Towering above Plainville: Blue steel framework of 12-story high-tech warehouse for frozen food

Don Stacom

Amidst a small industrial park with low-rise factories, Americold this winter erected a massive structure of metal framework that towers 140 above Plainville.

The company’s refrigerated warehouse won’t be operating until sometime next year, but it’s been drawing the attention of drivers in the region for months.

 “You have to see it to believe it,” Southington resident Geri Maxwell Gribinas wrote last week in a Facebook post that drew nearly 60 replies.

Calling it “some amazing high tech construction,” Gribinas recommended readers of the Southington Talks page see the structure before workers close in the exterior later this spring.

“Have been seeing the progress for a couple months and it started as a long skinny structure,” Helen Henkel replied. “Couldn’t imagine what it could be.” Gribinas said Thursday that she never expected her post would get so many comments and questions.

“My husband and I just went by, I took some pictures with my phone. I had no idea it would get this reaction,” she said. “But it’s definitely worth a field trip to see it. It’s like a giant erector set. And the refrigeration units are huge — you can only imagine what they weigh.”

When Americold’s roughly 200,000-square-foot warehouse is completed, it won’t be the biggest building in Plainville but it will easily rank as the tallest. The high point of 146 feet will be more than 20 feet higher than the smokestack at the Clean Earth processing plant, Town Planner Garrett Daigle said.

Contractors completed the foundation months ago and have erected blue shelving units that rise nearly the full height of the building. Workers have begun putting up outer walls.

“They’re a couple weeks behind because of the winter, but they’re looking to have the outside done by end of summer and they should be up and running next year,” Daigle said Thursday. “The blue structure is the storage racks that will support the ceiling of the refrigerated section.” Ahold Delhaize USA, parent company of Stop & Shop, contracted with Americold to build twin frozen warehouses in Plainville and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Plainville warehouse will serve a region roughly bounded by Cape Cod and northern New Jersey.

By building high, Americold was able to use less space on the ground, and can economize on utility costs, Daigle said.

“That reduces the footprint and the amount of permeable surface they cover. It’s economical and environmentally friendly,” Daigle said.

An automation system using pallet elevators, cranes and conveyors will move frozen foods around the warehouse; the main job of employees will be to assemble and package shipments and load and unload container trucks.

Americold will probably begin operations sometime next year, Daigle said.

Westport town, schools plan to team up for capital projects

Katrina Koerting  

WESTPORT — The school district and town are looking to partner even more on capital projects.

The latest step comes with support from the town for the schools’ idea to hire an outside firm as a capital program manager and oversee the district’s $100 million maintenance plan.

First Selectman Jim Marpe said the move made sense, especially since about 90 percent of town-owned building square footage is used for public education.

The firm, he said, could help the town and schools make sure they don’t miss out on state reimbursements and are tackling projects in the right sequence.

“The taxpayers have invested in these buildings and we’re using tax payer money to make sure they’re maintained and improved where appropriate,” Marpe said at a recent school board meeting.

He said the town has been setting money aside in budgets to look at town and school facilities and that that money could be used to cover the cost of the firm initially.

“I think it will work,” Marpe said. “Let’s try it. We can refine it over time.”

A cost hasn’t been determined but previous estimates put it between $50,000 and $100,000.

The district plans to bid out the services at the end of the month.

Marpe said there might even be some overlap in expertise and the firm could help out with some town projects, too.

The town and schools also plan to partner on other joint projects, leveraging the expertise in the town’s public works department and the pricing advantage they could get if similar projects were grouped together, such as paving.

“That sets a model for other projects,” Marpe said.

Superintendent Thomas Scarice said the district hasn’t discussed specific projects yet.

“We would have to look into the actual 10-year maintenance plan,” he said.

The firm could also help find other possible combined projects.

Some school board members suggested combining health care, with both the town and schools having the ability to go to a shared company on their own.

“I’m looking forward to this collaboration,” Marpe said. “I’m very, very optimistic it will reap benefits.”

