American boat patrols waters around new offshore wind farms to protect jobs

JENNIFER McDERMOTT

NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts (AP) — One early morning this week in ocean waters off the coasts of Rhode Island and New York, signs of the nascent wind industry were all around. Giant upright steel tubes poked from the water, waiting for ships to hoist up turbines that will make electricity driven by wind.

A battleship-gray vessel was on the prowl. In this ramp-up for U.S. offshore wind, American marine companies and mariners fear they’ll be left behind.

So Aaron Smith, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association, was looking through binoculars to see whether ships servicing the new wind farms were using foreign-flagged vessels instead of U.S.-made ships with American crews.

“It really makes me upset when I think about the men and women I know who can do this work. American citizens, fully capable, sitting at home while foreign nationals go to work in U.S. waters,” Smith said. “It’s unfair."

The ship is named the Jones Act Enforcer, after the century-old law that says the transport of merchandise between U.S. points is reserved for U.S.-built, owned and documented vessels. The motto: “We’ll be watching.” Smith was documenting operations to show to federal law enforcement officials and members of Congress.

The Offshore Marine Service Association says it strongly supports the offshore wind industry. Many of its member companies are already working in it. Smith said this effort is about securing their future — decades of jobs and investments. The U.S. could need roughly 2,000 of the most powerful turbines to meet its goals to ramp up offshore wind to dramatically cut its use of fossil fuels to protect the atmosphere and reduce climate change.

The Enforcer made several trips to where Danish energy company Ørsted is developing the South Fork Wind project with the utility Eversource. This will likely be the first U.S. commercial-scale wind farm to open.

Approaching the site Tuesday, Smith saw a large crane ship sailing under the Cyprus flag, smaller Belgian-flagged vessels, and U.S. fishing and offshore supply vessels near the turbine bases. The Associated Press was the only media outlet aboard.

The U.S. fleet doesn’t yet have massive ships specialized for offshore wind to install foundations and turbines. But some of the foreign-flagged vessels working in wind development areas along the East Coast are tugs and smaller supply ships. U.S. ship operators told the AP they have similar vessels that can do this work.

Ørsted responded that 75% of the vessels supporting South Fork Wind’s offshore construction are U.S.-flagged, including barges, tugs, crew transport vessels and fishing vessels that monitor for safety and marine mammals. But the larger U.S.-flagged offshore wind vessels aren't built yet. Even so, the installation vessels for South Fork Wind have American union workers on board, the company told the AP.

“While the U.S. industry continues to mature, we’re designing our projects to tap as many American workers, contractors, suppliers and vessels as possible. We’re proud that South Fork Wind is putting hundreds of American mariners and union workers to work at sea in a wide range of roles,” Bryan Stockton, head of regulatory affairs for Ørsted, said in a statement Thursday.

Ørsted’s offshore work is complying with Jones Act provisions, Stockton added.

On this day, Smith said he could see no clear violations of the Jones Act, no “smoking gun.” In order to make a Jones Act case to Customs and Border Protection, the association would need to see several stages of activity, observing a ship for weeks if not months. It would need to show loading merchandise onto a ship in port, transporting it to an offshore site and returning empty.

In the past, the association has also checked oil and gas sites for foreign vessels. It first chartered the Enforcer from Harvey Gulf International Marine in late 2021.

Both wind and oil and gas companies can seek waivers to the Jones Act, citing national defense and unavailability of U.S. vessels, or get a ruling from Customs that a specific transaction is permitted using a foreign vessel.

But Smith said he feels that offshore wind developers are violating the spirit of the act. He said he worries investors won’t finance the building of offshore ships if they're going to compete against foreign vessels with cheaper day rates, largely because foreign crews can be paid less. That would create a cycle where developers keep using foreign vessels because no U.S. vessels are available.

The association wants to break that cycle as the industry takes off, Smith said. Federal officials expect to review at least 16 construction and operations plans for commercial, offshore wind energy facilities by 2025.

