INDUSTRY ATTENDANCE NEEDED !!!!!!

 INFRASTRUCTURE PRESS CONFERENCE

U.S. SENATOR RICHARD BLUMENTHAL

 TIME     10:00AM

TODAY MONDAY – APRIL 19, 2021

 PARK & RIDE LOT – 418 BEE STREET

 MERIDEN

 PLEASE BE SURE TO JOIN US TO SHOW OUR SUPPORT FOR A FEDERAL INFRASTUCTURE BILL!

We need a strong industry turnout to to send a message that this is important!

Please attend and bring others from your organization!

Major federal infrastructure funding is at stake!

Don’t leave this for someone else!

 

State Pier redevelopment estimated to cost $235.5 million

Kimberly Drelich

New London — The state has put a $235.5 million overall price tag on the project to redevelop State Pier into an offshore wind hub.

The figure represents the actual cost of the redevelopment, with $204 million for the construction project and an additional $31 million for “soft costs,” Office of Policy and Management Deputy Secretary Konstantinos Diamantis said during a State Bond Commission meeting Friday.

During the meeting, the State Bond Commission approved $55 million toward redeveloping and upgrading the pier, which Connecticut Port Authority Executive Director John Henshaw told The Day will enable the project to move forward with work that is currently permitted and essentially get started.

Energy companies Ørsted and Eversource plan to use the upgraded pier for assembly and staging for offshore wind turbines.

The port authority board of directors at a Tuesday meeting had approved a construction manager at risk agreement with Kiewit, an Omaha-based company, that set a “Target Guaranteed Maximum Price” of $204 million, including $193 million for construction and $11 million for contingency, Henshaw said. There is then an additional $31 million for the project's “soft costs,” including construction administrator fees, design, permitting, environmental mitigation and the railroad property lease.

The board on Tuesday also approved the first set of construction work packages, and anticipates approving another round next Tuesday, Henshaw said. He estimates demolition could start as early as May and some of the work could begin as soon as June.

Henshaw said the port authority’s project management team, which includes representatives from OPM and the Department of Administrative Services, is “overseeing the project to make generational improvements to transform State Pier 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 majority of the project is slated to be funded by the state, with $75 million in private sector funds, according to the Bond Commission agenda.

The last most recent estimates had put the project's cost at $200 million.

Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, asked during Friday’s Bond Commission meeting if the requested funding was intended to address some of the project’s cost overruns.

Diamantis said they are “not necessarily cost overruns,” but that original estimates, before the current administration got involved, were based on more preliminary documents and ideas of what the project would look like. As the project developed, the state, with experts at OPM and DAS Construction Services, developed a cost estimate based on full design documents and a completed contract with the construction manager, and also is incorporating any other costs associated with the project.

During a media briefing, Gov. Ned Lamont said, “this has been a long time coming and it’s a long negotiation” but at the end of the day, it’s important to remember that the vast expansion of State Pier will bring New London Harbor, which he called one of the great harbors in the Northeast and the Eastern Seaboard, “back to its full potential.”

“It’s going to allow that harbor to be able to accommodate some of the biggest freight back and forth,” he said. “Thanks to (U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District) you have a rail connection there and in the meantime for the next 10, 20 years, we’ll see, it’s going to be the center of wind power and allow us to not only assemble but potentially even make some of the key components for wind power in this country and in this region.”Among other items, the Bond Commission on Friday also approved additional requests from the port authority, including $5 million toward a project to dredge and improve navigation in New Haven Harbor, and $2,956,200 for the authority’s Small Harbor Improvement Projects Program, for projects in seven communities, according to the agenda.

That funding includes $649,333 toward a new Thames Street dock and $75,000 for the access to the municipal dock study in the City of Groton, according to the Bond Commission agenda.

Groton City Mayor Keith Hedrick said the project, in the works for two to three years and intended to help revitalize Thames Street and draw people and businesses to the area, calls for an eight-slip boat dock and a study on how to configure Thames View Park and make it handicapped-accessible from Thames Street down to the dock. The city also will contribute some funds toward the project. Once the city receives the state funding, the next steps would include a public hearing, local authorization to spend the money, and then a request for proposals process.

“This is great news towards economic development on Thames Street,” he said.

Norwich received $544,020 to replace the nearly 35-year-old public docks at the Howard T. Brown Memorial Park at Norwich Harbor.

“It took a long time,” Norwich Harbor Management Commission Chairman Tucker Braddock said.

Norwich submitted a request to the Connecticut Port Authority in 2019 to install new public docks and ramps on either side of the boat launch and running the length of the park. New safety railings will be installed on the back side of the docks, Braddock said. The project also includes an 80-foot-long handicapped-access ramp. The work likely will be done in the fall to avoid disruptions during the summer boating and fishing seasons and for people visiting the park.

