CT Construction Digest Friday June 9, 2023
New federal courthouse sites in Hartford drawing sharp scrutiny, opposition
One of three options for a new, $335 million federal courthouse in Hartford — the Bushnell South redevelopment area — already is drawing strong local opposition, and some argue the federal government should take a step back and see how a courthouse would better fit into the city’s overall redevelopment plans.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin told federal officials this week that the Bushnell South area — a swath of parking lots near The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts — is targeted for residential redevelopment, not for an institutional use such as a courthouse.
“It sits at the center of a redevelopment area that the City of Hartford has identified as one of 10 transformative development districts,” Bronin said. “That area is prioritized for residential development, mixed-use development that will activate it 24/7, that will bring feet on the street, that will reconnect our Main Street corridor to the Capitol and Park Street down to Bushnell Park.”
Bronin’s comments came during the first public meeting by the U.S. General Services Administration on the three proposed sites for a new federal courthouse to replace the aging Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building and Courthouse on Main Street.
The properties include: the 2.5-acre parking lot at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Hudson Street in the Bushnell South; a 2-acre parking lot on Allyn Street, west of the XL Center; and a state office building on 10 acres at the corner of Asylum and Woodland streets in the city’s Asylum Hill neighborhood.
A decision on the site is not expected until the summer of 2024. Construction could start in 2026 with completion in 2029, according to the GSA. The project would be financed with federal funds that have been approved by the U.S. Congress.
Tuesday’s meeting was attended by about 50, with about a dozen addressing the proposals at the Hartford Public Library’s Park Street branch. About half opposed bringing the courthouse to the Bushnell South area, with others favoring Allyn Street and still others, Woodland Street.
“I am absolutely against the site at Hudson and Capitol,” said Leslie Hammond, who lives in the immediate area and is a local real estate agent. “CRDA, The Bushnell and city officials have worked really, really hard to develop that area into townhouses, apartments, retail. It would just be really a shame to have a courthouse in the midst of that.”
CRDA is the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority that has helped finance apartment conversions in and around downtown with state taxpayer-backed loans. CRDA also has taken a role in urban planning on large projects such as Bushnell South. A preferred developer has been chosen for the first parking lot to be developed at Bushnell South.
Hammond said the Allyn Street site would be better because it is near Union Station and another federal building on High Street. The Woodland Street site would be too busy, given heavy traffic on Asylum and the presence of St. Francis Hospital nearby, Hammond said.
‘Sweeping master planning’
Some said federal officials aren’t taking into account how the courthouse will fit into larger planning considerations for the city’s future before weighing individual sites. Considering a site in Bushnell South is an example.
“These are big sweeping master planning kind of things, and we’re tackling it like it’s a sub-lot subdivision,” Michael W. Freimuth, CRDA’s executive director, said, after Tuesday’s meeting. “It’s still at the 40,000-foot level, but they’re already down at the street working. And I don’t think that’s fair. We have to get between those two points.”
Freimuth points to the city’s adopted master plan of development and the state’s Capital Center district that seeks to concentrate government buildings such as courthouses around the state Capitol. Areas could include south on Washington Street and west on Capitol Avenue to Broad Street.
For instance, Freimuth said, the former offices of the Hartford Courant on Broad Street could be a possibility for the courthouse.
The state has already tried to sell for development the parking lot to the south of The Courant’s old building, Freimuth said. The site is near downtown and close to highway access. One consideration is how I-84 might be reconfigured in the future, Freimuth said.
Decisions also should consider the aftermath of the pandemic and the large blocks of vacant office space in the downtown area as more corporate employees work from home, Freimuth said.
New courthouse push
For years, there has been a push by members of Connecticut’s Congressional delegation to replace the Ribicoff courthouse. The courthouse, built in 1963 and renamed for Ribicoff, a former governor and U.S. Senator in 1980, is so outdated that those who have been detained move through the same corridors as the public.
Construction of a new, 281,000-square-foot courthouse is seen as crucial for tackling significant ongoing security, space and building condition problems, court officials have said.
The state office building on Woodland was disclosed as a new option last week by the GSA as replacing a parking lot at 10 Ford St. across from Bushnell Park. The lot, where a former hotel was demolished in 1990, was withdrawn by its owner, Hartford-based Chase Enterprises.
GSA officials said it is too early to say whether the Woodland Street building, built in 1930, would be demolished or renovated if it is chosen.
