CT Construction Digest Friday September 13, 2024
DOT Unveils $27M Plan to Ease Congestion, Improve Safety on Accident-Prone Route 7
Meghan Muldoon
NORWALK — The state Department of Transportation has unveiled a $27 million plan to alleviate congestion and enhance road safety along an accident-prone section of Route 7.
At a public informational meeting held at Cranbury Elementary School on Tuesday, DOT officials presented a proposal which focuses on a segment of Route 7, from Grist Mill Road to Kent Road, spanning areas of Norwalk and Wilton.
According to the DOT, 290 motor vehicle crashes were reported in this area between 2021 and 2023, an average of nearly two accidents per week. Transportation officials attributed the high number of incidents to aggressive driving habits, compounded by heavy traffic and frequent vehicles turning in and out of the many offices, restaurants and retail stores lining the route.
While still in the early stages of development, the proposed improvements include creating two new turn lanes, constructing 4,500 linear feet of new sidewalk, adding crosswalks and upgrading five traffic signals. To improve the flow of traffic, the project also recommends signal timing adjustments and the reconfiguration of lanes on Main Avenue to two northbound and one southbound.
The new turn lanes would consist of a southbound right-turn lane at the Grist Mill Road and Main Avenue intersection, and a left-turn lane on West Rocks Road.
As part of the project, DOT officials are also reviewing the feasibility of creating and connecting a multiuse path to the Norwalk River Valley Trail, a 12-mile recreational trail nearby.
The DOT’s analysis of cellphone data also revealed that 60% of the traffic in the area is just passing through to other destinations, while 40% is headed to businesses along Route 7.
In order to implement the proposed project, the state must acquire two privately owned properties, a Shell gas station and a musical instruments rental and repair shop located across from the Norwalk Department of Motor Vehicles office at the intersection of Grist Mill Road and Main Avenue.
However, Ken Kuo, owner of Rental Instrument, told CT Examiner that his business has been in the “perfect” location for over 10 years and he’s not interested in selling.
“I am hoping that they won’t touch it. Otherwise, they will really have to cough up really, really big money for it because that is a sacred ground for our business. It took our sweat and tears to build it up from what it was before,” Kuo said. “We love our property.”
Although Kuo acknowledged seeing “way too many accidents” at the intersection fronting his business, he believes there are other ways to improve road safety and reduce congestion. He suggested building a crosswalk at the Grist Mill intersection from the DMV to the other side of Main Avenue.
The estimated cost of the project is $27 million, which includes $5 million to acquire properties and easements.
According to the DOT, businesses displaced by the project are entitled to relocation benefits, including reimbursement for moving expenses.
The design phase of the project is expected to take an additional four or five years before construction begins, owing to the need for federal permits since the area is within a FEMA-regulated flood area. Transportation officials said there will be additional opportunities for public input during that time.
Following the presentation, the officials fielded complaints from residents and business owners living and working in the project area on Route 7 about broken street crossing signs, poor bus stop access, a lack of safe options for bicyclists and the traffic backups caused by frequent left turns into Starbucks.
State Rep. Tracy Marra, R-Darien, Transportation Committee member, was among roughly 40 people who attended last night’s meeting. Echoing the sentiments of several attendees, Marra told CT Examiner she was happy that the DOT is addressing road safety on Route 7.
“Many of us that drive and use this area realize it is busy and chaotic,” she said.
A two-week public comment period ends on Sept. 24.
Ledyard seeks to ban quarries, limit size of multi-family housing
Lee Howard
Ledyard ― Proposed amendments to the town’s zoning regulations that would ban large-scale quarrying operations and limit the size of housing development was heard Thursday by the Planning and Zoning Commission.
The proposed amendments were submitted by Eric Treaster, a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, but were not supported by the town planning staff in a written statement.
“It is our opinion that the proposal is shortsighted, and, if approved, will have long term adverse impacts on both the Ledyard and regional economies,” said the Ledyard planning staff statement signed by Michael D’Amato, principal of Tyche Planning & Policy Group LLC and a land-use department consultant.
The report went on to cite the need to “import” the quarry material from elsewhere, “further exacerbating the high cost of living, including housing, in the Town of Ledyard.”
