CT Construction Digest Friday May 13, 2022
After finishing Norwalk apartment complex, developer begins an even bigger one
NORWALK — In 2010 when Building and Land Technology was completing its first Stamford high-rise in the new Harbor Point district, construction costs were kept in check as Connecticut slogged through the Great Recession.
A dozen years later as it readies for its largest project since Harbor Point, BLT says it is committed to the North Seven development it is planning in Norwalk — despite runaway inflation that is sending building costs soaring.
BLT has completed the third and final building of The Curb just north of the Merritt Parkway in Norwalk. The project had been Connecticut’s single-largest apartment complex under construction with more than 700 units.
The pandemic has sent costs soaring for builders. Steel prices rocketed up 127 percent last year, according to the Associated General Contractors of America, with little sign of easing heading into the summer construction season and sky-high prices for diesel fuel creating an extra pinch.
BLT is in the planning stages for North Seven, which would add another 1,300 apartments in seven buildings a short walk to the Merritt 7 Metro-North train station and a pair of office parks housing the headquarters of Xerox, Terex, Frontier Communications, FactSet, Emcor, and the Financial Accounting Foundation among others. BLT also owns the One Glover apartment building, which has about 130 units.
“If you think about what we’re going to build here, it piggybacks off of what we did in Harbor Point,” Ted Ferrarone, co-president of Stamford-based BLT, said this week during a tour of The Curb’s newest building.
“If you think about the original Merritt 7 plan, it was all offices, and at the time, I think that was probably how master planners thought about things. But what we saw at Harbor Point is that you really need the housing and offices together, make it a place where people want to live and work — especially during the pandemic.”
Ferrarone said about one of every four residents are moving to The Curb from within Norwalk, and a slightly higher margin from other cities and towns in Fairfield County.
“There’s a strong correlation to local employers — a lot of their employees are living here to be close,” Ferrarone said. “If you are living and working in New York City, you are paying a lot of money for a little space. Here, you get a lot of space for a reasonable amount.”
Families comprise anywhere from 15 percent to 20 percent of tenants, according to Rebecca Marlowe, an area manager for BLT.
Ferrarone said a number of retirees have also taken apartments after selling their houses during the pandemic real estate boom, as an interim step to finding their next home.
“People are calling and saying, ‘I’m thinking about listing my house and I’m worried that the market is so hot I am going to have to move out quickly’ — we see quite a bit of that,” Ferrarone said. “We also see a lot of people who will rent and use that as a base to get a better sense of Fairfield County before buying.”
As of this week, studio apartments at The Curb were priced between $1,900 and $2,000 a month on Apartments.com. Single-bedroom units ranged between $2,200 and $3,000, while BLT asked for anywhere from $3,100 to more than $3,400 for a two-bedroom.
If built according to BLT’s plan for more than 2,000 units, North Seven would trail only Harbor Point and Danbury’s Reserve as the largest residential district under construction in Connecticut.
Stamford’s Roxbury School to be replaced with $86M K-8 facility
STAMFORD — With funding mostly secured for a new Westhill High School, officials are now turning their attention to the school across the street: Roxbury Elementary School.
The plan is to build a new Roxbury behind the existing building and then demolish the current 68-year-old structure. The new school will serve students from kindergarten to eighth grade with an expected enrollment of roughly 850 students.
In all, the project is expected to cost $86 million. It already cleared one hurdle, receiving authorization from the city’s Planning Board on Tuesday. If city officials sign off on the project, it will be submitted to the state for reimbursement by the end of June.
The amount the city receives from the state, if the project is approved, would be 60 percent of the price tag, or $51.6 million. That refund rate was just recently approved as part of a state budgetary bill that was signed by Gov. Ned Lamont this week. Previously, Stamford received a 20 percent reimbursement for new school construction projects.
“It’s a very exciting time for Stamford,” said Michael Fernandes, associate superintendent for intervention and student support, during a virtual community meeting Wednesday night about the Roxbury project.
The increased refund rate is a major boon for Stamford schools’ master plan, which calls for building or expanding four schools, including a potential new K-8 school in south Stamford.
Roxbury is one of those four projects; others include converting Hart Elementary School into a K-8 facility and expanding Westover Magnet Elementary School into a K-8 as well.
As part of the plan, four schools would shutter: Cloonan and Dolan middle schools, Toquam Magnet Elementary School and KT Murphy Elementary School.
Once the new Roxbury and Hart schools are completed, they will split the students who would have otherwise gone to Cloonan.
