Splashdown: Great Wolf Lodge moves up opening to May 23

Brian Hallenbeck

Mashantucket ― Great Wolf Lodge, the much-anticipated regional attraction that’s been under construction next to Foxwoods Resort Casino, will open Friday, May 23, three weeks earlier than projected.

Construction work has advanced faster than expected, enabling Chicago-based Great Wolf Resorts to move up the $300 million waterpark resort’s scheduled debut, a Great Wolf official said Thursday in a phone interview.

During a “topping off” ceremony this past June, Great Wolf officials said they were targeting a June 15 opening.

The earlier date is the start of Memorial Day weekend.

Great Wolf, which has been booking rooms at the resort for months, is now accepting reservations for the additional dates, said Henry Tessman, the property’s general manager.

Tessman, who said he recently moved to Preston to be near the resort site, managed the opening 10 years ago of the Great Wolf Lodge in Fitchburg, Mass., the only other Great Wolf Lodge in New England. The Great Wolf Lodge at Mashantucket will be Great Wolf Resorts’ 23rd lodge. Its first, in Wisconsin Dells, Wis., opened in 1997. It opened one a couple of months ago in Naples, Fla.

The Mashantucket lodge, being built on Mashantucket Pequot reservation land Great Wolf Resorts is leasing from the Indian tribe that owns Foxwoods, will be larger than the Fitchburg facility, Tessman said.

The resort’s hotel will have 549 rooms, all of them suites that can accommodate from five to 10 or more people. The resort will offer 92,000 square feet of waterpark activities and 62,000 square feet of “dry play” attractions, including a rope course, an arcade and bowling. The lodge will have a 5,000-square-foot ballroom for groups and meetings, a variety of food-and-beverage options, retail outlets and daily entertainment that culminates in “The Legend of Luna,” an immersive LED show.

Tessman said features unique to the Mashantucket lodge include the “Pequot Plunge,” a water ride involving rafts that can hold up to five people, some “pretty good drops” and “quick turns,” and “Rapid Racer,” in which guests will ride inner tubes down side-by-side water slides and experience a “watercoaster.”

While patrons can buy full- and half-day passes to the water park, Great Wolf is promoting overnight stays.

“If you stay one night, you get two days at the resort,” Tessman said. “Come at 1 p.m. and we’ll text you when your room’s ready. When you check out the next day, put your luggage in the car and stay all day at the park.”

Great Wolf expects many of its guests to visit Foxwoods.

“We complement other attractions very well,” Tessman said. “We’ll complement Foxwoods greatly because of the family attractions and food-and-beverage there as well. In Massachusetts, we’re next to a Wachusett Mountain ski resort. In Williamsburg (Va.), we’re near Busch Gardens (a theme park), and we’re near casinos in Grand Mound, Wash., and Scottsdale (Ariz.). We do have experience operating next to large attractions.”

Great Wolf Lodge Mashantucket’s standard room rates start at $199.99 per night.

The resort’s celebrating its revised opening date by offering a discount of 25% off standard rates for a single night stay and 30% off multiple night stays. To get the discount, book before Nov. 30. The discount is valid for stay dates through Dec. 31, 2025. Guests can book by visiting greatwolf.com or by calling 1-888-983-WOLF (9653) and using the promo code, SLIDES.

Mohegan-Pequot Bridge project ‘too small’

Daniel Drainville

State and local officials have criticized the State Department of Transportation for “thinking too small” with its $32.8 million plan to rehabilitate the Mohegan-Pequot Bridge.

They made the comments at a public meeting Tuesday in Montville, during which the DOT unveiled the plan.

The bridge, built in 1967, is a two-lane, steel girder bridge that spans the Thames River. It connects Montville and Preston via Route 2A. According to the DOT, about 22,000 vehicles drive over the bridge each day. Repairs were made in 1985, 1996 and 2010.

After evaluating the bridge’s individual components and finding many of them in poor condition, the DOT is now looking to rehabilitate the bridge and increase its life span by 20 years.

Some of the work involves repairing the steel structure, along with replacing the road and a deteriorated fender system that protects the span from a boat collision. The bridge would also be cleaned, painted and sealed, and the concrete substructure and fencing would be repaired. The project will result in temporary lane shifts and shoulder closures during off-peak hours.

The DOT is currently designing the project. That phase is scheduled to end in July of 2027 with construction scheduled to begin the following spring.

“Thinking too small”

In a question and answer portion of the meeting that followed the DOT presentation, officials and some residents said the scope of the project should be expanded to accommodate projected traffic increases in the region.

“This doesn’t make sense to me to think small on something that is going to last for 20 years,” said State Sen. Cathy Osten (D-Sprague). “Because once you do this, you would not essentially be looking at this bridge for another 20 years.”

Osten pointed out future developments such as the Great Wolf Lodge at Foxwoods Resort Casino and the Preston Riverwalk project, both of which she said would substantially increase bridge traffic.

Osten and others urged the DOT to consider widening the bridge to four lanes, and adding biking and walking lanes.

“To the senator’s point, in my experience being involved in the town for over 50 years and the police department, it doesn’t take much to tie that bridge up,” Montville Mayor Leonard Bunnell said. “It can be a simple flat tire, because it’s so narrow.”

Bunnell said that with increased residential and other development in Montville and surrounding towns and tribal nations, he wants the DOT to further examine traffic projections for the bridge.

Just this month, his town’s land use department received applications for two apartment projects that would provide a combined 257 apartment units.