The amendments would affect a quarry project that was the subject of a hearing Thursday after facing strong opposition earlier this year. They were also aimed at a proposed 320-unit housing application on Military Highway that also has rattled residents.
As about 75 people filed into Ledyard Middle School for the commission’s public hearing and dozens more checked in on Zoom, proponents of the controversial 40-acre quarry project that would level portions of historic Mount Decatur took center stage to outline the third iteration of their plan to remove rock from the former Dow Chemical site.
Property owner Gales Ferry Intermodal LLC, a division of Cashman Dredging & Marine Contracting Co. of Quincy, Mass., opposed the amendment that would prohibit extraction of stone from the site, calling it “reactionary” to its two pending permits.
“Reactionary legislation is often shortsighted and has far-reaching and long-lasting unintended consequences,” said attorney Harry B. Heller, attorney for Gales Ferry Intermodal, in a written response to the proposed amendment limiting excavation activity to housing developments. “It is our client’s position that the proposed text amendment should be denied, in to, as it does not further the best interests of the Town of Ledyard.”
During the hearing Thursday, Heller went on to state “This will be damaging to property owners ... and it will be harmful to the municipality itself because it will stifle economic activity.”
Heller later on urged the commission to consider the effect of regulation changes on investors and property owners who have a right to expect consistent regulations. He said the proposed amendments appeared to be “retaliatory” in that they appear aimed at applications currently in front of the commission.
But Bruce Edwards of Gales Ferry said it was incorrect to call Treaster’s amendments retaliatory.
“What’s retaliatory is Mr. Heller’s statement about Eric Treaster’s application,” Edwards said.
Treaster said he had suggested his multi-family dwelling rules when the town last overhauled its regulations in 2022, but the commission at the time did not give his ideas proper scrutiny. He added that one of his impetuses for proposing the regulation changes was because he had been “horrified” by a recent proposal to build 10 mobile homes on a little more than 2 acres in town.
Attorney Brian R. Smith, of Robinson + Cole in Hartford, said via Zoom that he was representing C.R. Klewin LLC in opposing the zoning amendments, and questioned whether the proposed changes might affect the ability to provide affordable housing in town.
In written testimony, he added, “Nearly 65 percent of respondents of the community survey think that the town should ‘seek to focus new, somewhat higher housing density in specific areas.’ However, (Treaster’s amendments) would eliminate existing provisions of the Zoning Regulations which encourage the development of higher density housing in specific zoning districts intended for just such purposes.”
Treaster said he personally didn’t like affordable housing applications because they are “not consistent” with Ledyard’s master plan of development.
Several residents on Thursday defended Treaster’s proposed zoning changes.
“I don’t find them reactionary and I don’t find them often short-sighted,” Gales Ferry resident Eleanor Murray saying, adding the town shouldn’t be responsible for providing rock for most of Connecticut.”
She also said the regulations would not stifle economic activity.
Gales Ferry Intermodal’s quarry proposal was to be reintroduced later in the public hearing, after press time, and was expected to address concerns residents expressed in a series of public hearings last winter that brought out as many as 200 people. Among the new ideas floated in paperwork leading up to the hearing were financial incentives to the town for every cubic yard of material extracted during excavation.
The community group Citizens Alliance for Land Use has continued to oppose the quarry project, citing issues such as environmental damage, health effects, the loss of property values and the impact of stormwater runoff from the quarry project.
Backers say the quarry will help support the offshore wind industry and provide fill material for roads and climate-change resiliency efforts.
Among the most worrisome issues for local residents is the possible health effects of silica dust released by blasting and rock removal, as well as potential contamination of wells and the destruction of the Mount Decatur area, which contains remnants of a War of 1812 fort.
Gales Ferry Intermodal has said it would attempt to deal with silica dust by treating small particulates released by the operation with water to reduce the chances of dust flying into the air and being inhaled.
The town’s new planning director, former Montville Town Planner Elizabeth Burdick, has come into this battle mid-stream after former planning director of planning Juliet Hodge was dismissed by Mayor Fred B. Allyn. Allyn has never explained the firing in a public forum.
