National Coast Guard Museum second phase set to go to bid

Greg Smith

New London ― The footprint of the future National Coast Guard Museum has taken shape on the city’s waterfront and the stage is now set for the second phase of the $150 million project.

The National Coast Guard Museum Association announced last week it is ready to go to bid this week on the work to create the foundation for the more than 80,000-square-foot, six-story museum that will occupy a prominent place on the city’s waterfront.

“Moving into summer of 2023, we are thrilled to be launching this next phase of construction. It is an exciting and significant milestone for us as we build the museum’s foundation,” retired Coast Guard Captain Wes Raymond Pulver, president of the National Coast Guard Museum Association, said.

The museum site is situated behind Union Station and nestled between City Pier and the Cross Sound Ferry’s busy ferry terminal. The 295-foot-long U.S. Coast Guard Barque Eagle, known as America’s Tall Ship, has secured a berth adjacent to the museum.

Completed work on the first phase of the museum project included dismantling of a portion of City Pier and installation of a bulkhead wall to create land where there was once water.

The upcoming work will include the installation of about 240 micropiles, essentially rods that will be drilled into the ground and into the bedrock below to provide the structural stability needed to support the building, said retired Coast Guard Capt. Mark Walsh, chief operating officer for the National Coast Guard Museum Association.

Walsh and Pulver walked the grounds of the construction site last week, pointing to where a pedestrian walking bridge will span the railroad tracks and Water Street to connect with the third floor of the city’s parking garage. The state has pledged $20 million for construction of the 400-foot bridge. The city continues to seek sources for $25 million needed to expand the parking garage and help accommodate what museum association officials estimate will be 300,000 visitors a year to the city.

The bridge will have landings in front of the train station, between the tracks and at the entrance to the museum. The bridge has the added benefit of providing safe passage across the street for customers of Cross Sound Ferry, Pulver said.

Pulver expects this next stage of construction to start this summer and take about six months to complete. He said the goal is to get “out-of-the-ground construction” started next year and barring any major hurdles have both the bridge and museum completed by 2025.

New London Mayor Michael Passero said that by the time the ribbon cutting for the museum takes place, the city will be in a position to highlight downtown revitalization efforts that will include renovation and adaptive reuse of several historic downtown buildings.

Of the ongoing construction of the museum, Passero said the city has had no complaints. Work on the museum project is overseen by A/Z Corporation based in North Stonington.

“They were sensitive to our needs and have been incredibly cooperative with the city and really taken care of us well,” Passero said.

Passero said installation of the micropiles will be done by drilling and not pounding, which will help protect surrounding buildings from any damage from vibrations.

“And we won’t be listening to pounding all summer,” Passero said.

Pulver said private fundraising for the museum has steadily progressed to $42 million of the $50 million goal. He credits the city, Cross Sound Ferry, the Coleman family, who owns Union Station, and legislators for support in helping to make the museum become a reality.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, helped to secure $50 million for the museum, increasing the total federal contribution to $70 million. The Coast Guard remains the only branch of the armed services without a national museum.

U.S. Rep Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said the progression of the construction and fundraising is heartening after so many years of anticipation. The federal funding, he said, has “turbocharged the private fundraising.”

“This thing has really picked up speed in terms of dirt flying around but also the financial contributions,” Courtney said. “Getting this next stage out to bid is a strong statement of confidence that this is now a completely funded and executable project which has not always been the case,” Courtney said.

For information on the future exhibits inside the museum, which will include a full-sized HH-60 Jayhawk search and rescue helicopter, visit: www.coastguardmuseum.org.

Plowing through rough seas toward offshore wind

The Day Editorial Board

No one should have expected that the journey to offshore wind-power development would be smooth sailing. Indeed, the news of the last couple of weeks has been as stomach churning as the ride up a nor’easter-generated wave and the slide down the other side.

On May 19 the cargo ship Claude A. Desgagnes arrived from Denmark to a State Pier in New London. It carried both the first components for offshore wind turbine construction and the promising possibilities that this will become a major new industry, benefiting the region and state while combating climate change. The turbine parts are destined for the South Fork Wind project, the first undertaken in U.S. federal waters.

