Metro-North says Waterbury Branch flood damage will likely take 4-5 weeks to fix

Ken Dixon

SEYMOUR — It will likely take four or five weeks and several million dollars in construction costs to repair a massive washout on the Metro-North Waterbury Branch line, after the Naugatuck River crashed through its banks on Sunday and gouged out the bed of about 220 feet of track overlooking the Kinneytown Dam.

During an inspection of the damage Thursday, Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi — whose crews will fix that and another, less-dangerous section to the north — and state DOT Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto, who will pay for it, voiced confidence that the work should put the 28.5-mile train line back to normal by early 2025. Until then, branch riders between Waterbury and Bridgeport will have bus service that parallels the branch line north and south along Route 8.

"Thankfully, the track structure is still there," Eucalitto said to reporters during an hour-long visit to the site, comparing it to widespread road damage elsewhere. "Half of the embankment is still there. It's not as severe as what I have seen down on Route 34, where that is a complete loss.

"Right now they're trying to scope out how much material," Eucalitto said. "Material is going to be one of the main drivers of cost. They're trying to determine the size of the rock that they're going to be using. It's going to be larger. It's not like the usual stone we see in the track bed. It's going to be maybe two-foot by two-foot stone to maybe prevent this from happening in the future. Then, what's the labor costs going to be? For this, it's entirely state-funded right now. We will hopefully meet the threshold for FEMA assistance."

Rinaldi, who has led Metro-North for the last six years, said the agency has coped with larger breaks like this due to storms in New York.

"It's a big project to bring the branch back, right? I mean, we're going to have to drop a lot of stone," she said. "We're going to have some logistical challenges in terms of completing the work. I think the good news is that we're working with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, both with respect to getting this done, but also with providing a substitute bus service that we'll be able to use to get our customers where they need to be while this is all 

According to Metro-North's 2023 annual report, the Waterbury Branch line carried 110,000 riders, up from 100,000 in 2022. The New Canaan Branch had about 600,000 passengers last year, while the New Haven line had 28.7 million riders.

Rinaldi said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is engaged in a resiliency study across the entire regional transit system. "Thousand-year storms seem to happen like every year now, so we're very mindful of the need to make the investments to harden the system." 

She said that one of the reasons why news reporters were invited on the inspection Thursday was to show the seriousness of the issue to the public and rail commuters who, for the foreseeable future, will be taking an estimated 16 buses a day.

Steve Kilpert, Metro-North's deputy director of track projects, said the angle of the Naugatuck River waterfall changed during the storm, causing the washout.

"It's probably about a 40-feet-deep, 220-feet-long cavity now to fill in," he said, standing a few feet from the 40-foot cliff created by the stormwater that will have to be smoothed out in a slope to bring down heavy equipment. "We'll start at the bottom, with large rock, building it, layering it up. Right now we're in the process of receiving equipment and materials to perform the work. This one is definitely a challenge."

 He said it's too soon to estimate cost, but it should be completed in five weeks.

As much as 75 percent of the restoration could be picked up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the state paying 25 percent as part of the recovery from last Sunday's storms that caused flooding that killed two women in Oxford and caused even small streams to overflow their banks and destroy bridges and roadways in parts of Southwestern Connecticut. Earlier this week, President Joe Biden accepted the state's emergency declaration, putting in motion federal reimbursements.

Eucalitto noted that in recent years, the state has made big investments in the Waterbury line to increase service, extend rail sidings for two-way train traffic and modernize signals. "It's one of our fastest growing ridership areas, so we're really focused on getting this restored," Eucalitto said. 

Eucalitto said that in other post-storm reconstruction work, Route 6 is fully reopened in Woodbury, but traffic is restricted to one lane at one of the washouts. He termed the two bridge breaks both north and south of the Stevenson Dam, in Monroe and Oxford, respectively, as long-term closures requiring complete replacements. Along Route 67 from Southbury to Seymour still has closures, pending roadway inspections as the stormwater flow falls.

"To get everything done will take months," he said.

