CT Construction Digest Friday June 3, 2022
CT to build five all-new train stations, using nearly $32 million in state, federal funds
ENFIELD — For the first time in more than 35 years, there are plans for trains to stop in Enfield, with construction of a new station to begin in less than two years.
Designs will be completed in the summer of 2023, with plans to go out to bid for the project that fall, Garrett Eucalitto, deputy commissioner of the Department of Transportation, said at an announcement of the project Thursday.
“Construction should start in early of 2024,” Eucalitto said. “ConnDOT’s been working on the design in the hope we will get the federal funds and be ready to go with construction starting in about a year and a half after that.”
The new train station in Enfield will cost $13.8 million. That money is part of nearly $32 million slated for five new train stations in the state, with the projects funded through a near-even split of state bonding and federal grants, DOT Commissioner Joe Giulietti said.
The state bonding will supply $15.86 million, according to a DOT statement. Through the federal Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements grant program, the project received $13.86 million.
Enfield will be the newest stop on CTrail Hartford Line, connecting riders from to Amtrak and Metro-North.
“We had to assure Amtrak everything we were doing fit into their new plans with how many trains they intend to fund on this line going forward,” Giulietti said. “A new accessible station with a high-level platform will be constructed here. Riders can board and head north to Springfield — or south to New Haven and New York.”
The project is part of an effort by the state to improve rail service and by the town of Enfield to advance its Transit Oriented District plans.
There were joined at the announcement by several other officials, including Gov. Ned Lamont, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both D-Conn.
No airport link
Direct train transportation from Enfield, or anywhere in the state, to Bradley International Airport is still a dream, Giulietti said.
“I would love nothing more than to be coming up here and saying, ‘Yeah, we are putting a rail line right into that airport,’ because that’s what modern cities do. It’s one of the things we’ll work on toward the future. But in the meantime, we are setting up direct connects from both Hartford to the airport and as well from Windsor Locks to the airport,” he said.
“We can have regular service with a bus that will make the direct connection in going right in to provide the quickest service we can right now, whether we go with rapid transit bus or rail connection in the future.”
Bringing back the Enfield train station is one step in that process of increasing connectivity and reducing the need for cars in the state, Giulietti said.
The Enfield station will be intermodal, with passengers able to transfer to other rail services as well as to the state’s bus system, Courtney said. An additional $2.5 million was provided through a federal earmark and will assist in making the project intermodal, he said.
“This is going to be an intermodal project, not just a train station. People literally won’t have to get into an automobile to get the benefits of this service,” Courtney said. “This is a competitive grant. It’s almost cutthroat because there are so many applicants around the country going for a limited pot of money. For every award there were five applications across the country.”
The funds received by the federal government and the state bonding will go toward adding five new train stations in Connecticut: in Windsor, Windsor Locks, West Hartford and North Haven, along with Enfield, Blumenthal said.
“They’re going to be on a map of train transportation in a much bigger way, enabling the kind of development you see right here,” he said.
The increase in federal funds received for transportation in Connecticut is partially due to the state’s investment in its transportation and infrastructure improvements, Murphy said.
“We are able to win federal grants at a pretty dizzying pace for transportation projects in Connecticut because the DOT and White House knows that that money is going to be well spent in Connecticut and it’s going to be matched by state dollars,” Murphy said.
Top Waterbury, state and federal officials gathered in the cracked parking lot of a crumbling industrial complex in Waterbury Thursday afternoon, celebrating $4 million in new federal brownfield cleanup funds that will help clear away industrial eyesores in the greater Waterbury area.
It is part of a larger pool of about $7 million in new brownfield funds coming to Connecticut, in part, from the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
Federal officials passed over a big, ceremonial $150,000 check to Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary. That amount is targeted at finalizing studies of hazardous building materials in the decrepit Waterbury Companies industrial complex, so the city can move forward with demolition of the long-abandoned eyesore looming behind chain-link fence at 835 South Main St.
That brownfield, with its broken and boarded windows, and partially collapsed sections, provided a dramatic backdrop for Thursday’s press conference.
Another $3.9 million of the new federal funding is going to the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, a quasi-governmental entity providing planning, transportation and development services to 19 Naugatuck Valley municipalities, including Waterbury.
Rick Dunne, executive director of NVCOG, said the money will recharge the agency’s nearly depleted brownfields revolving loan fund, which is used to provide a portion of financing for brownfield projects that would otherwise be economically unfeasible.
