Connecticut Port Authority launches website on State Pier developments

Greg Smith  The Connecticut Port Authority on Thursday launched a website, www.statepiernewlondon.com, aimed at providing information on the planned $157 million transformation of State Pier.

The website is managed by AECOM Technical Services Inc., the port authority’s construction administrator for the project. It is expected to be updated in real time and another way that Connecticut Port Authority Board Chairman David Kooris said the public will have an opportunity to learn about the project and its progress.

One of the key milestones in the project will come in December, when the port authority anticipates a vote on a construction manager at-risk, a company that port authority Executive Director John Henshaw said will compile bid packages for various aspects of upcoming construction.

It is during that process that the port authority will learn how accurate the $157 million cost estimates are.

“When the CMR comes on board, the first major task is vetting our estimates,” Kooris said.

The project is being funded, with state support, by joint venture partners Orsted and Eversource and is expected to be completed by late 2022 and a serve as a base for wind turbine assembly and staging for several major offshore wind developments in the pipeline.

The two existing piers — State Pier and the adjacent Central Vermont Railroad, or CV, Pier — will become one large pier and the relevant permit applications needed to start that work, which includes dredging, remain in the hands of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Kooris said he expects an upcoming public hearing for DEEP to solicit comments as part of their process.

Additionally, work awaits federal deauthorization of the Long Dock Branch Channel, a federal channel that runs between the two piers and predates the construction of State Pier. The deauthorization is part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2020 and is awaiting congressional approval.

Environmental remediation testing also is completed at State Pier, Kooris said, and the information gleaned from those tests will be compiled into a remediation action plan being handled by the state Department of Transportation, which owned the State Pier property before it was transferred to the port authority. The DOT, as part of the transfer agreement, is responsible for remediation. That work is not likely to start before the new year

Environmental testing was the reason for the shift of the massive salt pile at State Pier owned by DRVN Enterprises. DRVN is among other State Pier tenants being forced off the site and has until the end of the year to move the pile or forfeit it to the port authority. Longshoremen are without jobs since the port, for the time being, is no longer hosting traditional cargo ships.

Skanska, a construction company working off of State Pier and supporting the work at Electric Boat across the river in Groton, is expected to complete its work by the end of the year, Kooris said. The port authority is exploring options for relocating two commercial fishing outfits docked at CV Pier.

In a statement related to the announcement of its new website, Henshaw said the goal of the Connecticut Port Authority is to make “generational improvements to transform State Pier in New London into a state-of-the-art heavy lift capable port facility that will accommodate a wide variety of cargoes, including wind turbine generator staging and assembly.”

“The proposed State Pier infrastructure improvements are being designed to address previously identified facility shortcomings, and enhance the State Pier facility and site conditions to accommodate future cargo needs and capitalize on opportunities for the State of Connecticut,” he said.

Newtown’s $15M police HQ called a ‘shining commitment to public safety’

Rob Ryser  NEWTOWN - The new $15 million police headquarters that opened on Monday was approved by Newtown residents two years before demonstrations broke out in American cities this summer over concerns about bias and brutality in law enforcement.

Moreover, plans for a new headquarters to replace the police department’s undersized and outdated building at 3 Main St. had been floated years before the worst crime in Connecticut history at Sandy Hook School in 2012 sent shock waves across the country.

But as a group of elected leaders gathered on a bright and unseasonably warm Saturday morning to christen the new 25,000-square-foot police headquarters, speakers said they could scarcely image a better-timed symbol of Newtown’s support for its officers.

“Newtown stands as a shining example of how even in times of turmoil, a community can come together overwhelmingly and support its police officers and staff, and provide them with a place to work that has been deserved for 30 years in this town,” said Joel Faxon, chairman of the Newtown Police Commission, at a ceremony on Saturday.

State Sen. Tony Hwang agreed.

“There cannot be a better affirmation of this community’s support for law enforcement and public safety than for the people driving down (Main Street) to see this shining commitment to public safety,” he said.