The Woodland Street site drew support from the neighboring University of Connecticut School of Law.
“The close proximity of the court to the law school would provide exciting new opportunities for a collaboration between the two institutions,” said Paul Chill, associate dean for academic affairs at the law school.
Chill said the law school would provide the courts easy access to an expansive law library and other events throughout the year. The university also hopes to buy a nearby building on Sherman Street that is no longer needed by the state attorney general for clinical and “access to justice” programs, Chill said.
“A new federal courthouse on the Woodland site would become the linchpin of an exciting new locus of law, learning and justice in the West End,” Chill said.
Meanwhile, Bronin did not back a site at Tuesday’s meeting, but did express a concern about the future of the Ribicoff building once a new courthouse is built. The building must remain occupied and active. If renovations are needed to make that happen, the funding should be part of the overall courthouse relocation plan.
“If that building were to go vacant and dark, then any benefits that came from building a new courthouse would be more than off weighed by the negative results of leaving a whole city block vacant, deteriorating and dragging a community down rather than building it up,” Bronin said.
Latest New Britain project would add 49 apartments, ground-floor retail on edge of downtown
A New Britain business owner plans 49 apartments on Park Place, the newest of more than a dozen multifamily projects either recently completed or still under way in and around downtown.
Peter Delfino is tearing down a three-family house at the corner of West Main Street and Park, and announced he intends to put up an apartment building with ground-floor retail and offices.
Architectural images show a four-story building with some parking beneath the ground floor. Delfino intends to construct a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments to be leased at market rates.
Delfino plans to have contractors pour the foundation for the new building this summer, and hopes to open in about 16 months or less. He will name it Catarina on the Park in recognition of his mother.
“New Britain is where I grew up, Connecticut is my heart,” Delfino said Wednesday. “When we bought that property, my dad and I had a vision to develop that whole corner. It took a lot longer than we thought, but I’ll be so proud and happy for my mom.”
Delfino and his late father, Guiseppe, owned parcels along West Main for years. Delfino still manages Mister Joseph’s hair salon on the corner, a building that was formerly a Friendly’s restaurant. About eight years ago, he bought the vacant three-story house alongside it, and a contractor has been demolishing the house for the past week or two.
The new building will be a gateway to downtown for people coming in on West Main Street, said Mayor Erin Stewart, who called the location the dividing line between downtown and the West End.
“It’s an interesting development for Park Place because of the proximity to the New Britain Museum of American Art and Walnut Hill Park,” she said. “It will be built into the topography of the land so it will look like only three or four stories from some areas.”
The neighborhood already has chiropractic and specialty medical offices, and Delfino’s project will fit in well, she said.
“This falls perfectly under what we’ve been talking about with in-fill development, where you’re taking underutilized or vacant properties and using them,” she said. “And there’s no shortage of people who want to live by the museum and Walnut Hill Park. That area is very attractive to people.”
Most of New Britain’s recent new housing surge has been concentrated downtown. On Main Street alone, for instance, Jasko Development is adding 107 apartments at The Brit along with first-floor retail and restaurant space, while its second project — The Highrailer — will create another 114 apartments with more commercial and retail space.
Nearby, Amit Lakhotia is undertaking a $17 million conversion of the American Savings bank building into nearly 80 apartments. His plans include adding a third and fourth floor to the two-story building on West Main Street.
Daniel Czyzewski remodeled 222 W. Main St., a five-story building, into apartments with a popular first-floor dining area called The Assembly Room, and now plans another project on Arch Street.
“I’ve been contacted by former New Britain residents who want to come back and move in,” Stewart said. “Some people ask ‘at what point does it become too much housing? Well, the demand is so high, the only way to bring prices down is to increase the supply.”
DANBURY — Word from Hartford that local taxpayers will be reimbursed another $10 million for the $154 million west side campus the city plans to build for 1,400 upper school students is either great news or terrible news, depending on your political party.
“We are damn lucky we got the $10 million,” said state Sen. Julie Kushner, the highest-ranking member of Danbury’s Democrat-controlled state delegation. She was speaking of the amount that the state agreed to reimburse the city for buying the 24-acre property.
“The real issue here is because (Danbury Mayor Dean) Esposito went out and announced before any assessment that $57 million was a great deal, it put us in a box to spend $20 million more than it was worth,” Kushner said of the purchase price for the former Cartus Corp. headquarters.