Other Connecticut recipients include:
Renaissance City Development Association -- $615,000 for a cleanup at 43 Hempstead Street in New London
Luke's Development Corp. – $500,000 to clean up 117-125 Whalley Ave. and 129 Whalley Ave. in New Haven
The Town of Stafford – $650,000 to clean up the Earl M. Witt Intermediate School at 20 Hyde Park Road in Stafford
The Town of Vernon – $650,000 to clean up Daniels Mill at 98 East Main Street
The city of West Haven -- $500,000 in community-wide assessment funds to address various sites throughout the city. Intended target areas include properties near the West Haven's former landfill, the city’s eastern gateway and the Boston Post Road areas.
That Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments loan fund has previously deployed $5.2 million in public funds, leveraging $85 million from private investment and other government grants for brownfield cleanups, Dunne said, joking the fund is known as “magic money” for its ability to draw additional dollars.
David Cash, administrator of the Northeast region for the U.S. EPA, stressed that brownfield redevelopments disprove the notion that environmental action is counter to economic development.
“In fact, it’s the opposite,” Cash said. “Those two things go hand-in-hand. And all you need to do is look at any brownfield remediation and redevelopment to see that. Come back in five to 10 years and you’ll see the same thing here.”
Cash was among a string of politically prominent speakers, including U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal; Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes; U.S. representatives Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District and Jahana Hayes, D-5th District; and Janet McCabe, deputy administrator of the U.S. EPA.
The Waterbury Companies was an outgrowth of the Waterbury Button Co., a maker of brass buttons at the Waterbury site since the early 1800s. The legacy of the Waterbury Companies complex is much like that of several large-scale manufacturers that were once the economic backbone of the city. The former driver of prosperity has now fallen into rot and ruin, a dangerous and polluted eyesore and firetrap that taxpayers will pay to remove.
Officials expect to find familiar heavy metals, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants common to metals manufacturing in the soil and water beneath the site. But in what quantities, they won’t know until further study. And those studies can’t begin until the current crumbling complex is demolished and removed.
Brownfield cleanups are costly and lengthy. It costs several million dollars, at least, to clear away blighted factory buildings and address pollution beneath. Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary described the cleanup process as a “ladder with 15 rungs.” The city has probably reached the third rung in the cleanup of the former Waterbury Companies complex, O’Leary said.
O’Leary said he would like to get the factory demolished in 2023, a goal he admitted was optimistic.
After that the city would have to study subsurface pollution, and most likely clear that in whole or in part. That will cost millions more that will have to come from state or federal grants. Then the city can seek out a user for the site.
“People had no idea the mess they were making,” McCabe said during a press conference Thursday. “It’s taken decades to build up and will take decades to fix.”
McCabe and other speakers Thursday stressed the advantages and importance of clearing up sites like the Waterbury Companies, for social justice reasons as well as economic necessity.
McCabe said the Biden administration is targeting 40% of infrastructure spending at traditionally neglected and underserved areas, like the South Main St. corridor.
“This site will be a source of jobs and economic growth, turning blight into might and light, as opposed to what we have today, which is darkness,” Blumenthal said.
Murphy said there are companies eager to build in Waterbury and take advantage of its labor force potential and easy access to two interstate highways. Brownfield funding will help create building sites needed to secure new employers, he said.
“I think we should rename our brownfield program to the ‘Bring Jobs Back Program,’ because that is what we are doing today,” Dykes said.
State Sen. Joan V. Hartley, D-15th District, said the Waterbury Companies site is emblematic of the city’s past as the brass manufacturing capital of the world, and the difficult legacy of its former prosperity.
“So, to be able to reinvent this site is going to be a milestone for the city of Waterbury,” Hartley said. “For us to be able to put the lights back on here, to do the renewal, is going to be a game changer for the city of Waterbury, not just in terms of employment, but in terms of optics.”
Materials, labor shortages threaten data center construction boom
Demand for data center construction remains stronger than ever, but issues around labor, supply chain and inflation could mute the pace of building in the sector, according to a Turton Bond data center market report.
“The overall outlook for data center construction in 2022 will come with plenty of challenges and uncertainties,” the New York-based real estate consultant’s report stated, including the need to bring skilled labor to the rural areas where these projects are typically located.