But the ship’s arrival at a pier still under reconstruction was a sobering reminder that much work remains and that significant uncertainty still surrounds the undertaking. Just how vast this industry will grow, and how big will be the pier’s part in supporting it, remains an open question.

A week later Eversource confirmed what had long been expected. The New England utility giant is selling its share in a 187,000-acre wind-power lease area off Massachusetts to partner Ørsted for $625 million. It is also seeking buyers for 50% stake in three other planned wind farms. As part of the deal, Ørsted announced it is taking full ownership of wind turbine assembly projects at State Pier in New London, the Port of Providence, Port of Davisville, and Quonset Point, the latter three all in Rhode Island.

Eversource expects the sell-off to generate losses between $220 million and $280 million.

The company did not explain its reasoning for bailing, but it appears the risk involved with offshore wind-power construction proved to be too high for the utility’s liking. Eversource has operated in a largely regulated industry of electric and natural gas distribution where profits are pretty much assured.

Little is assured in the effort to set up an offshore wind-power industry. Changes in political winds could undermine the support the undertaking now has with the Biden Administration. Delays, opposition and potential litigation could confront plans to construct turbines in lease areas. The same challenges could arise where turbine power lines connect to the mainland. And assuring adequate supply chains will be a challenge.

Ørsted has a track record of overcoming obstacles, though not yet in this country. It operates more offshore wind-energy projects than any other company. It would have taken the lead on offshore wind even if Eversource had remained its partner.

The most recent news arrived when the Connecticut Port Authority finally provided the details of just how large the latest overrun will be for the State Pier project. The port authority revealed it will need nearly $54 million to complete the job.

That brings the total project cost to $309 million.

It is not shocking that a public works project of this magnitude would run into unforeseen costs. The former two piers have been converted into a single laydown area capable of handling the massive components necessary for offshore wind-power development. The project is transforming New London into a heavy-lift port of call.

But the number and size of the overruns have been shocking. When it comes to staying within budget, the port authority and administration of Gov. Lamont keep overpromising and underdelivering. Port authority officials are blaming inflationary pressures, supply chain challenges, and unanticipated expenses to drive pilings for the latest cost increases.

This may be true, but this project must be scrutinized. We know the State Contracting Standards Board is already investigating the handling of the contracting work. The Auditors of Public Accounts also need to take a deep dive to determine if these higher costs are truly the result of unforeseen circumstances or evidence of fiduciary negligence.

But the state must finish the project. There is no turning back now.

There was some good news. Ørsted (and Eversource for now) agreed to cover $24 million of the added costs. They can recoup some of that money by subleasing space to other offshore wind developers. This is reasonable. The partnership is paying $2 million annually to lease the facility.

Massive undertakings come with big risks. Offshore wind energy is a massive undertaking. But it remains a risk worth taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while building a greener economy. Just hang on for more rough seas ahead.

The Day editorial board meets regularly with political, business and community leaders and convenes weekly to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larrañeta, staff writer Erica Moser, retired executive editor Tim Cotter and retired deputy managing editor Lisa McGinley. However, only the publisher and editorial page editor are responsible for developing the editorial opinions. The board operates independently from the Day newsroom.

New Haven Grand Avenue Bridge closed, officials say; could be open next week

Mark Zaretsky

NEW HAVEN —  The Grand Avenue Bridge, which reopened in January 2022 after being closed for 18 months for an overhaul, will be closed to vehicle traffic for at least for the weekend as a result of complications with a broken wedge, according to Alder Sarah Miller, D-14, and City Engineer Giovanni Zinn.

Miller said in an email that the bridge would be closed to vehicle traffic until further notice, but that marine and pedestrian traffic still will be able to pass.

Zinn, who oversaw the refurbishment of the bridge, said he hopes to have a temporary fix in place that will allow the city to reopen the bridge by the end of next week.

"We had a malfunction with one of the wedges," Zinn said, referring to one of four wedges that lock the bridge into place. "A coupling broke."

He said it was "nothing structural."

"We'll be able to reopen the bridge by the end of next week unless there's something we haven't found," Zinn said. In the meantime, "it will remain open to pedestrian and bike traffic."

The vintage 1898 swing bridge, which is one of two bridges that connects the city's Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights sections across the Quinnipiac River, was closed the last time for 18 months while its inner workings got a $28 million overhaul. It actually reopened a couple of months early and a bit under budget.