“That’s a ton of work we could be doing,” Smith said, “and a ton of good-paying jobs.”

Randy Adams owns Sea Support Ventures in Cut Off, Louisiana. His vessels do geological surveys for oil and gas. He wants to do the same for the clean energy transition, but hasn’t yet.

“I’m just concerned that our industry is going to miss the boat on the wind farm work,” he said. “I can’t say we’re being shut out of it, but we’re sure not on the top of the totem pole.”

As for the Jones Act Enforcer, Smith plans to keep it berthed at the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts into August, visiting the two commercial-scale wind farm sites. Ørsted is installing 12 turbines. The other developer, Vineyard Wind, is building a 62-turbine wind farm 15 miles (24 kilometers) off the Massachusetts coast.

Vineyard Wind said in a statement Thursday that its project complies with all U.S. laws, including the Jones Act, and it fully supports the American maritime and shipbuilding industry.

Before arriving in Massachusetts, the Enforcer was off the coast of Virginia where Dominion Energy plans an offshore wind farm. Smith was seeing if foreign vessels were surveying the area for unexploded ordnance, and he said they were, despite at least four of his member companies bidding on the job.

Dominion told the AP those vessels are not transporting merchandise between U.S. points, so they're compliant. The company said U.S. vessels got the work surveying, scouting, hauling equipment and transporting technicians.

In Texas, Dominion is also currently building the Charybdis, the first Jones Act-compliant offshore wind-installation vessel and says it strongly supports the Act. Ørsted will charter that ship.

Ørsted is also investing in the Eco Edison, the first American-made offshore wind service operations vessel, now under construction in Louisiana, and in five more crew transfer vessels being built in Rhode Island.

Sam Giberga is executive vice president and general counsel at Hornbeck Offshore Services in Covington, Louisiana. Its supply vessels and multi-purpose support ships are primarily used by the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. He said at first they were excited by the promise of offshore wind because it's clean energy that will create jobs and business. But for him, it’s starting to feel like a broken promise. The company recently lost a bid to a foreign vessel.

“We are a maritime nation. Always have been. This is the next great maritime frontier and we’re not going to get to do it,” Giberga asked. “Why would we allow that?” ___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Should Hartford-Brainard Airport close? Mayor Bronin thinks so, but there's pushback.

Liese Klein

The future of Hartford-Brainard Airport was the subject of intense debate Thursday night — with Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin speaking up to make the case for transforming the site into something more valuable to the city.

Angry shouts punctuated the public meeting on the work of a New York consultant who is looking at alternatives for the future of Hartford-Brainard, located on 200 acres of land bracketed by Interstate 91 and the Connecticut River. Redevelopment of Hartford’s South Meadows district is seen as key to the city’s future growth.

Experts hired by consultant BJF Planning outlined the economic and environmental factors affecting the marketability of the airport property, perched on dozens of feet of sand, gravy and silt deposited by the river and glaciers over the years and bordered by a water-treatment plant and a shuttered trash-burning plant.

An audience of about 50 people at Hartford’s Metzner Early Learning Center, mostly supporters of maintaining Hartford-Brainard as an airport serving small planes, listened to the experts’ take. Presented were three scenarios: Keeping the airport open, closing one runway and redeveloping part of the site, or closing the airport down for a complete revamp of the property.

The Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA), which owns the Hartford-Brainard property, said it supported keeping the facility open for general aviation.

“The CAA continues to work with the state’s consultants on the Brainard Airport study, and we are monitoring their findings. We continue to be confident that the airport’s value will be recognized in the final report,” the authority said in a statement. 

Closing the airport was Bronin’s choice. His remarks — interrupted by angry shouts from the crowd at one point — stressed the potential of the site for housing or another use of benefit to the city in combination with the former trash plant property. The city council passed a resolution in the last year to close the airport and commissioned its own study on its future.

