Here are some of the projects CT plans to spend $856 million on, if approved

John Moritz

Connecticut officials will meet this week to consider approval of more than $856 million for projects that range from complex and costly bridge replacements to installing toilets at state parks.

The decision of whether to fund those capital improvements is up to the State Bond Commission, a 10-member body chaired by Gov. Ned Lamont. The commission will hold its final meeting of the current fiscal year on June 7.

An agenda for the meeting released on Friday included more than $519 million in general obligation bond allocations, as well as nearly $337 in special tax obligation bonds that are mostly used to cover transportation projects such as highway construction and mass transit, according to Office of Policy and Management spokesman Chris Collibee. 

The decision to borrow money to fund those projects will also come after Lamont announced this week that two major credit rating agency's — Fitch and Moody’s — had raised the state's bonding outlook from stable to positive. Fitch Group is owned by Hearst.

“In meetings with credit rating agencies last week, they were impressed with our ability to control our fixed costs," Office of Policy and Management Secretary Jeffrey Beckham said in a statement. "While this is positive news, we cannot rest on our laurels, and we must continue to improve our state’s long-term financial position.” 

Some of the projects listed among the 62 items of the Bond Commission's agenda include the following: 

$144.2 million for bus and rail projects, station improvements along the Waterbury Branch Line and some of the state's share of the $1 billion Walk Bridge replacement in Norwalk. 

$73.6 million for projects funded through the Community Investment Fund, including the restoration of a historic diner in Hartford and the development of a 12-acre park in New London 

$30 million for renovations and other improvements within the state park system, including upgrades to the boardwalk at Rocky Neck State Park, renovations to the carriage house at Harkness Memorial State Park and the installation of new vault toilets

$24.5 million for the Department of Transportation's state bridge program 

$15 million to support a program that offers zero-interest to first-time home buyers to cover down payments and closing costs

$8.1 million to fund roof repairs and other maintenance projects at seven interdistrict magnet schools

$7 million to repair water damage at Hartford’s Connecticut Convention Center and for other renovations at East Hartford’s Rentschler Field

$5 million to finance structural repairs and install a blue-light system at parking garages in downtown Hartford 

$3.2 million for dock improvements at the state's two historic ferry services on the Connecticut River. 

$541,332 to purchase body cameras for police departments in Lebanon, Naugatuck, Stamford, New Britain and Westport 

While the commission gets the final word on whether to authorize each of the bonds, the investments themselves were authorized last year as part of a two-year, $7.5 billion bonding package approved by state lawmakers, as well as previous year's bond packages. 

Lawmakers passed a similar measure in May that increased bond authorizations for the fiscal year beginning July 1 by about $420 million, according to the CT Mirror.

Middletown leaders want CT DOT to suspend plans to remove Route 9 traffic lights

Cassandra Day

MIDDLETOWN — City officials sent a strong message to the state Department of Transportation Thursday, asking them to halt their $143 million plan to remove two traffic lights on Route 9, spurred on by significant issues raised by people opposed to the latest design.

In a unanimous vote and without discussion, Common Council members passed a resolution in light of many "serious questions and concerns" about changes to the highway. These include environmental damage, traffic congestion on local streets, environmental justice concerns, and a lack of planning for the proposed construction.

DOT Communications Director Josh Morgan said the agency received the resolution on Friday, and it will be included with other public comments.

Council President Gene Nocera has acknowledged that local legislators have no authority over decisions made by the DOT.

For decades, the resolution also said, the DOT hasn't taken action to mitigate hazards using other methods, such as warning signals, rumble strips and redesigns.

The city has received 22 letters on the matter, and a number of people talked during Thursday’s public session, including Diane Gervais, owner of Amato’s Toy and Hobby on Main Street.

"This project has the power to vastly change our community and our ability to do business, enjoy our community, and implement our plans to reconnect with our riverfront,” she said. "We do not want to become another lost downtown.”

Gervais feels as though the DOT has "circumvented the community" and downtown businesses by holding "closed-door" meetings with no forum for public comment, she said. "This is not how our state should work."

Over the past three months, Morgan said, there have been several public meetings with formats that “are equitable, inclusive, and meet the needs of all residents,” he said. “We remain committed to this important safety improvement project.”

Thirty-five-year resident Thomas Christopher, who was raised in the Greater New York area, called the traffic lights removal proposal a “real Robert Moses solution.”

An urban planner and government official during the mid- to late 20th century, Moses was  "extremely powerful," Christopher said. "He transformed the cityscape of the five boroughs with highways, parkways and expressways.

"He always prioritized the convenience of motorists," Christopher said. "In the process, he trashed enumerable neighborhoods," in particular the South Bronx, which became a "byword for urban dysfunction."

At one time, he added, there were "healthy working-class neighborhoods until Robert Moses plowed the Cross Bronx Expressway right through."