The commission was not expected to make any decisions on Thursday night.
West Hartford to reveal $6M plans to reconstruct 'heart of the evolving' New Park Avenue corridor
WEST HARTFORD — The town is prepared to make a major investment to reconstruct a stretch of New Park Avenue that it said is the "heart of the evolving" corridor.
Over the past few years, New Park Avenue — long known for industrial uses and being the location of the town's Design District — has seen an influx of investment from businesses and developers. Now, the town is working to match that with an investment of its own.
Next week, on Sept. 17, the town will for the first time reveal its full Complete Streets plans to rework a portion of the busy roadway, shifting priority away from vehicles and moving toward making the area safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Those plans include a partial road diet, bringing travel lanes down from four to two, as well as a separated two-way bicycle facility. Other enhancements include raised landscape medians, enhanced crosswalks, and improved connections to the Trout Brook Trail and the town's CTfastrak stations.
The work will prepare the corridor for an influx of new residents who will eventually be moving into the area at the two most recently approved housing developments in West Hartford: the Elmwood Lofts, a 117-unit, mixed-use development at the former Puritan Furniture site, and the Jayden, a 70-unit, mixed-use development at 579 New Park Ave.
New Park Avenue has been targeted by developers recently partially because of the town's recent designation of the area as a transit-oriented development, which provides certain incentives to builders who choose to build housing with affordable units.
The $6 million project will be funded by $3.7 million in state funding, while the remaining $2.3 million will be funded by the town itself. The full plans will be revealed at a meeting on Sept. 17 at 6:30 p.m. at the Elmwood Community Center. The town said it will be collecting feedback from residents during the meeting. Construction on the roadway changes are set to begin in 2025.
Naugatuck and Waterbury residents oppose planned 4-story Amazon logistics facility
After a small but vocal group of Naugatuck and Waterbury residents spoke out Tuesday against a massive logistics facility being planned for Amazon, the project's lead developer is defending its plans and scheduling another set of hearings for early October in both cities.
Bluewater Property Group wants to build a 650,000-square-foot distribution warehouse on 183 acres at the Waterbury/Naugatuck Industrial Park, which Amazon would operate around the clock. The opposition from Waterbury and Naugatuck residents is only the latest in Connecticut as Amazon has built a large network of centers to sort and deliver packages.
New York City-based Bluewater owns a number of logistics facilities in the Northeast, including one in Johnston, Rhode Island, and another under construction in Charlton, Massachusetts, not far from the Connecticut line.
The City of Waterbury posted the Tuesday information session online on its YouTube channel. Another public hearing is scheduled for Oct. 2 and Oct. 3.
The facility would have anywhere from 500 to 1,000 employees depending on seasonal shipping cycles, not including construction jobs, Bluewater representative Christina Bernardin said. At last report, Amazon had about 17,000 workers in Connecticut, including part-time jobs and those at its Whole Foods Market subsidiary.
Bernardin described the planned property as "a very difficult site" to build the logistics center that Amazon has in mind. Plans now call for a four-and-a-half story tall building.
"There's a lot of economic benefits to a project of this size and scale with a partner like Amazon, coming to this neighborhood," Bernardin told attendees on Tuesday. "We are continuing to study construction feasibility on the site. We would only ... develop it if it is feasible."
The Connecticut Department of Labor estimated unemployment in the Waterbury area at 4.3 percent as of July, the highest of any labor market statewide tracked by DOL. Despite the boost an Amazon warehouse could offer in the form of direct jobs, property tax revenue and local spending by employees, multiple residents took the microphone on Tuesday to voice opposition to the project.
Concerns include truck and employee vehicles snarling traffic at certain points during the day; damage to nearby structures from blasting rock to level the site during construction; any residual impact on nearby property values in having a busy industrial facility in close proximity; and the facility's overall environmental footprint.
Multiple attendees asked Bluewater to provide more documentation on plans, with one saying "the community is left out to the last, 11th hour" by developers of large projects. In response, a Bluewater representative pledged to make technical documents available, without any promises as to how much time residents might get to review them in advance of target dates for hearings or implementation.