“Montville is ready to provide the housing,” he said. “And that housing is going to add more volume to that bridge.”

James Barrows, the DOT’s supervising engineer for the project, said the DOT did look at other options, but the current proposal is the cheapest at $32.8 million. Barrows said about half of that is for the fender system replacement.

Superstructure replacement, which would allow for the deck widening, would increase the cost to about $206 million. Replacing the bridge would cost about $227 million.

“So that was one of the reasons why we had stuck with the original scope of doing the original preservation work,” Barrows said. “And then we would reevaluate in a couple of years, once the bridge gets close to the end of the service life, coming back and actually doing the replacement.”

People can comment on the project, known as Project No. 0085-0147, and ask questions by Dec. 3 by emailing DOTProject0085-0147@ct.gov or calling (860) 594-2020. People submitting comments by email or phone are asked to reference state project 0085-0147.

More information on the project is available at https://portal.ct.gov/dotmontville0085-0147?language=en_US.

Will Bridgeport's landmark striped smokestack live on? Some say yes, others 'Knock that sucker down'

Brian Lockhart

BRIDGEPORT — Driving in to the decommissioned PSEG coal-fired power plant Tuesday to help announce the start of its demolition and redevelopment by a new owner, Mayor Joe Ganim pulled his vehicle over at the base of the towering red-and-white-striped smokestack.

He hopped out from behind the wheel and took a few moments to gaze up and admire the 500-foot harbor front landmark as if it might be his last opportunity to do so.

But maybe not.

While new plant owner Bridgeport Station Development, a New York-based limited liability company, intends to tear the entire structure down and replace it with housing, restaurants and waterfront access, there may be a push to preserve the smoke stack.

But it would need to happen fairly soon. The stated goal is to have the entire South End site cleared and ready for new construction three years from now.

"I'm in favor of it staying," Ganim said following Tuesday's event. "I think you'll get a lot of Bridgeport people saying, 'Leave it. Leave it.'"

Gov. Ned Lamont was standing next to the mayor when Ganim made those comments. The demolition is being funded with $22.5 million in state aid awarded last fall.

"I think it's kind of iconic," said Lamont, who runs the state from Hartford but is hardly a stranger to Bridgeport. He lives in southwestern Connecticut, specifically Greenwich, years ago volunteered at Harding High School and has campaigned in the city numerous times during his political career.

But, Lamont cautioned, if salvaging an icon proves too costly — "If you tell me it will add another $3 million to the project..." — then perhaps count him out.

Chad Parks, a member of the Bridgeport Station Development team, appeared to be open to the possibility of keeping the red-and-white edifice.

"We can talk about it," he said during a brief interview Tuesday. "As of now the plan is to demolish the smokestack."

Its future has been debated on and off for roughly the past decade since PSEG struck a deal with the city to shut down the 1960s era coal-fired plant in exchange for being allowed to build a new natural-gas run one nearby. The former facility officially shut down in 2021.

City Councilman Jorge Cruz represents the South End and has no interest in keeping any reminder of that industrial property.

"I told Chad and the others (with Bridgeport Station Development) the most important thing I want to see is that smokestack come down," Cruz said Wednesday. "The reason is it has a history of affecting so many lives — health issues and all the soot coming out. Knock that sucker down. Get it out of there."

Kevin Moore, another South End resident, runs a neighborhood revitalization organization there that weighs in on economic development matters. He said the fate of the stack has been talked about as part of a months-long effort by the Connecticut Metropolitan Council of Governments to study potential new uses for the plant land. That final report is due by the end of December.

"Some people think it's an emblem of the past and the pollution and all the things these communities had to suffer with and, therefore, should go," Moore said. "And folks think it's kind of iconic of Bridgeport and it should stay."

Bridgeport-based artist Liz Squillace said, "It's been in many of my paintings and silk screens."

Love it, hate it or indifferent to it, the stack has over the decades become a symbol of Connecticut's largest city simply because of its prominence.

"It's the beacon I see on my way to Bridgeport that let's me know I"m home," Squillace said. "And I think it would be sad to see it come down. ... If it's not going to be working, and if it's demolition would cause pollution, I say keep it."

And Fred Hall, long-time general manager of the ferries that shuttle travelers back and forth across Long Island Sound between Bridgeport's South End and Port Jefferson, New York, said Wednesday, "People who go out fishing, go out sailing, use it to navigate. 'Oh, there's Bridgeport. I can tell from the stack.' ... In terms of ferry navigation we don't need it. (But) I think it's important for a lot of recreational boaters to have that as a landmark."

Daniel Roach, an aide to Ganim, has been working to try and bring back regular commercial passenger service to the city's Sikorsky Memorial Airport, located in neighboring Stratford. That facility current only accommodates business, charter and private aircraft.

"Some folks from the Federal Aviation Administration are recommending that it be torn down because it could be a possible hindrance to future air travel," Roach said. "It's a recommendation, not a requirement."

An FAA spokesman said in a statement the red-and-white stack has long been identified in flight publications as "one of the known obstructions in the area" but that agency has not weighed in on whether it should stay or go.

However, the spokesman continued, "If the airport would want to bring in commercial flights ... those studies would definitely be part of that evaluation as a whole."

Kathy Maher, director of the downtown museum dedicated to famous showman P.T. Barnum, said ideally the broader community will somehow get a chance to weigh in on the stack's fate.

"It would be an interesting thing to really assess," she said. "I think it's a great question to put out there."