School board members also said they welcomed the partnership.

“I’m very pleased with the level of collaboration with the town and that we’re all moving forward together on the same page,” said school board chairwoman Candice Savin.

Bill Finch (opinion): Putting local people to work makes sense

Bill Finch

When you drive by a construction site and see license plates from a bunch of other states, doesn’t that make you wonder — why aren’t local workers building local buildings?

Don’t you wish that you could wave a magic wand and keep all the money spent on these projects recirculating in our local economies? Well, there is a magic wand — it’s called a Project Labor Agreement, or PLA. A PLA puts all the community benefits into a written agreement ensuring projects are built on time and on budget. John DeStefano (D), former mayor of New Haven, Mark Boughton (R) former mayor of Danbury, and John Harkins (R) former mayor of Stratford, among others all used PLAs successfully. Those cities and many others continue to use PLAs today.

I was most fortunate to be the mayor of our state’s largest city for eight years, and boy did I learn a lot! During those eight years my administration directed the investment of over a billion dollars, and many of those dollars were spent on PLA projects like schools, parks, economic development and housing.

With each successful PLA project, I became more convinced of just how brilliant an idea a PLA is. PLAs brought the most highly skilled, local workers who spent their earnings in the community. Bridgeport had thousands of homes in foreclosure and our economy was tumbling. PLAs gave us a big financial boost. Without a PLA, workers would come from who knows were and spend their money anywhere but here.

I came to understand that without a PLA, I’d be playing roulette with taxpayer money. PLAs protect the taxpayers giving them exactly what they pay for. PLAs ensure that the contractor’s payrolls are audited, and project finances are transparent and corruption free.

Furthermore, I realized that the workers were earning a career, not just a job. PLAs ensure workers receive not just a fair wage but benefits, too. Their families would never have to set up a “Go Fund Me” page to pay for medical bills. Retirees wouldn’t lose their home because they didn’t have retirement income. PLAs helped strengthen my community in many seen and unseen ways.

PLA careers include free continuing education, apprenticeships, outreach to veterans and the disadvantaged, excellent safety record, and civic involvement. PLAs gave us stability and success.

A few years before I was mayor, there was an attempt to do a major school renovation project without a PLA. The gamble proved costly when lesser skilled electricians mishandled lighting fixtures and released poisonous PCBs into the school. The school opening was delayed, cleanup costs mounted, and two classrooms remained unusable for a long time. This showed me that PLAs are always the safer way, safer for the budget, safer for the workers, and in this case, safer students and teachers.

On May 6, 2010, the value of a PLA hit me like a ton of new school bricks. At the Discovery Science Magnet, we held a picnic and a “Topping Ceremony” — a celebration to install the last piece of steel at our greenest school yet. That day I met all the workers still gives me a thrill. As we lined up to fill our plate with picnic food, each worker shook my hand, and told me what street they lived on. Most of the workers were women or minority and most lived in or near Bridgeport. These workers were building a school they wanted their children to go to. What could be a better guarantee for a great school?

Despite claims in a recent opinion piece, every PLA project was built on time, on budget, safely, exactly according to plans. Those complaining clearly don’t understand how PLAs benefit taxpayers and workers.

I wish the critics could have been with me that day at the Discovery School. Or, if only they could have been mayor of Bridgeport, New Haven, Stratford or Danbury or one of the thousands of citizens who benefited, then they would know the true value of a PLA.

Bill Finch is former mayor of Bridgeport and director of the Connecticut Labor-Management Cooperation Committee.

Norwich Public Utilities to replace 100-year-old downtown gas line

Norwich — Norwich Public Utilities will begin a monthlong project Monday to replace several hundred feet of cast iron piping and four service lines on Main Street through Franklin Square to Bath Street.

The construction will take place between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and likely will cause traffic disruptions.

NPU has scheduled the work to take place ahead of the plan by the Norwich Public Works Department to redesign the Franklin Square intersection by installing a roundabout. That work is expected to begin in May and continue or much of the summer.