“Overall, you have about 300 acres of riverfront land and the intersection of New England’s two major highways, which currently produces no revenue for the city in which it is located and that loses money to the state of Connecticut,” Bronin said. “It cannot be that that's the highest and best use for the state of Connecticut, it cannot be the highest and best use for the capital city of the state of Connecticut.”

Bronin added that aviation-related businesses could continue to operate in the area but such a large tract of land should not be limited to one industry.

“We have to move faster in this state to seize opportunities,” Bronin said. “[The airport] cannot be the highest and best use. And I urge the consultants not to fall into the Connecticut trap of just being the land of steady habits where we don't make change.”

Shouts from the audience critiqued the mayor’s development track record; Bronin left right after making his remarks.

The study under discussion Thursday night was commissioned by the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) after the state legislature passed a measure last year seeking “to assess the benefits and opportunity costs to Hartford and the state of the current and alternative uses of the Hartford Brainard Airport property.”

DECD plans to submit the study’s findings by Oct. 15, 2023, to the legislature’s finance, revenue and bonding committee.

The consultant’s early report on the economic factors around transforming the airport showed a weak overall market for office and retail uses in the Hartford area, with a conversion to housing presenting high costs due to contamination from underground storage tanks and the lack of easily accessible bedrock at the site. 

Industrial uses like warehouses and distribution centers showed promise for the property but face competition from projects like the warehouse complex currently under construction nearby in East Hartford.

Lead consultant Frank Fish, who visited the airport levee holding back the surging Connecticut River right before the meeting, stressed the interplay of factors that would shape his company’s report on Hartford-Brainard’s future.

“The environmental piece is very important. However, the market is also critical,” Fish said, stressing the difficulty of building housing in an area which would be cut off from the rest of the city by the river, highways and industrial areas.

“Many developers we work with, when I asked them about this site, ‘Would you invest?’ The answer for most of our developers is no,” Fish said.

As this latest study continues, Lindsey Rutka, co-owner of Hartford Jet Center at Hartford-Brainard, said that all the debate on the facility’s future was hurting its current growth. 

“If every year, they keep talking about closing the airport, nobody wants to come and invest millions of dollars into our community,” Rutka said. “We are an aviation state, we should maintain that.”

As lawmakers look to other uses for the airport land, the Federal Aviation Administration this year included Hartford-Brainard on a list of 31 facilities nationwide in line to get new air traffic control towers, an upgrade to the current 1973-vintage tower. 

Brainard handled 66,120 flights in calendar year 2021, the most recent data available. Most were general aviation operations, in addition to 672 air taxi and 103 military flights from the airport. Of the general aviation flights, 31,049 were by planes based at the airport and 34,292 were by visiting planes, according to the FAA.

A final public meeting on the airport’s future is planned for Aug. 10 . More information on the consultant’s report can be found at: https://hartfordbrainardairportstudy2023.com/

East Hartford agrees to talk incentives for Founders Plaza development

Joseph Villanova

EAST HARTFORD — Elected officials plan to discuss government incentives for Port Eastside LLC, a company looking to revitalize an area bordering the Connecticut River with mixed-use development.

Mayor Mike Walsh announced earlier this month that he will leave his position in November to help organize the plan, named Port Eastside, without payment from any parties involved. 

The project is one of many new developments in East Hartford in recent years, alongside warehouses at Rentschler Field, new apartments at the former Showcase Cinemas site, and plans for redevelopment at Silver Lane Plaza and a youth sports facility.

The Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to consider any economic development incentives deemed necessary to completion of Port Eastside LLC's proposed project.

Nicholas Michnevitz III, president of West Hartford-based MBH Architecture and a principal of Port Eastside LLC, said Tuesday night that he expects the project will see "hundreds of millions of dollars" of investments put into the area from a number of partners over five to eight years of work.

The company has control of a number of parcels in the planned development area, including the high-rise office building at 111 Founders Plaza.

Michnevitz said details on the project would be sparse until a draft master plan is completed within a matter of months, after which developers expect to come back to the Town Council with a presentation.