“I get a little upset about this inaccurate information, and we know what it is called – it’s called a lie,” Esposito said on Thursday, after the Danbury delegation put out a statement saying they fixed “a costly and previously unknown property negotiation error by the city.”
“The Democratic delegation didn’t do what we asked them to do. They showed up a day late and a dollar short as far as I am concerned,” Esposito said.
The short version of the political battle in Danbury is that City Hall crafted special legislation it expected the state delegation would include in the state budget that would give Danbury $22 million in reimbursement costs for buying the west side property for a new career academy, and in other aid related to solving the overcrowding crisis at Danbury High School.
Esposito said he was upset that the delegation secured only $10 million and was indignant that Democrats blamed him for being “bamboozled into spending $22 million more over appraised value for the academy property and (failing) to tell voters before the referendum.”
“The Democratic council leadership … knew as much about what was going on as we did, including the fact that we were almost certainly going to end up paying $57 million,” Esposito said.
Democrats responded that legislators in Hartford didn’t look more favorably on Danbury’s special legislation request because Gov. Ned Lamont was pressuring lawmakers to pare down the school construction bill and because “for over a generation, Danbury’s government has underfunded public education.”
“We could not get the $22 million because the leadership of the Education Committee didn’t want to give all that to a city that has been dead last in per pupil spending,” said state Rep. Bob Godfrey, the dean of the Danbury delegation. “They didn’t want to help a municipality that wouldn’t help itself. They gave us the $10 million because we begged.”
Kushner agreed.
“It wasn’t a realistic expectation to ask for a lot of money
based on a problem that the mayor’s office was actually responsible for,” she
said. “We worked really hard to get this $10 million and it should not be seen
as a negative.”
But Antonio Iadarola, the city engineer and director of public works who is
quarterbacking the construction of the campus and who crafted the special
legislation, disagreed.
“My reimbursement should have been $45 million,” Iadarola said, referring to the 80 percent state reimbursement he asked for in the special legislation for the academy property’s $57 million purchase price. “They got me $39 million.”
Iadarola also asked for reimbursement for the increased the cost of the west side academy from $154 million to $158.5 million to account for COVID-related delays and inflation. He also sought $2 million to move as many as 500 Danbury High School students to classrooms at Western Connecticut State University’s west side campus for one year, until the 2025-26 opening of the city’s new high school and middle school on Apple Ridge Road.
“They didn’t give us half of what we asked for,” Iadarola said.
The sticking point for Democrats over the purchase price of the 24-acre academy site is that Esposito negotiated a $57 million price before the city commissioned official appraisals – both of which came in at $36 million in the spring of 2022.
The city later agreed to pay $57 million when the owner refused to budge and produced two appraisals of his own, both valuing the property at $57 million.
Since the state would only recognize the city’s appraisals for reimbursement — and not the private appraisals of the seller — the city moved to recoup state reimbursement on the $20 million the city spent above its appraisals through special legislation.
“That is what we asked (the state delegation) to fix with the special legislation that they said that they fixed — but they didn’t,” Iadarola said.
The city paid the higher price because it had to, said Robert Yamin, the city’s corporation counsel.
“(The seller) had a monopoly on what we needed,” Yamin said. “We could have condemned it – in fact I instructed our litigation counsel to draw up condemnation papers … but we knew it would have been a disaster. We would have been tied up with them for three years.”
The next step, both sides agreed on Thursday, is to go back to the legislature next year and seek the rest of the $22 million in the city’s special legislation.
“We all need to come together and try to close the gap on it next year,” Kushner said.
Torrington East Main St. sidewalk project to bring traffic shifts beginning Friday
TORRINGTON — New sidewalks are being installed along East Main Street in a project that begins Friday and continues until October, according to city officials.
The project will include new sidewalks and curbing on the north side, or downhill lane side, of East Main Street.
"Our local businesses will be open although access may be restricted temporarily due to sidewalk installation at their driveways," officials said in a statement.
The public should expect daily traffic delays and shifting traffic lanes; middle lanes will be closed in sections of the roadway.
Drivers are advised to avoid these roads and use alternate routes such as Kennedy Drive or New Harwinton Road/Route 4. Emergency vehicles are allowed at all times. No parking will be permitted within the right-of-way areas, and vehicles in violation will be ticketed and towed at the owner's expense.