The project budget included more than $24 million for construction and design, plus another $4 million for inspection. The new bridge has an expected life of at least 30 years, Zinn said at the time.

The Ferry Street bridge, which is just over a half-mile away, also connects the two neighborhoods across the Quinnipiac River and remains open.

Raymark waste cleanup crews plan 10 'blast events' in Stratford

Richard Chumney

STRATFORD — Crews are preparing to use explosives to blast away up to a foot of rock as part of the construction of a new crucial pumping station that will help mitigate flooding near the banks of the Housatonic River, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

The drilling and blasting work, which could begin later this month, will take place over the course of three weeks in an area east of Platt Street, according to Mike Looney, a project manager with the corps. 

To ensure the surrounding homes are unaffected, Looney said federal officials will conduct inspections in the area around the blasting. He also noted vibration monitors will be deployed across the secured site and a series of 6000-pound blasting mats will be used to help contain the about 10 planned explosions. 

“Our approach is to minimize ground vibrations as much as possible when we’re doing that work,” Looney said at a community meeting Wednesday. “We don’t expect this to cause a lot of nuisance or vibration.” 

The construction of the pump station is a key part of a new stormwater conveyance system that has been designed to handle what is expected to be a significant amount of rainwater runoff at the former Raybestos Memorial Field on Frog Pond Lane. 

The Environmental Protection Agency is using the once-abandoned softball field to consolidate tens of thousands of cubic yards of contaminated soil that was dumped across town by Raymark Industries, a defunct automotive parts manufacturer. 

Engineers are currently “capping” the harmful soil with a clay-type material to prevent the toxic chemicals from emerging from the ground. But the shell-like layer also prevents rainwater from seeping into the land. 

To prevent flooding, crews are building a conveyance line that will link the field to the planned pump station a third of a mile away on the edge of the river. Looney said the pump station will operate during significant storms and other high water events. 

The conveyance line is expected to be finished by this summer and the pump station is expected to be completed by mid-2024. Once the Raymark clean up is complete and the entire field is capped, buildings may be constructed on the site. 

Meanwhile, the work to remove soil polluted by Raymark with cancer-causing agents such as asbestos, lead, and polychlorinated biphenyls is ongoing, according to Jim DiLorenzo, an environmental engineer with the EPA.

As of June, crews have dug up about 52,800 cubic yards of contaminated soil from 23 private and town-owned properties as part of the $95 million cleanup effort. Another 6,252 cubic yards of hazardous waste have also been removed and transported to a disposal site outside of town since the work kicked off in 2020.

Crews are now finishing up remediation work at Beacon Point, including the reconstruction of a town-owned recreation dock and pier, and are in the midst of clearing polluted soil from badly-polluted Ferry Creek — an intensive project that DiLorenzo said will take up to nine months to finish. 

“Ferry Creek is the most significant remediation that is going to take place this year,” he said.  

DiLorenzo has said that by the time the project is expected to end in late 2024, somewhere between 100,000 to 125,000 cubic yards of toxic soil will have been extracted and consolidated at the former Raybestos field. 

Federal officials are scheduled to hold another community meeting updating the public about the effort to remove Raymark waste at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 26. Information about the meeting can be found at stratfordct.gov/raymark. 

Bridgeport's former 'Mt. Trashmore' site on cusp of green transformation

Brian Lockhart

BRIDGEPORT — The campaign that lasted from the 1980s into the early 1990s to eliminate the massive garbage pile dubbed Mount Trashmore in the heavily-minority East End was loud.

It involved dozens of protest marches and court hearings and brought national civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson to town.

"We lived through some terrible times with that Mount Trashmore," recalled City Councilman Ernie Newton, a long-time activist and politician in that neighborhood, in an interview this week.

In contrast, the current effort to develop the now vacant and cleaned land into something useful for the community has been much quieter, composed of a few years' worth of behind-the-scenes efforts to build partnerships, draft redevelopment plans, raise funds, negotiate leases and apply for permits.

But the end result is expected to be as transformative for the East End as when that mound of filth was finally hauled off and incinerated 30 years ago.