Michnevitz said the planned development would see housing, medical, entertainment, and other uses built on an elevated platform above the dike bordering East River Drive.

Walsh said the Town Council has a number of potential incentives it could provide to Port Eastside LLC, but the best option would likely be an "improvement district" that would fund amenities using a portion of tax revenue generated by the new development.

Walsh said the improvement district model was used in the redevelopment of a Stamford neighborhood known as Harbor Point.

"What we have to do is economic modeling to see if that's the best way forward," Walsh said.

Town Council members voiced their support for the project and fielded questions and concerns at the meeting Tuesday night.

Chairman Rich Kehoe said it was far too early to look at how government assistance would be used during development.

"We are committing right now to work with the developer to see where things might come into play," Kehoe said.

Vice Chairman Don Bell said East Hartford would benefit greatly from a redeveloped Founders Plaza, but that it would be important to set appropriate expectations for the project and for developers to remain communicative and transparent with both officials and the general public.

"This is highly complex, this is something that hasn't been done in East Hartford for half a century, plus," Bell said.

Councilman Travis Simpson said he would want to ensure any buildings on site are not demolished before a plan is solidified, as to not disrupt a potentially viable property without having anything to immediately replace it.

Walsh replied that the proposed Port Eastside development is as complicated as he has ever seen and would require a laundry list of approvals before any demolition would occur.

Councilman Harry Amadasun Jr. said he would like to see the developer bring on parties that may not be "heavy hitters" to help broaden the benefit to residents of the possibly "once-in-a-lifetime" development.

"I'd like to see some out-of-the-box thinking," Amadasun said.

Michnevitz said making those considerations would be valuable, but the primary focus to begin with is ensuring "anchor" tenants and users of the space would be secured in order to keep the development feasible.

Southington library to break ground on new building next week

Christian Metzger,

SOUTHINGTON — Construction is about to commence on the Southington Library site, following nearly two years of planning by the Library Building Committee. 

Contractors at Whiting-Turner planned to move their trailer on site Friday, and erecting a fence around the construction area on either Monday or Tuesday early next week. 

Having met with all the different contractors, Eversource, and the Planning and Zoning Commission, the first steps for the team will be ripping up the larger parking lot adjacent to the library and laying the piping and power infrastructure before laying out the building’s foundations. 

“We're switching over now, from design to construction,” Town Manager Mark Sciota said, noting that board activities would be slowing down considerably as Whiting-Turner would take over the majority of the finer details of construction. The committee’s meetings will be reduced for the remainder of the process, only being held once a month as opposed to every other week. 

While a groundbreaking ceremony was considered during the last meeting, the board has opted to pivot instead to a steel topping-off ceremony, which would commemorate the placing of the last steel beam into the construction frame of the library. 

The idea is to give residents something more tangible to look at during the ceremony, painting the beam white and giving people a chance to sign it. Mary Baker, a member of the Library Board who is overseeing fundraising efforts for additional construction funds, sees the event as a good opportunity to raise money, with people paying a fee for a chance to leave their mark upon the new building. 

Ideally, if construction proceeds on schedule, the steel topping-off would occur sometime in the late fall, giving fair weather for both residents and town officials to attend. 

Though the Whiting-Turner contractors don’t officially yet have a building permit from the town, they don’t anticipate it to be an issue for the timeline of the project. According to Christine Longo, a project manager with Whiting-Turner, it’s anticipated they’ll receive the permit within a couple of days following the meeting after sending their revised plans to the Planning and Zoning Committee. 

“The next steps are to send a response to that Planning and Zoning meeting that was back in April,” Longo said, “ They're gonna send over a few items they want addressed. They're not gonna hold up anything. And then we have the state and special inspections, which outlines the frequency of all inspections for the job. Hopefully, they get that tomorrow and from there we can go forward in the next couple days.”