Danbury City Council to consider $99 million career academy

Julia Perkins

DANBURY — The City Council is expected to consider a June vote on the proposed $99 million career academy during a virtual meeting on Monday.

This new school serving students in middle and high school would be built within three “pods” of the Summit, a mixed-use development in the 1.2 million-square-foot former Union Carbide world headquarters on the city’s west side.

The project has been largely popular among education and city officials and is seen as a way to help address the growing school enrollment, while providing students with opportunities to study various career fields and pursue internships.

A virtual meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Monday evening where public comments submitted from residents will be read. To submit feedback about the academy, residents should email comments@danbury-ct.gov with their full name and address by 5 p.m. Monday. The meeting will be streamed on YouTube.

The council will meet virtually at 8 p.m. to consider the mayor’s request for a vote to be held on the project on June 15.

Typically, the project would go to referendum, but the governor’s executive orders related to the coronavirus pandemic allow the council to approve the borrowing package itself. The council will decide Monday whether to hold the referendum or vote itself.

District officials have said they expect 1,400 students to eventually attend the academy, with 1,040 high school and 360 middle school students. Superintendent Sal Pascarella has said the district would phase in students and staff.

Eventually, the school would offer six academies focused on professional health services; information, cybersecurity and technology; scientific innovation and medicine; global enterprise and economics; art, engineering and design; and communications and design.

School administrators have been inspired by an academy in Nashville as they craft their plans. The Nashville school has raked in $8 million in fees by hosting other districts interested in the concept.

It’s one of two ongoing projects to address enrollment growth, with construction expected to begin this summer on an annex to Ellsworth Avenue Elementary School.

Danbury is racing to meet the state’s deadline for a grant that would cover 80 percent of the academy’s cost. Plus, $2.4 million of city costs would be covered by money the council approved last year for school projects.

The city is required by law to submit its application by Oct. 1, but the state has asked for a draft by Sept. 1, so that any necessary tweaks can be made.

This would be the first time Connecticut would reimburse a municipality for a school project that uses the “design-build” method. City officials have said the project may become a model for other communities.

Downtown Crossing project to close stretch of New Haven's South Frontage Road for 5 months

Ed Standard

NEW HAVEN — The road — South Frontage Road —literally will rise soon, as Downtown Crossing enters its next phase of transforming Route 34 from a highway to a cityscape of safe streets, bicycle and walking paths and space for economic development.

The road, however, will have to be closed between College and Church streets for five months, beginning in June, in order for it to be elevated 8 feet. Congress Avenue from Lafayette Street to South Frontage also will close, according to those involved in planning the project.

“It’ll be nice. I think this is going to become a main pedestrian path connection to the central business district,” Hall said.

“We’re rebuilding the neighborhood in a way that has the look and feel of a traditional city neighborhood,” said Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli.

The bridge is now Phase 4 of the project, split off from Phase 3 and planned for construction beginning in 2023. The decision was made so funds could be found “in more reasonable chunks and … to reduce traffic impacts because 101 College will be in construction at the same time” as Phase 3, said Anna Mariotti of HTNB Corp., the city’s consultant on Downtown Crossing.

Winstanley Enterprises, which also built 100 College St., plans to complete 101 College St., a 12-story, 500,000-square-foot bioscience research building, in November 2022. Mariotti said the company will break ground in June. “There will be one more parcel free for development in the future” between Temple and Church streets, she said.

Drivers on South Frontage Road now can see how much higher the road will be. A packed-earth “support of grade” wall rising just to the left will hold in the fill as the roadbed is raised.

“The grade of the road has to be raised approximately 8 feet to meet the future bridge conditions,” Mariotti said.

Hall said the road and nearby buildings and parking lots no longer will dip but all be on the same plane. It will improve “how the architecture relates to the street,” she said.

“We have to have a 16-foot clearance for every roadway,” said Doug Hausladen, city director of transportation, traffic and parking. The service drives between South Frontage Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard can’t be lowered because the water table is too high in that area, he said.

When South Frontage is closed at College Street, drivers coming down the road will turn right on College Street, double back on Congress Avenue to Lafayette Street, which will be made one way temporarily, turn left on Church Street South “and use the reconnected Orange Street entrance to the connector,” Hausladen said.

York Street also will be made a two-way street between Howard Avenue and South Frontage Road so drivers can leave South Frontage before getting to College Street.

Also, on May 15, Columbus Avenue will be reopened permanently between Church Street South and South Orange Street, where the Church Street South housing project was razed. It’s been closed since the 1980s, Mariotti said. Drivers will be able to continue on Columbus Avenue to Orange Street and then to the connector entrance or on to Union Station. “It should relieve some of the traffic in this area,” Hall said.