The statements by Hwang and other leaders representing Newtown came moments before the nation learned that Joe Biden had been projected as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

The presidential campaign and local races for congress and state legislature made the national debate about police reform and irradiating systemic racism a top issue for candidates seeking votes in Newtown.

Re-election winners such as state Rep. Mitch Bolinsky said there was no support in Newtown for calls to defund police.

“The men and women who serve us here are respected, they’re loved, and they’re trusted,” Bolinsky said at Saturday’s ceremony. “They will continue to have our respect, and we will always have their backs.”

The impetus for the new police headquarters was in early 2015 when newly appointed police Chief James Viadero met Dan Rosenthal, who had just been elected to the Board of Police Commissioners. The two realized they had a common vision for a new facility.

“I remember walking into the (old) building and asking some of the command staff, ‘Okay, where is the rest of the building?’” Viadero told the crowd at Saturday’s ceremony. “They said, ‘This is it.’”

Rosenthal said at that point in 2015, circumstances had conspired for years to prevent the police department from moving into modern and roomier space.

“They were eating lunch in the same place that they were processing evidence,” Rosenthal said on Monday.

Rosenthal went on to be the town’s top elected leader, putting a $15 million police headquarters referendum before residents in 2018, which passed with more than 8,000 votes.

“I think this building is very much a metaphor for the rebuilding that has been going on in this community under Jim’s guidance,” Rosenthal said of the police chief on Saturday. “[T]he men and women of the police department and our emergency communications center deserve recognition - they have served our community with pride, professionalism and distinction in good times and in bad.”

The move from 3 Main St. to the new headquarters at 191 S. Main St. is expected to take two weeks for the 45-officer department to complete. The town’s emergency communications center will remain at 3 Main St. until the end of January, when it will be replaced by a newly equipped center in the new headquarters.

“There’s a lot of people who had a big role in this, but without the support of the town of Newtown, we would never be where we are today,” Viadero said on Saturday. “We are extremely proud to serve the town of Newtown.”

States with biggest drops, gains in construction employment

Jenn Goodman  

• The construction industry added 84,000 net new jobs in October, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the last six months, the industry added 789,000 jobs, recovering 73% of the jobs lost during earlier stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Nonresidential construction employment added 59,700 jobs on net in October. All three nonresidential subcategories experienced increases; the largest was registered among nonresidential specialty trade contractors, which added 27,500 positions on net. Heavy and civil engineering added 18,800 jobs while other types of nonresidential building added 13,400.
• The construction unemployment rate was 6.8% in October, up 2.8 percentage points from the same time last year, but down from 7.1% a month earlier. Unemployment across all industries declined from 7.9% in September to 6.9% last month.

The industry recorded employment gains despite facing many negative conditions, including tighter lending, negatively impacted state and local government finances and deteriorating commercial real estate fundamentals, said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu in the statement.

Nevertheless, there is still much ground to be made up, Basu said, noting that a year ago, nonresidential construction employed nearly 208,000 more people than it does now. The sector has lost nearly 5% of its jobs compared to one year ago, while ABC’s Construction Backlog Indicator shows the average contractor has 1.2 fewer months of backlog than it did one year ago.

A deeper look at the BLS data shows that the construction employment picture is highly variable across the country. Some states such as Vermont and Iowa have suffered large losses in jobs while others like South Dakota and Utah have added jobs since last year.

The states with the biggest year-over-year percentage drop in construction employment are:

The states with the biggest percentage gains in construction employment compared to last year at this time are:

While October’s national employment report was heartening, contractors should remain on guard, said Basu. Another recession is possible as COVID-19 rages across the nation.

"State-mandated economic lockdowns are likely to become more of a factor during the weeks ahead," he said. "That would result in an interruption to the robust recovery that has been building since May, and would delay the arrival of nonresidential construction’s complete recovery.”