CT Construction Digest Friday March 25, 2022
DOT Chief Dreams Big, Needs Workers
Joseph Giulietti has lots of money to put electric buses on the road — but he’s struggling to find enough people to drive them.
That encapsulates a broader challenge Giulietti, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT), is taking on these days, a short-term problem mixed in with loads of long-term opportunity.
The problem is that he’s losing workers. Lots of them. Fast.
Because of a change in state government’s pension rules, workers throughout the system are retiring by the end of June. Giulietti is anticipating that he’ll need to hire between 600 to 800 workers, from bus drivers and snow-plow steerers to bridge inspectors, paving testers, and supervisors responsible for making sure crews are on the road and federal grant paperwork is in.
“People with 30 to 40 years of service are walking out the door,” bringing decades of institutional knowledge with them, the commissioner remarked during an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. “I’m signing a lot of retirement letters every day.”
If you ride the bus, you’ll notice ads for drivers. The ads include the acronym “CDL” — standing for certified driver’s license. You need one to drive a bus or snow plow. That makes it harder for Giulietti’s DOT to fill the newly open slots, because most people don’t have one.
So the DOT is looking at paying for trainees to get that license, the way Maine does. It is also learning from a new problem Maine encountered: Soon after receiving their state-subsidized licenses, some trainees were then leaving their new posts for CDL-mandated private-sector jobs that pay better. So Connecticut is looking to add a clawback to the offer, requiring trainees to pay back portions of the training cost if they leave within, say, five years
You may notice something else about the bus soon — it may be electrified. The state just announced it’s receiving $11.4 million from the feds toward the $25.7 million cost of adding 22 new electric buses to its fleet on top of the 12 already on the road. Giulietti said the state expects to replace all 800 of its buses with electric models over the next decade.
That’s just one example of the wide-ranging transit upgrades in store thanks to a windfall of cash heading our way. The recently passed federal infrastructure law will boost the DOT’s budget 38 percent, Giulietti said — and that doesn’t count another billion dollars available for local transportation projects, along with $66 billion more pouring into Northeast Corridor rail projects.
To that end, the state will work with Amtrak and Metro-North to cut the two-hour ride to New York by 10 minutes in the near future, and by 25 minutes within a decade. (Read more about that here.) That will require a range of efforts from track improvements to tech upgrades to regulatory changes and, perhaps, a tunnel under the current tracks in Bridgeport — the kind of work transportation officials like Giulletti could only dream of during the previous decades of government transportation austerity.
“It’s a game changer,” Giulietti said of all the new federal money.
Bus riders will also see new solar-powered shelters with up-to-the-minute arrival information, and stepped-up in conjunction with the Department of Housing to link occupants of new housing to mass transit, the commissioner said.
Giulietti, who is 69, has spent a half-century preparing for this moment, after first learning about mass transit infrastructure growing up in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood, at the intersection of Sea, Greenwich, and the Boulevard.
He used to take the city bus to Notre Dame High School. He got to know the drivers — who invited him to ride the full line to learn all the stops. (Sometimes they bought him an ice cream at the end.)
He started learning about the rails while studying to become a teacher at Southern Connecticut State. His program was cut part-way through his undergraduate career because of a glut of teachers in the market. Meanwhile, he scored a summer job as a conductor and ticket collector on the New Haven Line.
Giulietti progressed after graduation to a series of jobs in Connecticut, New York, and Florida, learning how to keep the trains running on the ground, then running a system and adapting to new technology. After serving as executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, he returned north to serve as president of Metro North Railroad before taking the helm at the state DOT.
New Haven officials — who had fought with the DOT for decades over car-centered policy and the future of Union Station — welcomed the appointment of a hometown boy with deep transit roots. They haven’t been disappointed: The DOT switched gears and hammered out a long-sought agreement with New Haven over the future development of Union Station, with both sides now on the same page of boosting bus connections and adding retail. The deal was signed Dec. 21. (Click here to read as well about the DOT’s embrace of the reopening of a pedestrian and cyclist-friendly stretch of Columbus Avenue near the station.)