In response to another attendee's question on why Amazon needs another Connecticut fulfillment center on top of existing ones in North Haven, Wallingford and Windsor, Bernardin did not provide specifics.
"A lot of analysis goes into their picking of a site and the location," Bernardin said. "This site was put together by the city of Waterbury and Naugatuck for economic development in this location."
Foundation makes rare ‘impact investment’ in local project
Philanthropic organizations typically invest their endowment funds in traditional vehicles — stocks, bonds, hedge funds, real estate — that offer high returns with as little risk as possible, and they use the earnings from those investments to make grants.
But in recent years, foundations have begun exploring what’s known as “impact investing,” where endowment funds are invested in entities that align more closely with the causes the foundation supports.
It can be hard to do. Only 5% of foundations’ assets are currently devoted to this kind of investing, according to a recent study by the consultancy Bridgespan Social Impact.
“In the world of philanthropy, you have a lot of foundations talking about it. Few are doing it,” said Sheena Strawter-Anthony, director of impact investment strategy at the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund in Hamden. The Graustein Fund is working to make 100% of its investments “mission-aligned,” she said.
Earlier this year, the foundation took an important step toward that goal by providing $10 million in financing to a community redevelopment project in New Haven known as ConnCAT Place at Dixwell. The $200 million master-planned development includes 180 units of affordable housing, a child care facility, health care center, spaces for workforce training and education programs, retail and restaurants, a public plaza, performing arts center, greenhouses, offices and more.
Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program (ConnCORP), the economic development organization leading the project, has spent the last several years seeking community input, acquiring adjacent parcels of land and clearing blighted structures to make way for ConnCAT Place. It is slated to break ground on the development early next month.
Strawter-Anthony said the loan was structured “with intentionality,” designed to be paid back over a longer term and with a lower interest rate than a typical real estate investment deal. She said she had to force herself to look at the terms in a new and different way, taking into account the broader impact of the investment rather than just the financial returns for her organization.
“ConnCORP is helping to build wealth in the Dixwell and Newhallville communities,” she said. “The loan was structured in a way to support the community impact of the project.”
Dixwell and Newhallville are historically Black neighborhoods that have experienced high rates of poverty over the past 70 years, and much of the block that will house the new development had fallen into disrepair. In community meetings, residents told ConnCORP leaders they wanted to revitalize the neighborhood, have a place that felt safe, with high-quality early childhood care and education, where they could buy fresh food and gather for events.
Erik Clemons, chief executive of ConnCORP and ConnCAT — the education and workforce training organization around which the development was designed — said he sees the project as an extension of the work ConnCAT has already done, training hundreds of local residents for jobs in New Haven and the surrounding area.
“I was thinking about what is the next iteration of impact, given that these folks are now walking in the world differently, with a job, with pride, with dignity,” Clemons said. “What can we do next to create a world where they wouldn’t be working poor?”
Clemons said he hadn’t aspired to run an economic development project, “but it was natural calling, given the work I had already done.” ConnCORP launched in 2018, and soon the plans for ConnCAT Place began to take shape. “It was really about: How do we create economic infrastructure, capital formation and wealth generation in a community that quite frankly has been forgotten?”
Strawter-Anthony said she hopes the foundation’s deal with ConnCORP can offer an example to other foundations that want to do more impact investing.
The financial returns on such deals may not be as strong, but the overall effect is far more powerful, she said. That’s because not only do these investments generate value for the loan recipients, they also redirect philanthropic dollars away from the kinds of for-profit investment vehicles that often extract resources from communities like Dixwell and Newhallville, she said.
“Most foundations don’t invest their endowments in line with their mission. They can invest in things that are counter to their mission,” Strawter-Anthony said. For example, a foundation with a mission to end poverty might be invested in for-profit companies that don’t paying living wages or offer benefits, she said.
“A lot of the harm in the world has been created through investments,” she said. “When I look at the foundation, I look at us becoming conscious of the harm in our actions and changing the way we behave and our impact on the world overall.”
South Windsor warehouse expansion project pitched
ASouth Windsor property owner is looking to build a new accessory warehouse for consolidation and expansion of a logistics operations tenant along Sullivan Avenue.