Ed McKeon, a former councilman who has spoken out against the DOT plan for some years, said that it’s time to put their proposal to the test.

"If the plan is as good as the DOT says it is, then it should be able to withstand the questions and studies and concerns that have come forward. If it is such a great plan, and is a plan that doesn't have those faults, then it will survive," he said.

Morgan said Friday that there have been dozens of meetings over the last decade on improving safety in Middletown, and that the public supports the traffic lights removal.

A crash occurs at the traffic lights, both north and south, nearly every other day, with an injury occuring about ever week, he said.

The DOT presented a proposal to remove the lights in 2016, Morgan said, after hearing from the public. Based on feedback, the project was revised, and re-presented in 2018, he added. Following that, the DOT investigated additional alternatives, which led to the present project.

Wesleyan Professor Brian Stewart reminded people that once the lights are removed, motorists will zip through Middletown at high rates of speed, likely disturbing nearby residents. That has repercussions for the city's effort to reconnect Middletown to the riverfront, he added.

Kidcity Founder Jennifer Alexander called the downtown area "our bank account, and we could be much smarter.” 

She shared her vision for what Middletown could be in 15 to 20 years' time on deKoven Drive, for example. The area “should have beautiful apartments with roof gardens that overlook the river, and you should be able to cross through the tunnel covered with mosaics, and go down Union Street," she said.

Yuri Branzburg talked about equity. "Citizens on a $50 bicycle ought to have the right to as much of the road as a citizen in a $50,000 car," he said. "This most basic principle of social justice should underpin the entire project.

"Public good should outweigh self-interest,” Branzburg continued. “We're having an opposite effect.” 

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See what Stamford's new Westhill High School could look like: 'Very very in progress first shots'

Ignacio Laguarda

STAMFORD — It's still unclear what the new $301 million Westhill High School will ultimately look like, but members of the Board of Education got a sneak peek of one possibility Tuesday night.

Katherine LoBalbo, the district's director of school construction, presented preliminary illustrations of one version of the new school, including images of the cafeteria, auditorium, gymnasium, swimming pool, hallways and various drawings of the building exterior.

But LoBalbo was clear that all of the images presented were far from the final designs for the school. 

“They tend to look finished and polished but these are really just very very in progress first shots of what these volumes could be,” she said.

The estimate for the entirety of the work to demolish and rebuild Stamford's biggest school is $301.3 million, with the state paying 80 percent of eligible expenses.

However, there are a number of ineligible costs that add up to tens of millions of dollars, as well as parts of the work that would be eligible for a "limited" reimbursement, such as the plan to build or maintain a swimming pool in the school. When those non-eligible costs are added up, the city's share could be as much as $100 million or so, according to the city's own cost estimate. 

The Westhill project is part of a multi-year, $1.5 billion plan to improve all of the city's schools, which includes replacing some aging schools with new buildings. The city is expecting to pay for roughly half of that amount, with the state picking up the rest. 

LoBalbo said a team of consultants is finishing up the schematic design process for Westhill.

“Schematic design is when they really start to put pen to paper,” she said.

Next, they will work on identifying the project's "guaranteed maximum price," which she said would be announced in 2025.

“We are still a ways away,” she said.

The new school, under the current plan, would be built just north of the current Westhill High School, which would remain open as work progresses. Eventually, the school's gym would be demolished in order to build a new gym. Then, the rest of the high school would be torn down to make way for phase two of the gym construction, including a new swimming pool.

The academic part of the new school would take three years to complete.

The current location of the school would be mostly taken up by public and visitor parking once the project is complete.

The only structure that will remain is the agri-science building, which would be connected to the main school under the plan. Currently, students have to leave the school in order to get to the building.

Norwich Public Utilities sewage treatment project to receive loan from Electric Division

Claire Bessette

Norwich ― When the Norwich Public Utilities Sewer Division needs ready cash to pay contractor bills on the $200 million sewage treatment upgrade project, it doesn’t have to go far to obtain a short-term loan.

For the second straight year, the NPU Sewer Division has received approval for a $15.5 million short-term line of credit from the NPU Electric Division to help cover costs of the ongoing work to build a new sewage treatment plant on Hollyhock Island near Norwich Harbor. The Board of Public Utilities Commissioners, which doubles as the Sewer Authority and oversees all NPU operations, approved the loan agreement Tuesday.

The loan money will be paid back with the same interest rate that the Electric Division cash reserves earn on money kept in its M&T Bank account, currently 5%.

The new line of credit will be available to the Sewer Division beginning July 1 and must be paid back in full by June 30, 2025.

NPU General Manager Chris LaRose said the loan is necessary as bills must be paid to contractors working on the massive project sooner than reimbursement it receives for the work from the state through the Clean Water Fund. The project has been approved for a $67.6 million Clean Water Fund grant.