In April 2022, Paul Kundzins, deputy director of Public Works, and engineer Mark Austin developed the project, which is to install new sidewalks on East Main Street from Fern Drive to just past Torringford Street at the Target and Big Lots shopping center intersections.
The city held online forums in 2021 to gather input on safety and traffic issues on East Main Street, or Route 202, one of Torrington's busiest commercial areas with numerous restaurants, gas stations, car dealerships, shopping centers and other types of stores and service businesses.
For more information, contact the City of Torrington Engineering Department at 860-489-2234, Mark_Austin@torringtonct.org or visit the Engineering Department website link for Construction Projects 2022/2023 at torringtonct.org.
Residents are also encouraged to sign up for the Torrington Alerts Community Notification System to keep up to date with project updates. Visit www.torringtonct.org/Alerts for more information.
CT budget deal gives Stratford say in Sikorsky Airport lease, sale
BRIDGEPORT — The new bi-partisan state budget lawmakers passed earlier this week includes millions of dollars for this cash-strapped city, but also potentially complicates future efforts to have another entity take over Bridgeport's Stratford-based airport, Sikorsky Memorial.
Compromise language aimed at preventing a legislative war between lawmakers from the two neighboring municipalities was inserted into the budget granting the Stratford Town Council a say if Bridgeport officials want another entity to "lease" or "purchase" Sikorsky.
Since at least the fall of 2021 Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim's administration had been negotiating a sale to the Connecticut Airport Authority. But the talks have since March turned to reaching an operating agreement for CAA to manage the aviation facility for Bridgeport and revive long-dormant regular passenger service there.
State Rep. Steven Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, who negotiated the budget language with Stratford Republican Kevin Kelly, the GOP leader in the Senate, emphasized it will not impact an operating deal, which CAA head Kevin Dillon had in a March interview specified would be less complex and time-consuming than a formal lease.
"Senator Kelly and I had a really productive conversation over the last few days," Stafstrom said Wednesday. "I think we both realized that in order for Sikorsky to be an economic driver for the state, the relations between Bridgeport and Stratford need to improve and there needs to be better dialogue not just between the respective city halls but with the state through the legislative delegation."
"The idea is not for Stratford to have an outright veto, but for Stratford to have a voice at the table," Stafstrom continued, noting the budget language specifies that an approval of a lease or sale "shall not be unreasonably withheld."
"In other words, if they just say 'we don't like it' without a valid reason, then that could potentially give Bridgeport judicial recourse to force a lease or sale," Stafstrom said.
Kelly did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
For months there has been tension between Ganim's and Stratford Republican Mayor Laura Hoydick's administration's over the former's plans for Sikorsky. Hoydick last year submitted a counter-offer to buy the airport, arguing her town was better suited to own it than the Windsor Locks-based CAA located over an hour away.
But Ganim and other proponents of the CAA takeover have repeatedly argued the authority, which already operates Bradley International in Windsor Locks and a handful of other Connecticut airports, is best suited to make Sikorsky more successful for the region and Connecticut. Currently the facility only caters to private, business and charter planes, not commercial air carriers.
In March Hearst Connecticut Media reported that a preliminary assessment of the potential high costs of environmental clean-up that CAA would have to, under state law, assume at Sikorsky should it become the owner had resulted in the authority opting to instead seek an operating arrangement there.
But prior to that after the current 2023 state legislative session got underway in January, Kelly and state Rep. Joseph Gresko, D-Stratford, submitted a handful of bills aimed at complicating a sale. One would have given Stratford the right of first refusal to buy, another required Stratford's approval of any sale, and the others attached strings involving historic preservation and future environmental impacts.
As the session moved forward toward this week's final budget vote and Wednesday's adjournment, Bridgeport and Stratford legislators engaged in behind-the-scenes wrangling, the former trying to find ways to block Kelly's and Gresko's proposals, and the latter seeking to revive them.
It got to the point, Stafstrom said, where the rivalry would have interfered with passage of an important state transportation bill sent from the Senate to him and his colleagues in the House of Representatives. So the two sides called a truce.
"I think cooler heads prevailed and an outright fight between the Bridgeport and Stratford legislative delegations over language is not in the best interest for either town or for the airport," he said.
State Rep. Christopher Rosario, D-Bridgeport, on Wednesday acknowledged that Kelly is influential and state representatives and senators from Bridgeport did not want to do anything to "jeopardize" the roughly $34 million worth of aide they otherwise secured for the city.