The price of steel, a major component of data center construction, has increased just under 50% over the last 12 months, though it is down off recent highs. Other critical inputs have been on the rise, as well. “The majority of materials right now are still showing that they’re increasing on a quarterly basis,” said Darren Flood, director of Turton Bond’s San Francisco office. “This is worrying too.”
Flood noted that his firm’s data center clients still want to build.
“They said that they have never been building at this pace, and that pace going forward is only going to increase,” Flood said.
But the triple threat of rising prices, continually choked supply chains and scarce labor availability are standing in the way of that demand.
Turton Bond has worked with Google and Facebook in the past. Google plans to invest $9.5 billion in offices and data centers in the U.S. this year, while Meta, parent company of Facebook, recently launched two more data centers in Temple, Texas and Kansas City, Missouri (pictured above).
To be sure, activity in the sector has been brisk, and the same challenges that stand in the way of more physical development are also contributing to demand for it.
“The data center market has been a solid performer over the past several years, and the repercussions from the pandemic are likely to be a further boost to the sector,” said Richard Branch, chief economist at Dodge Data & Analytics, during a mid-year construction outlook webinar. “Increased working from home and hybrid work will create demand for more robust cloud-based systems resulting in continued strength in data center construction.”
Through the first quarter of 2022, for example, data center construction has been on a tear, according to Dodge. Starts reached $1.4 billion during the first three months of 2022, a 29.2% increase from the first quarter of 2021. That’s double the pace for construction starts in general.
But inflation, supply chain constraints and labor shortages create an unpredictable market, which may affect the data center construction sector, according to the Turton Bond report.
For example, the nature of most data center projects, which can be located far from cities where land is cheap, creates a need to import workers.
“This creates a need to incentivize subcontractors to [come to] the area to complete the required work,” the report said. “Overall, the outlook for availability of trades is optimistic in 2022, but with a strong pipeline of construction works, a labor squeeze is likely to increase construction costs.”
Operators who focus on procuring key materials and equipment early, have good relationships with vendors and can secure warehouse space for storing equipment and products offsite are the ones making headway in this challenging environment, the report said.
“Smaller companies that build the two megawatt to four megawatt data centers, they’re probably not going to have that relationship with the vendors,” Flood said. “Supply chain is definitely still an issue right now.”
Natural gas legislation: What multifamily developers, owners need to know
Jen A. Miller
Whether Pennsylvania passes a statewide ban on municipal natural gas bans, it won’t much affect Philly Office Retail. The adaptive reuse-focused real estate developer has already been opting for electricity over gas whenever possible.
“The natural inclination is to try to be more sustainable. If it’s something that can be done without hitting the pocketbook, then it makes sense to do it. It could be a win-win,” said Ken Weinstein, president of Philly Office Retail.
Bans on natural gas hookups in new buildings are spreading across the country. In 2019, Berkeley, California, was the first city to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings. So far, 77 cities in 10 states have taken some form of local government action, with most of those cities in California.
At the same time, however, 20 states have passed statewide bans on natural gas bans, preventing local governments from enacting similar restrictions.
“Any point of change in how we do things creates a little bit of upheaval in the system,” said Kim Cheslak, director of codes at the New Buildings Institute, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit focused on improving the energy performance of commercial buildings.
Here’s what multifamily developers and owners operating in markets that might be affected by such legislation need to know.
New York City takes the plunge
Just like electric cars, electrifying buildings is being presented as a pathway to minimizing pollution and dependence on fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and homes, primarily from burning fuel for heat, made up 13% of the U.S.’s greenhouse emissions in 2020, according to the EPA.
In addition, homes and apartments with gas stoves can have a 50% to 400% higher concentration of nitrogen dioxide — which can affect respiratory health, especially for those with asthma — than homes with electric stoves, per a study from RMI, a Colorado-based sustainability nonprofit.
In December 2021, New York City became the largest U.S. city to enact such a law; it will go into effect for new construction under seven stories in 2024 and in mid-2027 for taller structures.
“To my mind, this new law would be the beginning of the end of the fossil-fuel industry in America’s biggest city and a world capital,” Pete Sikora, the climate director of New York Communities for Change, told The New York Times.
New York could be the first to pass a ban on natural gas hookups in new construction at a statewide level. It would mandate all-electric new buildings after 2023 (except where deemed not feasible due to the availability of equipment and labor), though legislation is stalled.