Kristen Gorski, West Hartford’s economic development coordinator, said 616 New Park has enjoyed high occupancy and a waiting list since its opening.

The new development will replace a long-vacant and blighted warehouse and will require the removal of environmental contamination on the property.

“It really will serve as a catalyst to the entire area,” Gorski said. “So, activating this site, as we saw with the activation of 616 New Park that was on a similar, longtime-vacant blighted site, this will create a lot more interest for new businesses to come in as well as help with the growth of existing businesses.”

The stretch between the two CTfastrak stations also is set for streetscape improvements, Gorski said, after the town secured $3.7 million grant from the state Department of Transportation. Now in the design stage, the improvements will include new sidewalks, lighting, bike lanes and possibly pocket parks, she said.

The improvements are expected to go into construction in 2022.

Once dominated by industrial employers, the area now also has its home improvement design district. The stretch of New Park has added entertainment and dining with New Park Brewing and, just since late last year, GastroPark, a food truck park.

Financing for 540 New Park includes federal low-income housing credits from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, the state department of housing and bank financing from People’s United Bank.

Once 540 New Park is complete, “you will have 100 families in a neighborhood that had nothing more than what is now across from 616, four two-family houses. Economically, it’s a big deal and the perception, which is an economic tool, is a big deal.”

‘A godsend for the neighborhood:’ New development proposed in north Stratford

Ethan Fry  STRATFORD — The owners of Ryders Landing want to put a new coffee shop on Main Street as the first phase of a development that could ultimately include retail and office space, a restaurant and a 105-room riverfront hotel.

“Those properties are a diamond in the rough along the river,” Robert Rosati, a lawyer representing the property owners, Robert and Martin Sbriglio, said. “There’s so much potential.”

The Sbriglios own five properties totaling roughly 5.5 acres off Main Street immediately south of the Ryders Landing development. The Sbriglios also own the nearby Lord Chamberlain nursing home and rehabilitation center and several other nursing homes statewide.

Plans submitted to the town include a possible 4,000-square-foot restaurant, a 14,800-square-foot retail and office building and a 103,400-square foot, three-story, 105-room hotel.

The development is called “Parkway Plaza.”

However, they are first seeking approval only for a 2,475-square-foot coffee shop with a drive-thru. A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 24 before the Zoning Commission.

“At this stage, there’s going to be no development along the Housatonic River,” Rosati told the Planning Commission last month. “That’s all reserved for future development.”

Rosati said Friday it’s unclear when the Sbriglios would look to ultimately build out the development completely.

“With COVID, that’s hard to predict,” he said.

However, if the coffee shop plans get approved, he said they’d want to start construction soon.

“I think the plan is to start building in the spring and then get up and running as soon as possible,” Rosati said.

The property sees high vehicle traffic from Main Street, the Exit 53 ramps of the Merritt Parkway and nearby Sikorsky.

Rosati said the plans to be reviewed by the Zoning Commission would incorporate recommendations from the state Department of Transportation and the town.

“It’s going to be designed to alleviate traffic and with safety in mind,” he said. “It’s a great amenity to the town and a great gateway to the town.”

At a meeting last month, the Planning Commission unanimously approved a request to abandon three dirt roads bordering the properties — Charlotte Street, Leslie Street, and Oronoque Place — on the condition that the town have an easement to a roughly 2-acre, irregularly shaped town-owned property along the river.

Rosati described that property as having been deeded to the town in the 1800s. Town property records for the parcel predate those available online.

“Until we did this project, I’m not sure the town knew they ever owned that,” he told the Planning Commission last month. “I’m not sure anybody from the town has ever stepped foot on that property. It’s overgrown and then it leads to a huge drop in elevation down into a brush wooded area and then eventually it leads to the cul-de-sac on Ryders (Lane).”

While answering questions from the commission, Rosati said when the rest of the land gets developed, some sort of deal to acquire the land from the town might be possible.

The commission’s chairman, Harold Watson, also noted the town wants to connect its greenway along the Housatonic River to the nearby Sikorsky Estuary Walk someday.

Rosati said those concerns would be addressed — eventually.

“I know there’s a huge concern for the riverwalk and for public access to the river and what are we going to do about developing along the river,” he said. “We get all that, and we will address all that. But not now, because we’re only dealing with this first phase.”

Planning Commission member Dan Senft said he lives nearby.

“That whole area is definitely an eyesore,” he said. “Anything they can do to develop that property I think would be godsend for the neighborhood.”

Lawmakers expect lean budget from Lamont. But how lean will it be?

Keith M. Phaneuf and Kasturi Pananjady  Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to propose a lean budget Wednesday that averts tax hikes while closing a major deficit and positions Connecticut’s economy to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

But some of the governor’s fellow Democrats fear “lean” really means austere — and that the plan will lack targeted tax relief and expanded investments in health care, social services and transportation — without which, they say, a recovery that includes all classes is impossible.