Coordinating the two projects will save money on paving costs.

"NPU and Norwich Public Works have a great working relationship, and we collaborate whenever possible," NPU General Manager Chris LaRose said in a news release announcing the gas line replacement. "Regular communication and coordination help save time and money for ratepayers and taxpayers every year.”

Traffic control will be provided by flaggers, and the public is asked to use precautions when traveling through this area during working hours.

NPU is replacing approximately 350 feet of older, 12-inch gas main with new, six-inch polyurethane gas mains and four gas service lines. NPU estimates that the existing gas main was installed in 1910 and has outperformed its typical life expectancy. This work is part of NPU’s annual gas main replacement program.

Norwich looking for funding for Yantic River Upper Falls Dam study

Matt Grahn 

NORWICH — Norwich resident Robert Ballard is concerned about the city’s potential removal of a dam on the Yantic River falls that has been there since the 1860s.

“Believe me, I am not a historical or environmental warrior, but I live one block away from the Lower Falls Dam. I travel over the existing Sherman Street Bridges almost daily.  I am keenly aware of the wildlife that inhabit the area and of the impact the low water periods have on them,” Ballard stated in an email to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes.

On Jan 21, Public Works Director Patrick McLaughlin mentioned during a Public Works and Capital Improvement meeting that he applied for a grant from FEMA for a study looking into the removal of the Yantic River Upper Falls Dam for the purpose of flood mitigation, according to the meeting minutes.

Ballard wrote an email on April 2 to Alderwoman Stacy Gould, who is on the committee.

McLaughlin wrote a response to Ballard this week saying that the reason why the dam may be removed is because it provides no flood storage as the floodgate has been gone for at least 15 years, and removing the dam would be beneficial to the proposed bridge replacements on Sherman Street.

Planned in Nov. 2019, the $13.43 million project will replace two bridges that cross the Yantic River on Sherman Street and intersect with Asylum Street. Construction was scheduled to run from spring to late fall in 2022, stop during the winter, letting both roads reopen, then resume in the spring of 2023 and finish that fall.

“Although the DEEP supports removal of the dam, the bridge project, which is funded through the Federal Highway Administration, would not provide funds for a dam removal,” McLaughlin said. “At this time the city is only requesting funds for a study and plan to remove the dam. If this grant is obtained, and the city moves forward, there will be a time for Public Involvement, including citizen comments.”

McLaughlin also reiterated that it's a long-term project and said he city has yet to receive grant money.

Ballard is also concerned about the potential of floods. He stated in his original message to Gould that the Upper Falls Dam is essential for mitigating floods from the Lower Falls, noting a time when Norwich received eight inches of rain in September 2018.

McLaughlin doesn’t feel it’s currently effective enough to help against floods, because its to the top of the dam in most storm situations, and causes flooding problems upstream.

“It doesn’t provide enough flood storage 90% of the time,” McLaughlin said. “Even when it does, when it’s not quite below the top of the dam, it provides very little flood storage in relation to the volume of the water passing through there.”

Ballard said removing the dam “will essentially destroy the wetlands above the dam.”

“At low water times, when it’s not raining up north, the river kind of dries up,” Ballard said.

McLaughlin said the environmental impact will not be known until a study happens.

Ballard would rather see the dam repaired, if possible.

“We’ve talked with them about fixing the dam a number of times, “ Ballard said. “There’s no way they’re going to do that.”

In North Hartford’s ‘food desert,’ grocery prospects remain uncertain

Matt Pilon

he developer building $200 million-plus worth of apartments, retail space and parking garages around Dunkin’ Donuts Park in Hartford says he remains on the hunt for a grocery operator to commit to a store at the Downtown North development now known as North Crossing.

RMS CEO Randy Salvatore, leader of the Stamford firm the city chose as its development partner for a handful of key parcels surrounding the minor league ballpark that debuted in 2017, told a city council committee Wednesday evening that he may switch up the planned location for the grocery store in order to accommodate feedback and concerns expressed by grocery operators he’s talked to in recent months.