Deborah Sims, like Newton, also attended the rallies at Mount Trashmore. Now she and the coalition she helped form are on the cusp of turning the municipally-owned site across from Johnsons Creek, bordered by Central Avenue, Trowel Street and Suggetts Lane, into an agricultural and wellness campus.

The new name? Mount Growmore. 

But Sims is nowhere near ready to celebrate. Asked this week to ruminate on being part of the movement to clean-up the property and, all these years later, create something new and positive there, she responded, "I don't know what to feel because we haven't closed the deal yet."

"Right now I have a lot of anxiety," she continued. "Because every day — every day — people ask, 'When are you going to start the project?' So it's just, like, waiting. People don't realize the 20,000 steps you have to go through to get it done."

Still, she and her partners — Newton and other East End civic leaders/residents, Mayor Joe Ganim's administration, state and federal officials and staff with Yale University and the University of Connecticut — are close to finally being able to break ground.

"It's a great feeling. Mount Trashmore to Mount Growmore," said another member of that team, Keith Williams, head of the East End NRZ, one of several Neighborhood Revitalization Zone organizations in town that weigh in on local economic development matters effecting their sections of Bridgeport.

On Monday Bridgeport's City Council is likely to approve a land development agreement and ground lease for the property with the East End NRZ Market & Cafe. The market/cafe was co-founded a few years ago by Sims and others to provide fresh and healthy food in the East End, which has been considered a "food desert" because its residents lack easy access to those necessities.

The first phase of Mount Growmore's build-out involves indoor hydroponic gardens in trailers, an idea which, Sims said, came about because market staff typically have to travel about an hour away to purchase reasonably-priced produce to re-sell locally.

"We get up at 4 a.m., go to Hartford to the farmer's market collaborative," she said. "We were trying to figure out a better way to do that and also include job training around that. That's when we came up with the idea of let's look at Mount Trashmore."

She continued, "But we've renamed it Mount Growmore because we want to grow vegetables as well as people."

It was not a new idea but rather a variation on a well-meaning but failed one.  

The city about a decade ago under then-Mayor Bill Finch was awarded $1 million from the state to clean up some of the ground contamination left over from the dump and raise the site out of the floodplain to keep it dry. At that same time the Finch administration announced an urban greenhouse for Mount Trashmore, Boot Camp Farms, that would be developed with some out-of-town partners from the private sector and employ veterans.

But by 2015 nothing had been built, and, as Hearst Connecticut Media reported at the time, there were significant questions about the ability of the individuals involved to ever move Boot Camp Farms forward. Ultimately it never did. 

Nonetheless, the city in 2017, now run by Ganim, still had that $1 million and prepared the land in question for some other future use. Housing had years ago also been considered. But the agricultural concept introduced under Finch had caught traction, and Sims and the East End NRZ came up with their approach.

Mount Growmore is intended to be more than a source of fresh vegetables. Sims used the word "therapeutic." The land agreement/lease up for a vote before the council Monday specifies the property can be used for "a hydroponic container farm, greenhouse, wellness center and learning campus for the benefit of the Bridgeport community." 

Suzi Ruhl also had a hand in helping to pull that concept together. Ruhl is the senior research scientist at Elevate, a program within the Yale School of Public Health with the mission of "elevating mental health and disrupting poverty."

"It's a hands-on advisory role," Ruhl said of Elevate's involvement with designing Mount Growmore as the vision there expanded from tackling the East End's "food insecurity" issues to also encompass "the whole health of the children, their caregivers, their families."

She said Elevate's staff have used their expertise not to tell East End residents what they need, but "listening to them and helping to package what they wanted in the language of government and law." So, for example, Ruhl said Elevates' work fine-tuning the vision helped U.S. Rep. Jim Himes mount a successful campaign in Washington D.C. to obtain $1 million in federal aid for Mount Growmore that was announced last year.

The project also has secured an additional $2 million in state financial support. 

"We're really part of this national wave that is recognizing health inequities, environmental injustices, climate, and we're doing it from the ground up with the community to come up with these best practices," Ruhl said, noting the process for planning Mount Growmore can be a template for other communities to use. 

The University of Connecticut has also been involved. Sims said Bonnie Burr with UConn's college of agriculture has in particular provided expertise on greenhouses.