Some of the educational specifications and building details of the new school were shared during the community meeting Wednesday.
Danile DeBoo, who heads the Northeast education sector for design firm DLR, said the new Roxbury would embrace “inquiry-based learning,” which is a problem-solving approach. Two “maker spaces” will be incorporated into the project in the spirit of the educational model and will allow students to use a variety of resources to help find solutions to problems.
“We clearly heard everyone from the art teacher to science — it’s all about the making,” DeBoo said.
A science lab, media center, cafeteria and indoor gymnasium are also expected to part of the finished product.
The plan is to have grades K-2 on the lowest floor, followed by 3-5 in the next floor, and 6-8 on the top floor.
Outside the building, three parking lots scattered around the structure will offer a total of 190 parking spots.
The initial plan is to complete the new Roxbury, an estimated 24-30 month construction phase, by 2027.
The new Westhill, a much bigger project, is expected to be completed by 2028.
The design of the new Roxbury building itself will include plenty of sunlight from the edges of the structure and the front of the building as well.
“We really do strongly encourage that continual connection to the exterior, because it really does affect the social emotional well being of not only the students but the faculty and staff, too,” said Jeff Wyszynski of Tecton Architects.
The building will be designed so that each grade level will be clustered into one section of the building “so that they can have a sense of community among their grade levels and then access some of the shared core spaces without having to travel through another cohort’s community,” Wyszynski said.
Torrington P&Z approves schools building project site plan, with conditions
TORRINGTON — Members of the Planning & Zoning Commission and City Planner Jeremy Liefert have approved the city’s $180 million school building project, though concerns remain about traffic and sustainable practices such as solar panels.
The School Building Committee requested special exception permits and site plan approval for the middle and high school buildings and new administrative offices for the school district, replacing the aging Torrington High School, which will be torn down once the new construction is completed.
Amy Samuelson, representing the SLAM Collaborative, the project designer, answered a number of questions regarding traffic concerns raised by police Sgt. Dustin Baldis.
“There are some traffic concerns that still need to be worked out with the intersection of Winthrop Street,” Liefert said, referring to reports and comments from Baldis.
“There still has to be some analysis on traffic, and it still has to have a solution. But I think we’re in a good position at this point,” Liefert said.
Baldis has requested that all bus traffic entering and leaving the school property during construction should enter the school campus using the rear, or “north drive,” according to Liefert.
Commission member Starley Arias asked how those buses would affect nearby neighborhoods.
“My understanding is that the buses will be coming from the back area of the high school; (that area has) been closed and not used,” he said. “There’s a small condo neighborhood there, plus the cul de sac neighborhood up on the hill. They haven’t seen any bus traffic, but now we’re using it as a method of bringing students into the high school during construction. ... Traffic could cause issues for those communities.”
Building committee co-chairman Ed Arum said no other traffic would be allowed except for the buses. “Buses come in, the gates are closed, and when school ends, the buses come back in to pick up the kids,” he said. “Nobody else is allowed to go there.”
Baldis’ biggest concern, according to Liefert, is traffic at the three-way intersection on Winthrop Street and Major Besse Drive. Even with buses diverted, incoming and outgoing vehicles and pedestrians using the crosswalks could cause traffic jams and other hazards, Baldis said.
“Sgt. Baldis said there will be traffic jams at the three-way (intersection), and that something should be done about it now rather than later,” Liefert said.
In his own memo of approval, the city planner set a condition that any and all traffic problems must be resolved before the certificate of occupancy is issued.
“We recommend that the applicant stay in touch with Officer Baldis and work those concerns out,” he said.
Arum said he and the committee would continue their discussions with Baldis. “We have met with the sergeant many times, and we’ll continue to meet with him,” he said. “We’re also meeting with the bus drivers.”
Arias also asked whether solar panels and other “sustainable systems” for the new building were being considered.
“You said you designed the school to have solar panels, but they’re not in the design,” he said. “Or (are there) backup generators; a sustainable system for the school in the event of freak weather.”
Samuelson said the buildings have a generator that would provide power in case of emergencies. “That includes all lighting, safety systems, alarm systems, access control, and a lot of other items,” she said. “As a sustainability measure, we’ve designed the building with the ability to put solar panels on the roof, and sized the roof to accommodate those (panels).”
Arias said, “Our state is moving to be more sustainable, to be a green state,” he said. “I want to be sure all future projects we approve are in line with those goals.”
Arum said the building committee didn’t put solar panels in this design. “We don’t want to put the panels in until the building is done,” he said. “We want to make sure we have enough money to build a school for the kids of Torrington.”