Meanwhile, Giulietti has tapped his nationwide contacts in states of varying blue-purple-red hues to cofound a Commuter Rail Coalition to lobby the federal government for increased support for trains, an effort that has already paid off.
Pedestrian bridge connecting Wilton center and train station eyed for summer start
WILTON — Town residents may soon see a major project in the heart of its downtown thought to create a connectivity to the area that has not been seen before.
A pedestrian bridge over the Norwalk River that has been in the works for years is set to go out to bid Friday. It is planned to connect Merwin Meadows Park and the surrounding Wilton Center with the Wilton Train Station.
Town Engineer Frank Smeriglio said Thursday that this long-anticipated project has been batted around long before he came to town in 2019.
When Smeriglio came on that year, the “project initially went out to bid” but came back with higher costs than initially expected. Then, some of the building plans were reworked and buffed while the town applied for a different grant to fund the project.
Funding for the bridge will come through a Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program, or LOTCIP, grant that Smeriglio said will not only cover 100 percent of the costs, but will include an added 10 percent of the total cost for possible contingencies and another 10 percent for construction administration.
The town initially received a $1.4 million grant for the project in February 2020. Town officials did not release current estimates for what the project would cost.
The bidding window is anticipated to close April 22.
“The bridge contractors will come in and they will have about three weeks to ask questions” on the drawings and project, Smeriglio explained. At that point, Smeriglio said, a final price point will be determined and construction can begin not too long after.
“We anticipate construction to start in the beginning part of the summer,” Smeriglio said.
Earlier in the week, he told the Board of Selectmen that a section of land underneath the bridge will be closed to the public during construction.
While construction is anticipated to last from the beginning of the summer until December, there are also a number of “punch list” items, such as plantings, that may need to be done in the spring of 2023. Smeriglio was careful to not solidify any timeline, saying that there are many factors at play.
One of those factors is the cost and delivery of materials, which Smeriglio said are very volatile at the moment.
Smeriglio also could not definitively say if the bridge could be opened in December, after the construction is expected to be finished, or in 2023.
“If we are able to get the project to a point where residents can walk safely, we may be able to open the bridge prior to the punch list work,” he offered cautiously.
Smeriglio said the project will have a big impact and improve connectivity in the town’s center.
“I think its very important,” he said. He noted that the town wants to connect existing and future residential developments along Danbury Road to the town center, as well as provide another option of parking at the Wilton Train Station for potential shoppers and diners in Wilton Center.
While Smeriglio and First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice believe the Planning and Zoning Commission to have already voiced its support for the project in the past, they vowed to check to make sure everything is copacetic once the bid is received.
Tweed neighbors, expansion opponents to meet Tuesday at East Haven library
Tweed New Haven Regional Airport neighbors and opponents of airport expansion who have been frustrated by the lack of information flowing their way will hold their own airport forum in a “Tweed Talk” meeting Tuesday night at East Haven’s Hagaman Memorial Library.
The meeting will focus both on the airport as it currently exists, with growing service from Avelo Airlines that has riled some airport neighbors, and as it might be following proposed runway extension and construction of a new terminal on the East Haven side of the airport, according to an announcement circulated on social media.
Organizers aim “to create a neighbor to neighbor conversation to share information regarding the current impacts of the airport now with increased service, as well as the potential impacts with the proposed runway expansion,” the announcement says.
The Tweed Talk meeting will take place from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Hagaman Memorial Library’s Community Room, 227 Main St. in East Haven. It also will be accessible online via Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87039593833.
The meeting is organized by 10,000 Hawks, an environmental organization that has taken a stand against Tweed expansion, said Lorena Venegas, who lives in East Haven and is a member of the 10,000 Villages executive committee.
Among the things that will be discussed are that “expansion is not a done deal” and that physical expansion “has not begun,” as well as the roles of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the public’s voice in the proces and questions about potential flooding, noise and costs, according to the handout.
“Neighbors will be sharing with other neighbors about what the EA (Environmental Assessment) process is,” it says. “The EA is supposed to give the community an opportunity to share with regulatory bodies concerns they may have about the proposed Tweed expansion.”