“At the end of the day, the governor will be focused on preparing Connecticut for recovery and growth,” Office of Policy and Management Secretary Melissa McCaw said of the biennial budget Lamont will unveil on Wednesday.

That includes maintaining services, protecting taxpayers — particularly in distressed municipalities — and ensuring Connecticut continues to defeat the coronavirus, she said.

But officials cannot escape the fact that state finances face steep challenges for years to come, even given a robust stock market that has — for now — mitigated the recession’s impact on Connecticut’s budget.

Analysts say state finances, unless adjusted, will run about $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion in the red, both in the fiscal year that begins July 1 as well as in 2022-23.

Some key sources of state revenue are expected to remain sluggish well after that. And the University of Connecticut’s economic think-tank warned much of the economic damage caused by the coronavirus could linger well into the 2020s.

“Our challenges are not just limited to FY [fiscal years] 22 and 23,” McCaw added. “I think there’s a balance we’re going to strike here. … It’s not going to be all or nothing.”  

Cracking open CT’s piggy bank

Part of that balance, she said, involves tapping Connecticut’s record-setting $3 billion-plus budget reserve, commonly known as the rainy day fund.

Using those dollars to help plug a massive budget gap over the next two fiscal years is one thing.

But because some economic challenges remain, state officials have to be cautious about also tapping one-time reserve dollars to launch many new programs — which will cost money every year and long after reserves are gone, McCaw said.

Connecticut struggled for much of the 2010s with huge projected deficits year after year, a disturbing trend that didn’t go unnoticed by Wall Street credit rating agencies. And if the state wants to ensure its ability to take advantage of the low borrowing rates currently being offered, McCaw said, it can’t return to those days of doom-and-gloom fiscal forecasts.

Health care may expand, but Medicaid eligibility won’t

The budget director declined to provide many details about the plan Lamont will unveil Wednesday. But she said one of the initiatives that many Democrats want won’t happen — at least in the way they’ve proposed.

Progressive Democrats are pressing Lamont to expand HUSKY A, Connecticut’s Medicaid-funded health insurance program for poor households with children.

“We are not contemplating Medicaid expansion, but there are some more proposals to make health care more affordable” being developed, she said.

That may not be enough for the “Recovery Champions,” a coalition of 30 Democrats from the House and Senate majorities who want Lamont to pump billions of dollars into services and tax relief for Connecticut’s low- and middle-income households.

“Extreme conditions call for extreme measures,” said Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, who co-chairs the legislature’s Labor Committee. “It is time for us to think outside of the box.”

“The most recent election showed people really want a different direction, they want fairness, they want equity,” said Rep. Quentin Phipps, D-Middletown, co-chairman of the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus.

According to the Department of Labor, nearly 200,000 individuals currently are receiving weekly unemployment benefits. By comparison, Connecticut lost 120,000 jobs in the last recession, which ran from December 2007 through mid-2009.

Many of those individuals lost health insurance along with their jobs. More importantly, because the federal government has enhanced state unemployment assistance for much of the pandemic — and because this aid counts as taxable income — many of these households don’t qualify for HUSKY A coverage.

This lack of coverage, progressives say, leaves thousands of Connecticut households just one serious health crisis away from economic catastrophe.

Besides expanding Medicaid eligibility, many from the party’s far-left also want to pump hundreds of millions of dollars annually into working class households through more generous state income tax credits, and by expanding municipal aid — and potentially enabling communities to lower property tax rates.

Lamont has a line in the sand on tax hikes

Raising taxes on the wealthy would prompt them to flee Connecticut, according to the governor, who has said recently that it would be a particularly bad move now, while “we have the [economic] wind to our back.”

That last statement from the governor has frustrated many Democratic lawmakers who argue the chief executive is confusing the stock market with the overall economy.

And while Wall Street has recovered all of the value it lost in the first months of the pandemic and then some, much Connecticut’s working class and small businesses remain in rough shape.

That argument is supported by state revenue data.Lamont warned back in early May that revenues for the first year of the new budget could come in $2 billion or more below original projections.

But by January, projected tax receipts had surged, eliminating roughly 80% of the problem.

Will Lamont try to stay at stringent, pandemic-level state spending?

And that’s not the only thing that’s changed since the pandemic began in March.

The co-chairwomen of the legislature’s Appropriations Committee, Rep. Toni E. Walker, D-New Haven and Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, both have expressed concerns over the hundreds of millions of dollars the Lamont administration has saved since COVID-19  hit Connecticut hard last March.

Connecticut’s rainy day fund actually stood at abut $2.2 billion when the last fiscal year began in July 2019 — $800 million below where it is now.

Lamont pumped up reserves, in part, by not spending $544 million last fiscal year. That’s two-and-a-half times the savings target he was mandated by the legislature to reach.

And so far this fiscal year, with five months still to go, the administration expects to save $937 million. That’s three times the level directed by the legislature as part of the normal budget-balancing process.