But NPU officials said it can take several weeks for the state to process portions of the grant reimbursement. The Sewer Division currently has approximately $3.5 million in cash on hand, plus about $8 million in reserve funds, NPU spokesman Chris Riley said. The Electric Division has approximately $21 million in cash.

Since November, invoices from contractors have totaled between $700,000 and $4.5 million per month, Riley said, for a total of $15.6 million spent so far on the sewage treatment plan.

The first loan of $15.5 million from the Electric Division to the Sewer Division must be paid in full by June 30, LaRose said, per state regulations that limit the transactions to one year. According to the resolution approved Tuesday, the Sewer Division owes the Electric Division $7,679,175 on the loan obtained in 2023. Riley said a state reimbursement check is expected within the next few weeks, and the Sewer Division will use cash reserves for part of the payment.

“Without this type of financial arrangement ― which NPU has entered into multiple times in its history ― we would have raised sewer rates for our 10,0000 customers to account for the necessary, additional $15.5 million,” Riley wrote in an email explaining the agreement.

Danbury allows rehab hospital to cut back on parking as trees are cleared for project on west side

Rob Ryser

DANBURY — As workers began clearing trees this week to make room for a rehabilitation hospital on one of the last construction sites in the village-size neighborhood known as the Reserve, the city of Danbury gave a parking break to the inpatient facility to prevent “a field of empty asphalt.”

“Without this proposed regulation change, Encompass Health would probably have far too many parking spaces,” said Charles Lichtenauer, an attorney representing the inpatient facility that is clearing ground at the Reserve for a new 100,000-square-foot hospital. “Encompass Health would like to avoid a field of empty asphalt when the property could otherwise be undisturbed.”

During a public hearing Tuesday, Lichtenauer referred to a thickly wooded 34-acre property north of the 1.3-million-square-foot office building known as the Summit and south of two dense condominium developments in the heart of the Reserve.

On Wednesday, a hard hat crew with chain saws and tree-clearing tractors was at work at the property on Reserve Road and Corporate Center Drive, preparing the last of two sites to be developed on the 550-acre former headquarters of Union Carbide.  

The city’s Zoning Commission gave its unanimous approval for Encompass Heath to provide half the patient parking spaces required in its 2021 approval, after agreeing with the hospital’s reasoning that patients undergoing medical rehabilitation don’t have the same parking needs as outpatients.

“Inpatient facilities require less parking — mainly because most patients are unable to drive to the facility,” Lichtenauer said. “Patient-related parking would be for intermittent visitors — family, friends coming to see somebody who is undergoing physical medical rehab on site.”

Zoning Commission Chair Theodore Haddad Jr. used the opportunity of the public hearing to ask about construction of the building, which will begin with 40 beds and could have as many as 80 beds when it is complete.

“Your building is going to begin with 40 beds and you hope to double the size of the building with another 40 beds, or are you going to be building one big building and only finishing half of it with 40 beds, and then growing into the other half?” Haddad said. “Which is it?”

Jason Owens, associate director of design and construction for Encompass Health, said the common area of the building would be constructed first with variable-size patient wings that would be added according to market demand.

“Our central chassis handles all the administration, physical therapy, kitchen and mechanicals, and patient wings come off that chassis,” Owens said. “The first patient wing will be 40 beds, and we will subsequently be adding on with additions for — depending on need — a 10-bed addition, a 20-bed addition or a 40-bed addition at one time. We don’t want to build too many beds that we cannot fill.”

The Encompass Health hospital is one of two remaining development projects at the Reserve overlooking Danbury’s west side, which includes 1,980 homes in condominium complexes and apartment buildings, and 260,000 square feet of commercial space.

It was not immediately clear Wednesday when the first phase of the Encompass hospital would be complete. Encompass declined to comment through its attorney.

The other development also underway at the Reserve is 113 single-family, age-restricted homes on 60 acres overlooking Ridgefield, known as Regency at Rivington.

The Regency development, which is billed by Toll Brothers as “luxury living for 55-plus active adults,” and the Encompass Health rehab hospital are the last two new construction projects for the Reserve. At the same time, new apartments are being retrofitted at the Summit. The first 180 of the 360-apartment project were due to begin leasing in the spring.

City leaders said they welcomed the rehabilitation hospital.

“I’m just really glad such a facility will be opening here in Danbury,” Zoning Commission member Jackie Cabrera said after Tuesday’s unanimous vote. “ A few years ago my dad suffered a really bad accident and he really needed to be in a facility like that, and I am so glad that we’ll get one here.”

Zoning Commission member Jennifer O’Neill agreed.

“We have a friend who was hand gliding who lives in the Fairfield and Bridgeport area, and it was almost impossible for him to find a facility like this.”