Venegas, who has been one of the most vocal East Haven residents against airport expansion, said 10,000 Villages, which was organized by Rachel Heerema, a resident of New Haven’s Morris Cove neighborhood, has sought to broaden its voice.
“What we’ve done is, we’ve elevated people” who are involved in different aspects of the group’s work, she said. “We have a research committee, a marketing committee, a planning committee and an executive committee” that’s “committed to working ‘higher angles,’ including working with federal agencies and seeking federal grants,” Venegas said.
“We expect that whoever shows up is going to have different viewpoints,” she said.
Among the topics to be discussed are the effects on wetlands, noise, air pollution “and the social costs of having expansion here,” Venegas said. The meeting also will include “action tables” where attendes can sign a petition or pick up signs, she said.
The meeting “is open to anyone,” she said.
Tweed New Haven Airport Authority Executive Director Sean Scanlon said he had not been invited to attend or to speak.
Tweed-New Haven, owned by the City of New Haven, straddles the New Haven-East Haven border, with roughly half of the airport property in each municipality.
Avelo, Tweed’s only airline, currently flies to six destinations, all in Florida: Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers and Sarasota-Bradenton. All use Tweed’s existing terminal on the New Haven side of the airport.
It will add four additional destinations — Nashville; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Charleston, S.C.; and Savannah, Ga.-Hilton Head, S.C. — on May 6. Then on May 26 it will add flights from Tweed to Chicago’s Midway International Airport, Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Tweed’s $70 million long-term plan calls to pave portions of the existing turf runway safety areas to lengthen the runway from the current 5,600 feet to 6,635 feet and build a new, 74,000-square-foot terminal on the East Haven side of the airport, while moving the airport’s entrance to the East Haven side. The new terminal and entrance would require the approval of various East Haven boards and commissions, among other things.
The expansion would be financed by Tweed’s Goldman Sachs-owned operator, Avports LLC.
STAMFORD — After Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled in its favor, Stamford developer Building and Land Technology is moving forward with rebuilding more of the South End.
Harbor Point’s developer plans immediately “to move foward and begin work on” building more than 700 new apartments on the former B&S Carting, according to BLT spokesman Rob Blanchard.
“The site, a former trash hauling facility, which has unfortunately remained a vacant brownfield in the center of the South End neighborhood, can finally be reincorporated into the fabric of the community,” Blanchard said in a statement.
Even though a development plan for the buildings cleared the city zoning board in 2020, its future was tied up in the court system after a group of South End residents in 2019 filed a petition pushing back on a Planning Board change allowing denser development in the area.
However, the State Supreme Court this month cleared the way for BLT to build 714 units across the two parcels it owns between Woodland Avenue and Walter Wheeler Drive. After years of legal acrimony between Stamford’s Board of Representatives and the developer, the justices upheld a lower court decision that essentially voids the resident petition.
The new apartments will be split unevenly between BLT’s two lots on the site. The western half, which is about three acres, will house 174 apartments and include 218 parking spaces, according to the 2020 application. Application materials from the time show the finished building ranging from four to six stories, with the highest points closest to the center of the property.
The larger, eastern half of the property is planned for buildings ranging from seven to 25 stories, making it home to one of the tallest buildings in Harbor Point. Across roughly four acres, the developer plans to build 540 apartments and 690 parking spaces. BLT will place all its city-mandated affordable housing on this property, adding 54 homes to the local stock of below market-rate units.
Despite its approval, the plan for the B&S Carting site drew mixed emotions during the public hearing process. While BLT pointed to the municipal benefits that an updated B&S Carting site would bring, some longtime South End residents shuddered publicly at the prospect of BLT building densely on another site in the South End. Despite BLT’s promise to include robust roadway infrastructure for the neighborhood and millions of dollars in revenue for the city, South End stalwarts asked for a lower-rise approach to developing the site, since it abuts more traditional residential streets.
Just as residents have consistently argued for lower-density development on the site, BLT has consistently argued that it was impossible. Because the B&S Carting site contains contaminated soil, “the costs of remediation and municipal infrastructure upgrades that come with this project are substantial,” said company co-president Ted Ferrarone in a 2020 statement to The Stamford Advocate.