"We had so many great things to deliver to the city, both to our residents and the (Ganim) administration," Rosario said. "This was just one of those situations where we just had to find a middle ground to move forward. And, to be honest with you, the way Steve and our legislative attorneys explained it, I think it's reasonable. I think the (Ganim) administration and Stratford can live with this language."
Reached Wednesday, Daniel Roach, the Ganim aide who has been closely involved in the talks with the CAA, declined to comment. And Dillon and his office also did not return requests for comment.
Hoydick said she has no problem with the CAA operating Sikorsky but has just wanted to make sure "Stratford is at the table in an equal position as Bridgeport on deciding the future of how the asset is run."
"They (the CAA) obviously are quite competent in what they do because they run Bradley," Hoydick said.
The situation has been a politically delicate one for Gresko. He represents the neighborhood around the airport, but also is a Ganim ally with a part-time job in Bridgeport City Hall.
"I think it's a fair compromise," Gresko said of the budget language related to the lease or sale of Sikorsky. "And if the day ever comes when Bridgeport does want to sell it, of course I would hope they would offer it to Stratford, first. And if the CAA was doing a good job in managing the airport between then and now, I don't see any reasons why the CAA couldn't continue to operate it, even if Stratford did own it."
Unclear is where the Federal Aviation Administration stands. A spokesperson there could not be reached for comment Wednesday. That agency has oversight of Sikorsky, has invested a lot of money in it and must approve of any deals between Bridgeport and the CAA.
Stafstrom acknowledged he has "heard" an argument that FAA regulations would supersede the language added to the state budget. But, he added, there is also nothing stopping future Connecticut lawmakers from repealing that budget language, either.
“There’s a lot of 'what ifs,'" Stafstrom said. "But I want to emphasize, the reason for this compromise, at least in my mind, is to try to get Stratford, Bridgeport the CAA all swimming in the same direction on the airport. I’m hoping this is a new start to that relationship.”
Developer planning distribution center on Subway property
Hanna Snyder Gambini
A headquarters property in Milford, and build a new 160,000-square-foot distribution center.
Robert Scinto of Shelton-based R.D. Scinto Inc., said he is under contract to buy the property at 325 Sub Way for an undisclosed amount that is “in the eight figures.”
The 7.5-acre property has an appraised value of more than $9.2 million.
Scinto has submitted plans to the city’s Inland Wetlands Agency for a new distribution facility that would be built on the bulk of the parking area for the longtime Subway facility.
Owners of Milford-based FCP Euro are negotiating with Scinto on a lease of the new distribution center and two other buildings that will be renovated.
FCP Euro is an e-commerce auto-parts distributor, bringing in auto parts for BMWs, Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagen, Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar, and shipping to vehicle owners who do their own repairs.
The company currently runs operations in two Milford locations totalling 105,000 square feet in the Hill Street Business Park, and a leased warehouse along Bic Drive that has low-bay ceilings.
The new campus would include the warehouse with 20 loading bays and higher ceilings to allow for more storage and distribution capabilities, along with a renovated 45,000-square-foot corporate office building and a remodeled 25,000-square-foot video production studio on one campus.
FCP Euro President and Founder Nick Bauer said he is looking to relocate to a larger facility since “the company has been growing steadily for the past 23 years and we are out of space.”
Bauer said the company is on track to reach $1 billion in revenue in the next five to seven years.
The company has 245 employees and Bauer anticipates growing the staff as the distribution operation expands.
Scinto said it’s a major commitment for a Connecticut company to expand within the state, and that the new project is a boon for the city of Milford.
“This is a great project for the state, it’s hard to work in this state, with housing and energy costs, so to get a company to stay in the state, they could’ve gone anywhere, so this is a pretty significant transaction for Milford,” Scinto said.
Scinto estimates the entire project – building the new facility and renovating the smaller spaces – will be more than $20 million.
He would buy the property, build the facility then lease it out.
He said it’s more cost effective to demolish the 90,000-square-foot Subway building instead of renovating since it’s office space that was designed exclusively for Subway.
“There’s a lot of empty office space in Milford, the building has to be taken down,” Scinto said. “New buildings are very economical, and it’s hard to find space,” for manufacturing and distributing.
Subway is moving to Scinto’s Corporate One corporate office complex in Shelton.