The next thing I want to paint are those tanks,” Falcone
said. “I want to paint them to look like cupcakes and birthday cakes.”
Demolition began Tuesday after city Building Official Dillon
signed off on the permit. Demolition is coming
about a month later than the previous estimate by city officials.
Earlier this summer, the building underwent an environmental
assessment, Dillon has said. Part of that assessment was to determine whether
the building had any asbestos-laden tiles, he said.
The process leading up to demolition began in February
when a
limited liability company affiliated with Queens, N.Y.-based Criterion
Development submitted an application to the city. Demolition plans
were approved, with demolition to begin after a cooling-off period that ended
on May 27.
Criterion hasn’t specified what it plans to do with the
property. Sports Haven closed
at the end of November 2025 after being purchased by Criterion in March 2021.
The Long Wharf Responsible Growth Plan for the Long Wharf
section calls for a mixed use of residential and large format commercial uses,
city Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli has said.
One example of large format commercial use might be a
grocery store or other large format retail store, Piscitelli has said.
But as recently as 2019, environmental studies identified
Long Wharf as facing
a significant flooding threat over the next several decades as result of
climate change and storm surges from New Haven Harbor.
Piscitelli 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.
Proposed Killingly warehouses continue to roll through review
Sara Bedigian
Killingly — The traffic engineer for a proposed development
at 90 Putnam Pike told the Planning and Zoning Commission Monday night that the
project is not a mega warehouse that would generate large amounts of truck
traffic.
The comments by Kevin Solli came as the commission continued
its public hearing Monday night on a proposal By Killingly 1 LLC for warehouses
of 178,750 square feet and 297,500 square feet, respectively.
He said a traffic study calculated the warehouses will
generate 87 trips — 14 of those being trucks, during the peak hour in the
morning, and 91 trips — 14 of those being trucks, during the peak hour in the
evening.
“That is one vehicle a minute, this is not a mega warehouse
as people have been alluding to, this does not represent a large trip
generation, and our analysis is that, as we have indicated, will not have
adverse impacts on the traffic operating conditions of the area,” Solli said.
It is still unknown what businesses would occupy the
warehouses. Because of this, residents have expressed concern the traffic
numbers could increase from the numbers cited by Solli.
Solli said if there are additional trips, a new traffic
study and addition approval from the commission along with the state Department
of Transportation and Office of State Traffic Administration would be needed.
Solli also explained changes made to the traffic plan that
included truck turning, parking, and signage. He said trucks would not be
allowed to turn right out of the facility's driveway to avoid crossing the
center line. A left turn will allow trucks to easily access Interstate 395.
He said the plan also added additional driveway safety
measures and lighting that reduces glare.
The changes were in response to a review by engineering firm
Tighe and Bond, which was hired by the town. Solli said while Killingly 1
replied to most of the Tighe and Bond comments, his team is still waiting to
complete a noise study and refine its stormwater analysis. He said Killingly 1
will have that information in time for the commission's next meeting on Sept.
21.
“We honestly believe that projects improve with this level
of review and comment as we make changes and tweaks to our plan and design,”
Solli said.
He also said the project would have no adverse impacts on
water quality and would meet all stormwater requirements. The town’s Inland
Wetlands and Watercourses Commission has approved the plan.
“We feel that ultimately the project today is better than it
was when it was initially first submitted,” Solli said. “We are confident we
are going to be able to address every one of their concerns and at the end of
this process we will have the best project for the town of Killingly.”
This development has been in
discussion for months at Planning and Zoning Commission meetings since the
initial application was received at the end of last year but then withdrawn. A
new application was filed this spring, and the commission has held several
nights of public hearings since then.
While Solli said the facility “will not have an adverse
impact on the community,” several residents continued to voice their concerns
about traffic, stormwater management and water quality during Monday’s public
hearing.
Opponents said they don’t believe truck drivers will follow
the signs to not take a right turn out of the facility.
“They are on a timeline, they aren't going to take the extra
time to go the routes you want them to go,” said Lina Wagner of Putnam, who is
the Democratic candidate for state representative from the 51st District.