BLT declined to provide an exact timeline on when the environmental remediation and construction work would begin.
New London revises community center plans to meet $30 million budget
New London — The city has redesigned its Community Recreation Center to keep it within its $30 million budget and adjust to changing market conditions.
The building’s footprint is smaller and, because of the skyrocketing costs of steel, designers have opted for a brick and concrete structure rather than a steel curtain design.
Felix Reyes, director of the city’s Office of Development and Planning, presented the changes for the first time publicly at Monday’s City Council meeting. He is part of a special task force meeting regularly with the project’s design and construction teams.
Reyes said the changes are a natural part of an evolution of the project that has moved from conceptual to design phase and come amid volatile market conditions. The downsized structure comes without sacrifice of any community needs, he said.
“We have to truly understand what we can design and what we can build,” Reyes said. “We can design the Taj Mahal … but are we designing what we can afford and are we designing what the market can provide as far as materials?”
The center is being designed by architectural firm Silver/Petrucelli + Associates under the guidance of construction manager Downes Construction Co. The management firm Brailsford & Dunlavey oversees the project.
The community center will be located on a portion of two city-owned parcels totaling nearly 7 acres on the Fort Trumbull peninsula — parcels 3B and 3C.
Plans call for the center to be situated on one parcel and separated from a 100-space parking lot by an existing roadway. It’s a change from initial conceptual plans that would have altered the course of the roadway to create a new entrance to the property. Keeping the road where it is now saves on costs of relocating utilities that already follow the roadway, Reyes said.
What had been a 62,000-square-foot two-story building is now a 58,000-square-foot building.
The downsizing was accomplished by a decrease in the size of three multi-purpose rooms, tightening of corridors and by slightly shrinking the size of locker rooms, fitness rooms, office spaces and the gymnasium, documents associated with the project show.
Outside amenities are not included in the $30 million budget.
The total project budget of $30 million had anticipated hard costs of construction to be roughly $22 million, leaving $8 million for soft costs and a contingency fund. The current hard cost estimates put the price tag closer to $26 million. The goal, Reyes said, is to get to a guaranteed maximum price of $25 million for construction costs.
The state has contributed an additional $1.2 million toward the project for site work and environmental remediation through a Brownfield Remediation Program. That money is in addition to the $30 million approved by the City Council.
The community recreation center will still have a two-court gymnasium, eight-lane pool, indoor track, workout and games rooms and a wing of the building dedicated to the headquarters for the city Recreation Department and its associated programs. That wing will include a community lounge, classroom space for early childhood program, instructional kitchen and other amenities.
“We’re still delivering what we promised to the community,” Reyes said.
There is also space for the future facilities manager, an outside firm expected to generate the programmatic requirements and memberships needed to meet the operational costs of the center.
Early estimates put the costs of operating the community center at about $2.1 million per year. Council member John Satti, who was against the use of Fort Trumbull for the center, said about $500,000 annually is needed to cover the pool upkeep alone and questioned the city’s plan for generating what amounts to $175,000 per month to meet operational costs.
“How do you plan to come up with that $2.1 million a year? Is that something you’re going to expect taxpayers to pay or that something this facility will be able to generate itself? If so, please explain how,” Satti asked Reyes at Monday’s meeting.
Reyes reiterated that its has been a goal from the beginning to have a business plan with memberships, rental fees and sponsorships generating the needed revenue while providing an affordable income-based membership plan for residents.
It may take up to four years, Reyes said, for the building to reach a point where its revenues match costs. The city will look to operate the center without a burden on taxpayers though the city does plan to pick up some maintenance costs associated with things like snow plowing and garbage pickup.
“It’s a new way of doing things, a new business model for the city,” Reyes said.
Final details of how the money will be generated have not yet been finalized.
Reyes said the city expects that revenue to exceed operational costs in the future which will allow to chip away at debt incurred with the construction of the center.
“It’s important for the city to go after every dollar to help with debt service,” Reyes said.
Further updates on the progress of the community center planning are to be provided to the public at every other council meeting. Planning for another public meeting is also underway. Construction is slated to start later this year.