“We’re doing a lot of little things like this to help congestion,” Mariotti said.

In addition to detours, the city is recommending people start using alternate routes to get out of the city, such as using Elm and Orange streets to get to the Trumbull Street entrance to northbound Interstate 91 or State and West Water streets to get onto Interstate 95 south.

During much of the time South Frontage Road is closed, “colleges and universities are on summer break,” Mariotti said. “We don’t anticipate it will be 100 percent pre-COVID traffic levels even in October, based on conversations with large employers,” such as Gateway Community College, Alexion and the Knights of Columbus.

The reconnection of Orange Street, Phase 2 of Downtown Crossing, will be complete in June, Hausladen said.

Another change involves the service drives that go under the Alexion building and the Air Rights Garage, Mariotti said. There are two lanes in each roadway. During the construction, the north service road will become two-way while the south road is closed. Then in February, they will switch.

All of Downtown Crossing also has been designed to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, with protected intersections on Orange Street, bike paths and public plazas, one of which will be part of the 101 College St. project. Because of the size of the intersections, there will be no left turns throughout the area, in order to avoid cars backing up and clogging the road, Mariotti said.

“From a pedestrian standpoint, when you get to Union Station, you can walk to Amistad Park, to 101 [College St.] plaza to the New Haven Green,” Hausladen said. “It’s the right distance to walk and sit down and take a rest.”

People can sign up for weekly email updates at downtowncrossingnewhaven.com, and follow the project on social media. Hall said closing the road for five months will mean less disruption over the long run; closing one lane at a time would take much longer because each could only be raised partway and the lane closures would alternate.

“We’re asking for the public’s patience through this,” Hall said. “At the end of the day, we think this will be worth it.”

Getting There: It’s time to invest in Connecticut’s rail freight

Jim Cameron

How would you like a plan to remove thousands of trucks from Connecticut highways, clean up the air and create new jobs?

Who wouldn’t? It’s a win-win-win plan that you’d expect Gov. Ned Lamont to embrace, especially in this time of the Transportation Climate Initiative.

The solution? Invest in our state’s freight railroads.

Yes, there are still freight trains in Connecticut, just not very many. But there could be more.

In its earlier days as a profitable, private railroad, the New Haven line ran hundreds of freight trains each day. But today the railroad is too crowded with (relatively faster) passenger trains, and the bridges and catenary lines are too low for modern double-stack container trains.

In other parts of Connecticut, freight still travels by rail on more than 500 miles of track, most of it owned by the state Department of Transportation and leased to eight different private operators.

In western Connecticut we have the Housatonic, Pam Am Southern, Connecticut Southern, the Naugatuck and Providence and Worcester Railroads, to name but a few.

These short line railroads already carry 3.8 million tons of freight annually in our state, keeping 350,000 truck loads off our roads and reducing greenhouse emissions by 75 percent. Diesel trains can carry up to 500 ton-miles per gallon. Trucks manage about 130.

These freight railroads carry everything from chlorine-based disinfectants for water treatment, food for our tables, huge electrical transformers and bulk commodities. Their customers include such Connecticut businesses as Becton Dickinson, Kimberly Clark and Home Depot.

There are even plans to turn an abandoned factory site in Naugatuck into an inland port, receiving freight trains of goods to be offloaded onto trucks for local delivery.

Consider the mighty 19-mile-long Naugatuck Railroad Founded in 1845, the line once ran from Winsted to Bridgeport, offering both passenger trains and freight service. These days the line is much shorter, but they still hand off long loads of boxcars filled with construction debris bound for landfills in Ohio.

While marginally profitable, these freight railroads need help to continue, let alone expand, their service to the state’s businesses if they are to meet federal expectations of a 30 percent increase in rail freight traffic by 2040.

As their “landlord,” the state needs to invest in their infrastructure by rebuilding bridges to carry heavier loads, lay new track, replace worn ties and improve grade crossings.

Eight years ago the state bonded $10 million to fund such repairs and the railroads chipped in their own money, too. They had to, with $80 million of needed work, most of which has gone unfinished.

Early in 2020, the legislature approved an additional $10 million in investments, but the Bond Commission has yet to approve the funding and issue the bonds.

When the Bond Commission met last week, they found $467 million in total funding for dozens of projects but the $10 million for freight rail wasn’t even on the agenda.

My Hearst colleague Ken Dixon asked the governor if his old “debt diet” was over, to which he replied no, that the new bonding was an “investment” in everything from housing to economic development, thanks to interest rates being so low (1.8 percent).

Ten million dollars in state bonding is chump change. At their next meeting the Bond Commission and the governor should get on with the job of investing in Connecticut’s rail freight.

Dakota Partners eyes groundbreaking on Newington apartments, two multifamily developments in Hartford