Although some aspects of the construction remain up in the air, like the sign for the library on the corner of Main St. and Meriden Ave., or the community patio which is set to be outside the large conference room with retracting doors, the board did approve Whiting-Turner’s motion to wire electric lines to those areas in anticipation that they might be finished. Already the library is halfway to its funding goals for those projects, though they’re looking ahead toward the Apple Harvest festival as a means to solicit small cash donations and again set up a booth to sell the merits of the new building to the public. 

The board plans to make a list of all the sub-contractors brought on to work on the library available to the public in the coming days as they finalize all the work contracts ahead of work commencing next week.

Growing Hartford-focused developer lines up 78-unit development on city land

Michael Puffer

Adeveloper with a growing roster of apartment developments and renovations in a long-struggling corner of Hartford has proposed a $30.4 million project mixing 78 apartments and 12,000 square feet of commercial and office space on two city-owned properties.

The administration of Mayor Luke Bronin has funneled millions of dollars into reviving the Albany Avenue corridor with streetscape improvements and public-private redevelopment partnerships.

Now, Bronin is proposing to grant a 49-year lease – with options to renew – of 88 Magnolia St. and 614 Albany Ave., two blighted properties totaling nearly 1.2 acres to Andaleeb Enterprises LLC. The developer proposes a four-story building of apartments over commercial and office space. The city would also provide an unspecified amount of financial assistance for the project, according to a letter Bronin sent to the City Council.

The remaining funding will come from a senior loan; tax credits and a loan from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority; Connecticut Department of Housing Funds; and equity, according to Bronin.

In his letter, Bronin describes the targeted properties as “blighted and underutilized for many years.” The lease to Andaleeb Enterprises will be part of an online public hearing before the City Council on Monday.

The city properties contain a fenced basketball court. Amber "Ace" Andaleeb, who manages the family investments, said the development will be an improvement. 

"The park has been neglected forever and it's time someone put a good use to it," Andaleeb said. "What we are doing will benefit the community. We will create some new, affordable and modern housing over there." 

Andaleeb said a positive vote on the land lease would allow him to line up grants and other financing. 

The Magnolia/Albany project would be the most ambitious yet for Andaleeb Enterprises, a vehicle of family investors that got its start in Hartford with an Albany Avenue convenience store.  In the past three years, the Andaleeb family has – either independently or with investors – committed more than $6.3 million buying at least a dozen commercial and mixed-use apartment properties in Hartford – eight of them along Albany Avenue.

This well-traveled artery serves as a gateway to downtown Hartford but has long been plagued by extensive blight.

The city already has experience with the Bloomfield-based family, having recently granted Andaleeb Enterprises a 98-year lease on 270 Albany Ave. and three adjacent properties. There, the plan is to build 40 apartments above 3,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space in two buildings. That project cost is estimated to be around $10.7 million.

Andaleeb Enterprises was selected to redevelop 88 Magnolia St. and 614 Albany Ave. based on its response to an Oct. 3, 2022 request-for-proposals issued by the city. The proposal includes 16 three-bedroom apartments, 22 two-bedroom apartments and 40 one-bedroom units, 52 of which will be set at affordable rates. The plan calls for 59 off-street parking spaces.

Andaleeb will be required to comply with city fair-wage requirements, along with hiring targets for minority and women-owned businesses. It will also be required to make payments in lieu of taxes to the city beginning three years after the start of the ground lease. PILOT payments would start at 5% of gross revenue in years four and five, gradually ratcheting up to 8.5% as of 16 years following the start of the ground lease.

Under the tentative agreement struck with the city, Andaleeb Enterprises would have nine months to vet the project and secure financing before it is committed. 

Inflation cools, but material prices remain high

Sebastian Obando

Construction input prices remained unchanged in June, following three consecutive months of drops, signaling the end of unchecked inflation in the sector, according to a new Associated Builders and Contractors analysis.

Overall construction costs are now 4.9% lower than they were a year ago, while nonresidential input prices are down 4.5%, according to the report. While input prices still sit 38% higher than they were at the start of the pandemic, the consistent flattening of costs means the worst of inflation is likely in the industry’s rearview mirror. 