Stamford's Hunting Ridge Road bridge replacement means detours for drivers until June 2025

Tyler Fedor

STAMFORD — The Hunting Ridge Road bridge will be closed until June 2025 while it is replaced with a structure that can withstand “pressures, velocities, impact and uplift forces from a 100-year flood,” according to the city’s website. 

The replacement and goal to withstand a “100-year flood” come after what experts called a 100-year storm drenched southwest Connecticut with three months of rain in just a few hours. 

Stamford saw flooding along the Rippowam River, which runs adjacent to the downtown area, while some areas in the southwest of the state saw up to 12 inches of rain. Two people were killed during the flooding and more than two dozen streets were washed out or damaged.

The Hunting Ridge Road bridge, just up the street from LaRocca’s Country Market in North Stamford, is the latest in a series of other bridges around the city that will also be replaced. 

The state will cover 45 percent of the $3.1 million it will take to replace the bridge, the condition of which was rated “poor” by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The bridge was built around 1940. 

The bridge was closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic on Aug. 12. 

Drivers can use Wildwood Road to get between Hunting Ridge Road and Long Ridge Road and get around the closed bridge. 

Other bridges across Stamford are also closed and will be replaced. 

The Cedar Heights Road bridge is expected to open Nov. 2, a year later than initially planned. 

The West Glen Drive bridge, just south of Mianus River Park, will be replaced and construction is planned to be finished Dec. 1. Drivers can get around the construction by taking Manus Road from Westover Road to Mimosa Drive. 

The Lakeside Drive bridge as of April 1 was closed to all traffic, including cyclists and pedestrians, according to the city. Drivers can use Interlaken Road to get to High Ridge Road to get around the bridge. The bridge is expected to be replaced and open by Fall 2024, according to the city’s website.

Spinnaker partners with neighboring developer on Wooster Square project, bringing more apartments to downtown New Haven

Hanna Snyder Gambini

Amultifamily development firm with high-profile projects in New Haven and statewide has partnered with another company to revive a dormant apartment project in the Elm City. 

Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners recently teamed with New York-based real estate development and investment firm Epimoni on a plan to build market-rate apartments at 20-30 Fair St., in the Wooster Square neighborhood of New Haven.

Darren Seid and Epimoni had plans for the 186-unit project approved by the City Plan Commission in 2021, but the development did not take shape. 

Nearly three years later, Spinnaker came on board as a partner and made plan modifications, which required another application to the city.

Frank Caico, executive vice president of development for Spinnaker, said his firm made changes to the number of units and the building layout. 

The footprint for the new six-story, $60 million project is still 160,000 square feet, but the number of units was reduced down to 168. 

The mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments have different configurations and are a bit more spacious than in the original plan, Caico said.

The new plans were approved at the commission’s July meeting. Spinnaker and Epimoni are working on financing and demolition of existing buildings on the site, Caico said.

Spinnaker is familiar with Seid through Epimoni’s neighboring multifamily housing project at 44 Olive St. 

The 20 Fair St. site will have five stories of apartments, with 1,000 square feet of retail space along with parking and amenities like a fitness center, communal areas and coworking space on the ground floor, Caico said.

Caico said this Fair Street project will also include a greenway connecting Wooster Square with the central downtown area around State Street, the train station and the Green.

The Fair Street building is expected to break ground in the first quarter of 2025, Caico said. 

It is one of several multifamily projects in New Haven for Spinnaker, which also has numerous projects in Norwalk, Hartford and Cheshire. 

In New Haven, Spinnaker is building The Anthem, which is part of the large-scale mixed-use Square 10 project on the site of the former New Haven Coliseum.

Spinnaker has recently completed its flagship project, The Audubon New Haven, which is a multi-building, multiphase, mixed-use project that first launched in July 2018, and has since brought a total of 470 market-rate units to the Elm City. 

The apartments at The Audubon New Haven are 100% leased, and tenants such as Orange Theory fitness and a restaurant have occupied the commercial space. Caico said there is still about 5,000 square feet of retail space available at The Audubon.