The store, if he is able to ultimately attract one, could end up on a different parcel of land, known as Parcel A, than initially envisioned.

The store has been slated for a ground-floor location of an apartment building to be built on the adjacent Parcel B at the intersection of Main and Trumbull streets as part of the second phase of North Crossing, which could begin in 2022 and will also include more than 530 apartments.

Parcel A, surrounded by Ann Ucello and High streets, has been considered to be the third phase of the project, but Salvatore said he doesn’t intend to delay the timeline for opening a grocery store. Parcel A could be built out before Parcel B, should RMS land a grocery tenant for the former, he said. It may even end up being a faster path to a grocery store, he said.

“If tomorrow a grocer came in and said they wanted to do Parcel A, we could start on that right away,” he said. 

One reason RMS is expanding its grocery store location options is that some grocers have expressed concern about the need for customers to park in a parking garage if the store ends up located on Parcel B.

Meanwhile, Parcel A would accommodate surface parking, which is more desired by some grocers, and it could also potentially allow for a larger 50,000-square-foot store, rather than a 30,000-square-foot store on Parcel B.

Salvatore said some operators have also told him the neighborhood remains unproven and that they’d like to see lease-up of the pending apartments before making any commitment.

RMS has been on the hunt for a grocer for more than a year. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the effort, Salvatore said.

The low-income Downtown North area around the ballpark is considered a food desert, where residents have to travel -- often by bus -- to reach a sizable grocery store.

Efforts to secure a grocery store have been unsuccessful for years, but hopes have been high that RMS’ development, leveraging the ballpark, can seal the deal. 

Meanwhile, Express Kitchens CEO Max Kothari has also been working, separately from RMS, to bring a grocery store to a different location in Downtown North. He confirmed that his efforts were still ongoing.

Several city councilors expressed disappointment Wednesday that Salvatore had not yet landed a grocery tenant. 

“What I promised and continue to actively do is go out there and find any grocer that might want to be in this place and try to construct something that works for them,” Salvatore told councilors. “I’ve told any retailer I’ve talked to that we will make the economics work if you want to be here. There are ways for us to do that.”

“If it was as simple as just building a building and someone would come, we would have already done that,” he added.

Construction group launches 'Roll Up Your Sleeves' campaign to encourage vaccinations among contractors

Zachary Phillips

• California construction trade association United Contractors last week launched "Roll Up Your Sleeves" — an informational campaign designed to promote COVID-19 vaccination across the construction industry.
• The campaign began in response to reports indicating construction has one of the lowest rates of workers willing to be vaccinated in the U.S. Research published in February indicated just 53% of construction workers would be willing to get vaccinated, numbers that are in line with a recent Construction Dive survey on the topic.
• The group, which represents union-signatory contractors, created a website to provide contractors, workers and field leaders resources to help combat misinformation surrounding the vaccine and to encourage individuals to get vaccinated when they are eligible.

The idea to spread accurate information about the vaccine arose when the industry's wariness caught United Contractors' attention, and, when it looked for resources to share among its members, it was dissatisfied.

"There was just nothing," said Emily Cohen, executive vice president at United Contractors. "There's nothing out there specifically for the construction industry."

Cohen said with the wide array of vaccine-related information — some of it false — coming from social media, the association wanted to empower workers, contractors and unions with the facts. Resources gathered by United Contractors include tailgate talking points with vaccine facts designed to assuage concerns about the shots; resources from authorities like the Mayo Clinic; and sample letters to employees about the vaccine, indicating that company executives have been vaccinated.

"Walking the walk is the really important part of this too," Cohen said. "They want to see that their boss and their boss's boss are getting vaccinated. That helps build trust."

Major contracting groups have begun initiatives to help contractors vaccinate workers — although they mostly focus on helping employers develop policies. During a webinar hosted by the Associated General Contractors of America, attorneys said that employers can require vaccines for jobsite workers. Nevertheless, the survey of Construction Dive readers found 93% of employers are not offering incentives or bonuses for the vaccines, although they are encouraging it.