Hartford — Two municipalities that were facing significant shortfalls due to miscalculations in school construction reimbursement rates made by Kosta Diamantis — the embattled former state official who is reportedly under federal investigation — were made whole by state lawmakers in the legislative session that ended last week.
In one case, a town is receiving even more state money than what was originally sought for its new high school project.
Following a budget implementer bill that lawmakers passed on May 4, Hartford will now receive the $16 million that state officials said the city was not entitled to for the administrative office portion of the Bulkeley High School renovation project, despite assurances from Diamantis.
In addition, Farmington will receive the $915,000 originally promised to the town that state officials subsequently said was a miscalculation of the reimbursement rate of the administrative office’s portion of the new $135.6 million high school.
Farmington will also receive an additional $14.4 million, due to an overall increase in its state reimbursement rate, for the construction of a new $135.6 million high school.
According to Connecticut law, the state reimburses school districts between 10% and 80% of the eligible costs of local school construction projects. Reimbursement rates are determined by a formula based on a town’s wealth, calculated based on per capita property ownership and income.
Diamantis, who was the head of the state’s construction grants program, provided both municipalities assurances that the state would cover higher percentages of the costs of the construction of administrative offices in both projects, according to reporting by the CT Mirror.
After Diamantis, a former Bristol state representative, resigned from his position in October 2021, the state’s Office of School Construction Grants and Review examined the reimbursement rates on numerous projects calculated by Diamantis and flagged the administrative offices of Bulkeley High’s renovation (Diamantis said the state would pay for 95% of the $29.5 million for Bulkeley’s administrative offices) and the new Farmington high school.
Letters were sent by the state to both municipalities stating the higher reimbursement rate would be reduced by $16 million for Hartford and $915,000 for Farmington.
An uproar from officials in those municipalities followed and state lawmakers set about to cover the shortfalls through legislation: Hartford will receive the additional $16 million promised by Diamantis, while Farmington saw its entire reimbursement rate increased from 19% to 30%, meaning an additional $14.4 million will go to the town for the project. That means the state will kick in about $40 million, instead of $26 million, to the $135.6 million project. The town, therefore, will have to take out bonds of $96 million, instead of $110 million, for the new school, Town Council Chairman C.J. Thomas said.
Lawmakers said they were pleased with the outcome, stating that promises made by the state to the municipalities are promises that needed to be kept.
“When you make a commitment to a community that has already established locally what their priorities were and how much money they’re expected to put up for a project … that’s what they expected to get,” state Sen. Douglas McCrory said. “Unfortunately a problem happened on a state level and that’s not those communities’ responsibilities to fix that. That’s the state’s responsibility.”
Members of Farmington’s state delegation were equally thrilled with the outcome from the legislative session, even if there were some tense moments.
“The whole Farmington delegation was speaking in one voice; that really helped,” state Sen. Derek Slap (D-West Hartford) said of him, state Sen. Rick Lopes (D-New Britain) and state Reps. Mike Demicco (D-Farmington) and Tammy Exum (D-West Hartford). “I’m very gratified we were able to get this done for families, the taxpayers of Farmington. We went into this session, this was one of our top priorities for the Farmington delegation, and we had to fix a problem we didn’t create. Farmington had a lot at stake. Even though we got early assurances that it was going to be all set and we could get this language increased and Farmington’s reimbursement rate, we didn’t just sit back and take that for granted. Things change, things fall through the cracks, and we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. We babysat this thing the whole way through.”
Demicco said he was also pleased with the town being reimbursed not just the $915,000, but an additional $14.4 million.
“Our charge was to, at the very least, make Farmington whole,” he said. “And we made Farmington whole and beyond. You do that by building relationships and you do that by knowing the right people to talk to and make effective arguments and convincing people that investing in education is always good public policy.”
Thomas praised the state delegation for bringing more funds back to Farmington for the project.
“I’d say thank you to the Farmington delegation for recognizing that Farmington has had one of the lowest reimbursement rates in the state. And they were correcting what is probably a flaw with the formula. We appreciate their help on all that. And the taxpayers are benefiting from this.”
Farmington wasn’t the only town to have its reimbursement rate increased by lawmakers.
The state legislature, for example, increased Ellington’s reimbursement rate from 55.36% to 70% for the Windermere building project, according to a press release.
That increase will save the town just over $9 million on the $61 million project, the release said.
The project schedule has been moved up six months, because the town expected to receive a funding commitment in 2023, the release said.