Moores Property Management LLC wants to build a new 32,200-square-foot accessory warehouse on a 4.27-acre property that it owns at 500 Sullivan Ave.
The site contains an existing building used by United Delivery Inc., a family-owned logistics management, product distribution, and warehousing company that has been operating there since 2020. The site was formerly operated by New England Transportation Inc.
United Delivery is currently leasing off-site storage space in multiple buildings around South Windsor, and the new building would limit the need for off-site storage space and transportation between facilities, the application reads.
The United Delivery facility has roughly 25 employees, which “may increase due to future business growth but is not anticipated to increase immediately with the construction of the warehouse,” the applicants said.
Plans for the expansion project include building two new loading docks, adding to the existing building’s nine active loading bays, and seven trailer parking spaces, all of which will remain. Additional parking spaces for employees will also be added to the site.
United Delivery office space in the existing building will be relocated to the new warehouse, the application said.
Members of the development team incluse PDS Engineering and Construction of Bloomfield as general contractor; Design Professionals Inc., of South Windsor for civil engineering, planning, landscape architecture and land surveying; F.A. Hesketh & Associates Inc., of East Granby for traffic engineering; and Ian T. Cole, of Middletown, for wetlands and environmental work.
CT Construction Digest Thursday September 12, 2024
White House calls for stronger labor standards
President Joe Biden signed an executive order Sept. 6 calling on federal agencies to adopt a series of “high-road labor standards,” according to an announcement from the White House, continuing the administration’s push toward expanding the federal workforce while pushing certain standards.
The announcement calls the move the “first in history to specify a clear list of labor standards that all Federal agencies should look to prioritize.”
The federal government considers itself a “model employer,” in that private sector employers often follow suit when it moves to change standards. The “Good Jobs Executive Order” calls upon agencies to adopt a number of standards around wages, union organizing, workforce development and workplace safety.
Among those standards, agencies are directed to prioritize project labor agreements, community benefits agreements, voluntary union recognition and neutrality in regard to union organizing when such takes place, the announcement said. The EO also directs agencies to “consider incentivizing specific high-wage standards for manufacturing grants,” similar to Davis-Bacon rules for construction jobs, which require contractors to pay workers “no less than the locally prevailing wage,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Associated Builders and Contractors opposed the order, calling it exclusionary and saying it removed competition and favored union builders.
“The executive order will undermine the efficient and economical delivery of taxpayer-funded infrastructure, clean energy and manufacturing projects and is consistent with the Biden-Harris administration’s politically motivated policy schemes,” said Ben Brubeck, ABC vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs, in a statement.
He added he looked forward to reviewing the official text to see if it would be challenged in court.
Indeed, unions do feel the order favors them and their workers, but also other U.S. workers looking to support themselves.
Mark McManus, general president of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters, praised the executive order, which Biden signed at his union’s chapter, Local 190, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Sept. 6. McManus called Biden, “the most pro-worker and pro-union president,” a title he’s worn with pride.
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“With incentives to strengthen our gold-standard registered apprenticeship programs, to guarantee the rights of all workers to collectively bargain for a better future, and to expand family-sustaining wages for all, this Executive Order will help ensure all Americans have a fair shot at success,” McManus said in a statement.
Apprenticeship rule
Workforce development through registered apprenticeships was also mentioned as a priority for federal agencies — a focus of the Biden administration, which has invested in creating training pipelines and tightening registered apprenticeship standards to ensure the program retains its high quality, leaders previously said.
That apprenticeship rule has come under fire from Republicans, who say the rule will disincentivize apprenticeships due to heavy administrative requirements.
The executive order also states federal agencies should encourage contractors to focus on equitable and fair hiring as well as support workplace safety by prioritizing solid reporting structures.
To that end, the administration has pushed for an extreme heat standard. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed such a rule earlier this summer and will be taking comments until Dec. 30.
The Investing in Good Jobs Task Force is responsible for ensuring these standards are implemented, according to the announcement, and will be co-chaired by the Secretary of Labor, currently Julie Su, who is serving as acting secretary.