“The pandemic-induced period of rapid construction input cost increases is over,” said Anirban Basu, chief economist at ABC in the release. “This recent moderation is partially due to a drastic improvement in supply chains; both international and domestic freight rates have plunged back toward pre-pandemic levels.” 

Despite that seemingly positive news, Basu said the last three years of price increases have left construction in a precarious position. 

The mix of still-expensive materials compared to pre-pandemic levels, tight credit conditions and high interest rates that are likely to rise again at the Federal Reserve’s July meeting will almost certainly put downward pressure on construction activity over the next few quarters, Basu said.

Despite the overall flattening of construction materials prices, costs went up in 7 of 19 commodity categories in June, according to the report. 

That’s because strong nonresidential activity is keeping price pressures on sought-after materials, such as concrete and steel, said Chris Delaney, commercial manager in the Americas division at construction consultancy firm Linesight.

Basu said last month that multi–billion dollar megaprojects should continue to break ground across the country, causing continued upward pressure on key construction materials.

While those details mean the dropping tide isn’t being felt everywhere evenly, the overall results suggest inflation is indeed slowing, at least with regards to goods prices, said Basu.

For example, all energy subcategories dropped in June, led by a 5.9% dip in crude petroleum, 5.3% in natural gas and 5% in unprocessed energy materials prices. Other materials prices, such as iron and steel, fell 2.5%.

Nevertheless, concrete products ticked up 0.6%, switchgear increased 1.5% and prepared asphalt jumped 1.9%, according to the report.

Construction backlog holds steady on infrastructure tailwinds

Joe Bousquin

Construction backlog remained flat in June at 8.9 months, the third consecutive month outstanding projects that contractors have booked, but haven’t yet started, notched that level. The number was also exactly the same as results from a year ago, according to a report from Associated Builders and Contractors.

But just one sector is doing all of the heavy lifting. Infrastructure backlog increased for the third straight month and, more than 18 months after the passage of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is now at its highest level in two years.

That means new infrastructure jobs booked today won’t start for another 11.2 months. That contrasts to overall drops for backlog in the commercial and heavy industrial sectors for June, which came in at 9 and 6.4 months, respectively. 

In short, it looks like construction is holding its head above water, at least for now. 

“Many aspects of the economy, including consumer spending and the labor market, held up better than expected in the second quarter,” said Anirban Basu, chief economist for ABC, in a news release. “That bodes well for economic growth over the summer, but also suggests that the Federal Reserve may raise rates higher and keep them there longer in their ongoing efforts to suppress inflation.”

The infrastructure numbers support the theory that construction could be spared the worst impacts of an expected recession as the Fed continues to slow the supply of money into the economy. It also aligns with comments from public construction company CEOs, who don’t expect overall infrastructure spending to peak for another four years.   

That could also explain why construction executives’ outlook has remained positive overall, even as sectors that they rely on heavily for clients, such as technology, have felt the brunt of layoffs and slowing sales as economic activity begins to wane.

While posting an overall drop for the month, ABC’s Construction Confidence Index in June remained above 50, meaning that construction owners still expect growth overall for sales, profit margins and staffing. 

Indeed, the last time the outlook for any of those metrics as negative was 11 months ago, in July of 2022, when profit expectations came in at just 47.5. That number is now 53.2 in June, well in positive territory, while staffing expectations were at 60.2 and sales hopes remained high at 58.7. 

“Backlog once again remained stable in June despite tight credit conditions and high interest rates,” said Basu. “While those risk factors drove a decline in all three Construction Confidence Index series, contractors continue to signal an expectation that sales, profit margins and staffing will expand over the second half of 2023.”

At the same time, Basu remained committed to his long-held belief that the Feds campaign for raising interest rates in its war on inflation will eventually translate into less momentum in the building sector. 

“All else equal, that will reduce construction activity in the quarters to come,” Basu said.