Others were concern about not knowing what businesses will
come to the facility before the project is approved.
Resident Russ Daniels said it “raises a red flag. ... If
they aren’t willing to identify themselves, let's throw them out of Killingly.”
The commission voted to extend the public hearing to its
next meeting on Sept. 21.
The commission also voted to receive the new application for
the nearly 1.3 million-square-foot Amazon distribution center “Project Husky”
on Westcott Road and hold a public hearing for the commission’s Sept. 21
meeting. This comes after the developer Ryan Companies withdrew
and resubmitted its application last month.
The commission also decided to have Tighe and Bond review
the project.
Developer seeks approval for 420,000 cubic yards of fill to redevelop former Berlin brickyard
Andrew Larson
A Utah developer is seeking approval to bring 420,000 cubic
yards of fill to a long-abandoned Berlin brickyard as part of a plan to
redevelop the 57-acre property.
The project, slated for 303 New Britain Road, would create a
pad site for two commercial buildings totaling 44,000 square feet on about 16.7
acres, along with 90 parking spaces, stormwater basins and a new permanent
railroad crossing.
Berlin Industrial Redevelopment LLC, an affiliate of Farr
West, Utah-based Industrial Development Advantage LLC, is seeking site plan
approval for the project, which would be located on a 56.9-acre property owned
by Connecticut Sand & Stone Corp.
Braxton Buckway, the company’s chief financial officer, is
listed as the applicant.
The property has been vacant since the early 1980s. From
about 1900 into the 1960s, it operated as the Donnelly Brick Co., which mined
clay to depths exceeding 30 feet. The resulting pits were filled during the
1970s, including with material generated during construction of Route 9, but
the fill was never engineered or compacted.
That uncontrolled fill left the site geotechnically unstable
and environmentally contaminated. The developer says the site cannot be
redeveloped without massive amounts of fill to stabilize the ground and raise
the grade.
Berlin Industrial Redevelopment, or BIR, proposes using up
to 420,000 cubic yards of fill to do that.
The project depends on Connecticut’s Large-Scale Beneficial
Filling Pilot Program, created under Public Act 21-88. The program allows the
state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to authorize up to four
sites for large-scale placement of qualifying lightly contaminated fill
material when needed for redevelopment. Sites must require at least 100,000
cubic yards.
The program was created to provide a lower-cost alternative
to purchasing conventional clean fill for projects where large quantities are
needed.
BIR says conventional clean fill would make redevelopment at
this scale financially impractical. Its principals have worked on the property
since 2017 and have spent more than $1 million on environmental investigations,
engineering, taxes and interest, according to the project summary.
Under the plan, buildings, pavement and clean cover would
form an engineered cap over the property, while groundwater monitoring would
continue for up to 30 years.
The volume of truck traffic has emerged as a major concern
in the town’s review.
Public Works Director and Town Engineer Michael S. Ahern
wrote in a May 28 memo that importing the fill would require about 26,250
truckloads over roughly 250 days, or about 105 trucks entering and exiting the
property each day. Peak-hour traffic could reach 17 trucks, he wrote.
The applicant’s traffic study found no significant
operational impact on local roads, but Ahern said activity at the site entrance
would be significant and noticeable to nearby property owners.
Acting Sgt. Thomas Bobok of the Berlin Police Department’s
traffic bureau estimated in a June 14 memo that a truck could arrive every 3.5
to 4 minutes through an unsignalized driveway shared with Prentiss Place, a
residential complex of about 90 units. He recommended an engineering review of
turning radii and said the volume could frustrate residents and other drivers.
The Conservation Commission has separately raised concerns
about fill placement and groundwater protection. Ahern also asked the applicant
to show that its stormwater system can handle a 25-year design storm.
The Planning and Zoning Commission opened a public hearing
July 23. The applicant has since sought additional time under state extension
provisions, and no decision date has been set.
Town approval is required before BIR can apply to DEEP. The
developer is targeting state approval by mid-2027, with construction extending
into 2030.