A big chunk of those savings was due to enhanced federal Medicaid payments, which covered costs the state normally would have to pay.

And the administration also said the pandemic forced lots of savings. For example, offices had to be closed and certain programs couldn’t be offered to maintain social distancing and public health goals.

Still, some lawmakers fear Lamont will base his new budget on stringent, pandemic levels. What happens, they ask, when all services can safely operate again, or when enhanced federal Medicaid funding goes away?In other words, is Lamont dressing Connecticut in a budget that is adequate during a pandemic but fits like a strait-jacket afterward?

Walker, who favors expanding Medicaid eligibility, joined Osten in pushing for more funding for the non-profit community agencies who deliver the bulk of state social services.

Walker and House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, also want to repeal a statute that would effectively end Connecticut’s longstanding practice of trying to recover public assistance by placing liens on the homes of former welfare recipients.

“It is important that we start to bring humanity back to government assistance,” Walker said.

Connecticut has a statutory spending cap that tries to keep most budget growth in line with the average increase in personal income statewide. The cap system is projected to limit growth to most areas, excluding debt and pension payments and programs backed with federal funds, to an average of 2.9% in the first year of Lamont’s new budget and less than 2.4% in the second.

McCaw said the administration anticipates no problems staying under the cap, and while there is a process to exceed it legally, the Lamont administration has ruled that out.

‘Silver Tsunami’ won’t be a budget cure-all

The governor hopes to get some financial relief from a private analysis on how to shrink state government.

The state commissioned Boston Consulting Group, the firm that helped Connecticut map out a business reopening strategy as the pandemic eased last summer, to assess a huge projected surge in state retirements.Abut 25% of the state workforce, as much as 12,000 employees, are eligible to retire over the next two years as stronger limits on state pension benefits go into effect. The 2017 legislature mandated a study to utilize this so-called “silver tsunami” to save as much as $500 million per year.

But while McCaw said that initiative will be reflected in the governor’s budget Wednesday, no savings close to that scale is achievable in just the next two fiscal years.

Legislature must find CT’s transportation solution

Transportation advocates say the next two years are crucial for Connecticut’s roads, bridges and rail lines. Annual funding for infrastructure work already has fallen by one-third starting this year. And if this continues much longer, construction and labor leaders say, the industry won’t recover.

After lawmakers rejected his appeals over the last two years to install electronic tolls on highways, Lamont says he won’t try a third time.

A massive, five-year program to ramp up borrowing for state construction work expired last year. But experts say it will decade decades of enhanced investment to upgrade one of the oldest transportation infrastructure’s in the nation.

Connecticut now has to pay off billions of dollars it borrowed, and it still has no long-term plan to finance the budget’s Special Transportation Fund, which is headed for insolvency in 2024 or 2025.

In response, the administration already has begun to delay borrowing for the transportation building program. And while this will help keep the fund solvent — since borrowing less frequently lowers debt costs — advocates note it also will eventually delay projects.

“Once we get out to the next several years, nothing is [fully] funded,” Nate Brown, vice president of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council, told the CT Mirror last month. “It’s a construction industry issue statewide, and the men and women who rely on that as a living could have some really severe consequences going forward.”Lamont has asked the legislature to support Connecticut joining the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a regional, two-year push to cut greenhouse gas emissions from travel.

The initiative estimates this could result in higher taxes on fuel producers — which would be passed onto motorists at the pump — ranging from 5 to 17 cents per gallon.

But much of the revenue raised by those increases would be used by states to invest in public transit, electric cars and other conservation methods. It’s not projected to be a major source of funding to rebuild Connecticut’s infrastructure.

Lamont has made it clear that while he’s ready to talk solutions with legislators, and to answer questions, they have to take the lead on finding a new funding source for Connecticut’s rebuild.

“The legislature didn’t want to make a hard decision,” Lamont said. “My job this year is to give them some other ideas that would make the fund solvent.”

But if nothing else is done, “It’s going to significantly hamper the state’s ability to make any progress at all,” said Don Shubert, president of the Connecticut Construction Industry Association.

Shubert warned that construction contractors and workers could soon migrate to other states to find employment. “The construction industry pulls back as soon as it recognizes uncertainty. Drastic cuts like this cause deep adjustments in the industry,” he said.

Big changes could be coming for transportation around Greater Hartford, from buried highways to bicycles; here’s what’s under consideration

Kenneth R. Gosselin  A new, broader vision for traveling around the Hartford area of the future is expected to emerge by the end of next year, as the state widens its sights beyond replacing the I-84 viaduct and I-91 interchange to developing a regional transportation plan that also includes buses, rail, bicycles and pedestrians.

The state Department of Transportation has been laying the groundwork for a comprehensive study ever since it made the startling announcement at the end of 2019 that the state would put a hold on replacing the viaduct and include it in a larger regional transportation plan.