Attorneys during AGC's webinar provided suggestions for the best way to ensure workers get vaccinated, such as administering the vaccines on jobsites during the workday. Additionally, AGC is organizing a vaccine awareness week for the industry during the week of April 19, according to Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives at AGC.

In the Construction Dive poll, 46% of unvaccinated respondents said they would not get the vaccine, with most saying it was unnecessary (36%) or raised health concerns (33%). Those are fears United Contractors is seeking to address, and Cohen said they're depending on construction's safety-first focus.

"We know safety. We know what it means to have to come together to accomplish things and come together to overcome challenges," Cohen said. "The vaccine is a critical safety tool to working safely and getting back to normal."

This article has been updated to clarify the mission of United Contractors.

Biden’s Infrastructure Sales Force Knows Its Potholes and Bridges

Annie Karni and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

WASHINGTON — As mayor of South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg grew to view asphalt as his enemy. As governor of Michigan, Jennifer M. Granholm faced a Republican-led legislature intent on blocking her biggest infrastructure ambitions. As governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo overcame early opposition to an infrastructure plan from moderate members of her own party. All three are part of a group of five cabinet secretaries President Biden has selected to serve as the administration’s salespeople for the American Jobs Plan, which seeks to pour trillions of dollars into infrastructure and other new government programs.

 “Every square foot of asphalt, from a mayor’s perspective, is a square foot you have to pay forever to maintain, to resurface, to fill potholes on it,” Mr. Buttigieg, now the transportation secretary, said in a recent interview. “There were roads that maybe saw one car every few minutes that were paved wide enough for four cars side by side. There’s a cost to maintaining that.”

The lessons in asphalt Mr. Buttigieg learned in Indiana informed how he is trying to sell Mr. Biden’s infrastructure plan across the country today. “The point is we design for the future and ask what we want to build, instead of redoing everything we’ve done in the past,” he said. In terms of making the case for the ambitious plan, he said, “there’s nothing like being able to say, ‘Here’s how we faced it in my community.’”

Along with Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Granholm, the energy secretary, and Ms. Raimondo, the commerce secretary, the group includes Marcia L. Fudge, the housing and urban development secretary, and Martin J. Walsh, the labor secretary.

Their job is to push the infrastructure plan on Capitol Hill and across the country with voters. They were picked because they lead agencies that oversee the bulk of the proposals in the jobs plan, which covers broadband, public housing, climate change and job training, in addition to roads and bridges.

But they are also former mayors or governors who have tackled the challenges at the local level that Mr. Biden now faces nationwide.

In fact, they all tried — and sometimes failed — to sell their own infrastructure plans, either to a recalcitrant legislature or to resistant members of their own party.

As governor of Michigan, Ms. Granholm brought together business and labor leaders to try to pass a $1 billion investment in the state’s infrastructure, but failed in the face of a Republican-led legislature. Mr. Buttigieg learned the hard way that a Smart Streets program would take months of community outreach to Black business owners if he did not want to be accused of aiding gentrification. In Rhode Island, Ms. Raimondo oversaw a state ranked by CNBC as having the worst infrastructure in the United States in 2019, and had to negotiate with moderate Democrats on a plan that had big-rig trucks pay tolls to repair crumbling bridges.

“When you work at the local level, you work in the realm of time frames, budgets and completions,” said Henry Cisneros, a former mayor of San Antonio who served as the housing and urban development secretary under President Bill Clinton. In Washington, he said, a discussion of an infrastructure bill can too often center on authorizations and appropriations.

“When you have people who have seen it all the way through, people in Washington are always surprised by the difference in the mind-set,” he added.

Take Ms. Fudge, who served as the mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, from 2000 to 2008. “If I was working in my yard, it was nothing to someone to pull in and talk about what they did or didn’t like in the city,” she said. “We talk to people in a different way.”

As governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011, Ms. Granholm had big ambitions to fix a state that had some of the worst roads in the country. She proposed nearly $1 billion for infrastructure improvements, to be paid for by debt refinanced at lower interest rates.

“Obviously no one wants to raise taxes ever,” Ms. Granholm said. “Anyone who is elected can tell you that.”

In recent days, she has been meeting with Republican lawmakers to discuss the 28 percent corporate tax rate that Mr. Biden has proposed — but has also said he would be open to compromise. “We understand we needed to have a competitive rate,” Ms. Granholm said. “There’s wiggle room.”

Infrastructure experts in the state said the political landscape made big change impossible.

“Her challenges were that she had a full Republican control of the legislature while she was in office,” said Mike Nystrom, the executive vice president of the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association. “She did get some stuff done.” But, he said, “we did not get a long-term funding solution passed.”

That defeat, coupled with the challenge of leading a state through a global recession and the bankruptcy of the auto industry, taught Ms. Granholm the importance of having a federal partner.

“States bring a knife to a gunfight in this,” she said, “while other countries are clearly investing in their infrastructure, in their training of people. Michigan going up against China, who do you think is going to win? Having a federal partner in this is everything.”

In Rhode Island, Ms. Raimondo got a measure of help from the federal government when Mr. Biden, in a visit as vice president, joked that one of the bridges was so old that “you’ve had Lincoln Logs holding the damn thing up.” In getting her plan passed she weathered a lawsuit from a trucking association and criticism from the business community. The first time she put the plan forward, “it just died an unceremonious death,” she said.

Ms. Raimondo said the dynamic mirrored the current challenge of persuading moderate Democrats, like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, to support Mr. Biden’s infrastructure plan.

“It was very similar, because the legislature at the time said, ‘Yes, we have to fix our roads and bridges; yes, we know bridges are going to fall apart,’” she said, but some officials did not want to raise any taxes or tolls. “So we just stayed at the table and said, ‘Give up how would you pay for it?’”

The final version of the plan called for less borrowing and lower tolls on the trucks. Marc Dunkelman, a fellow at Brown University who focuses on the architecture of U.S. communities, said the saga showed that Ms. Raimondo was “able to talk credibility to both Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin.”

“That will be a real benefit,” he said.

As labor secretary, Mr. Walsh shares responsibility for ensuring diverse hiring for the millions of jobs the White House says will be generated by Mr. Biden’s plan. In Boston, where Mr. Walsh served as mayor from 2014 to 2021, a federal civil rights complaint filed against the city found that 1.2 percent of more than $2 billion in public contracts went to Black or Hispanic businesses over a period of five years. Mr. Walsh responded by signing an executive order allocating 25 percent of city funding to businesses owned by people of color and women.

This year, the city government also canceled a roughly $25 million project that would have rebuilt Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury, after residents opposed the removal of more than 100 trees in the mostly Black community.

“I believe Secretary Walsh really wants the best,” said Stacy Thompson, the executive director of LivableStreets, a transportation advocacy organization based in Cambridge, Mass. “I believe Pete Buttigieg really wants the best. It doesn’t mean they always got it right. In some cases they got it really wrong. And I hope they learned from it. We really need them to learn from it.”

Mr. Walsh acknowledged that residents described the plan as “environmental racism” and said part of the problem was that he had inherited a project that had run on for a decade.

“One of the things we’ll be talking about is that as this money gets approved, there’s shovel-ready projects,” Mr. Walsh said. “This other project in Boston dragged on 10 years. It’s way too long.”

The salespeople have their work cut out for them. But the less visible work at the local level is now generating grist for their conversations with stakeholders and lawmakers.

Mr. Buttigieg said he was constantly referring to his executive experience when meeting with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where he claims he has had productive conversations filled with good will despite public criticism of the infrastructure plan. In return, lawmakers tell him of their own experiences.

“Susan Collins shared a story about a community with a memorial for lives of fishermen that were lost,” he said. “She talked about building a breakwater with help from federal funds that has gone to save a lot lives. She’s sharing why she knows these things are important to her community.”