The pending land agreement/lease with the city covers 53 years total — an initial three year startup period for the East End NRZ Market/Cafe to meet development benchmarks, a 20 year lease and two possible 15-year extensions. That arrangement was approved May 16 at a joint meeting of the City Council's contracts and economic development/environment subcommittees. And the pact received the recommendation of the zoning commission this past Tuesday. 

William Coleman, Bridgeport's deputy director of economic development, told the  two committees' members on May 16 that Ganim's administration will finish preparing the Mount Trashmore acreage for development by capping any remaining contaminated soil so it remains undisturbed with concrete slabs for the hydroponic trailers and a parking lot and installing utilities.

Coleman also noted the rent for the property is just $1.

"We're not looking to make money," he said. "We're looking to reclaim the site for a community that was so injured by the site."

Ganim, who was first mayor from 1991 until 2003, then re-elected in 2015, was closely involved both prior to his initial election and after taking office in cleaning up Mount Trashmore.

"I think development of this sort on that site is about as complete a transformation as you can get," the mayor said in a recent interview. "I'm very happy about it."

He described an old photo he has of one of the regularly-held protest marches. Sims appears in it with one of her then-young children. The effort to rid the East End of the trash heap involved many prominent figures in Bridgeport community, some like Ganim and Sims who are still involved, some who are no longer living.

"A lot of history there," the mayor said.

"We were faithful to the marching piece," recalled Newton.

Williams this week spoke with a bit of awe about institutions like Yale and UConn being part of an East End project.

"You're talking about jobs, fresh vegetables, a wellness center," Williams said. "It's going to be like a big campus. It's going to be a great thing for the East End."

"I'm just grateful that God allowed me to be around to see these kind of changes and that I played a small role in it," Newton said, instead heaping praise on Sims. "Debbie went out and sought information on what other people are doing in white neighborhoods and she studied, she learned and brought it back to the East End. We owe her a debt of gratitude. She raised the money, got other folks involved. It's a beautiful thing."

A modest Sims said this is not her story.

Lisa Backus

NEW HAVEN — Workers were pouring 4 million pounds of concrete when a building under construction on Lafayette Street collapsed Friday, injuring eight, an official said. 

As of Saturday afternoon, four of the workers who were rescued at the scene of the collapse at 188 Lafayette St. remain hospitalized, according to a spokesperson for Yale New Haven Hospital. One of the workers was listed in serious condition and three were in fair condition, the spokesperson said. 

The workers had poured about three-quarters of 4.2 million pounds of concrete on a second-floor slab when the floor collapsed into the first floor and basement, trapping several workers, city officials said. The amount of work they completed had an accumulated weight of about 3.2 million pounds, Fontana said. 

It took about 45 minutes for the fire department to rescue six workers trapped and injured from the collapsed concrete and reinforcement metal bars. A Connecticut State Police K-9 followed up with a search of the debris to make sure no one had been left behind, Fontana said. 

Mayor Justin Elicker said Friday the city has started a review to ensure the construction permit process was done properly.

“Typically, on a site like this, it is complex when we do the property because they have a third-party inspection company as well on site,” the mayor said. “And we’re reviewing that as well.”

A stop-work order has been issued to the construction company, he said. 

Elicker said there will be a “significant investigation” moving forward. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the site, officials said. New Haven police will also conduct an investigation, fire Chief John Alston said. 

RMS Companies owns the building and is developing the project, while Yale University owns the land, city officials said. 

Company founder and CEO Randy Salvatore said in a statement issued Saturday that the safety of his construction crews was their "top priority."

"Our thoughts are focused on a full recovery for those who were injured, and we greatly appreciate the heroic work of the first responders," Salvatore said. "We will continue to work with our safety team and all of the appropriate government agencies to fully investigate the incident.” 

The building is one of several that RMS is working on or has completed in the New Haven area, according to the company's website. Billed as 112 luxury apartments at City Crossing, the building at 188 Lafayette St. that collapsed was to be seven stories high with a two-story underground garage area and a one-story above-ground garage, city officials said. 

RMS is a commercial real estate developer that manages the development, construction and sale of its properties, according to its website. In New Haven, the company also developed Pierpoint at City Crossing at 9 Tower Lane with 223 luxury apartments, Aura at City Crossing at 2 Washington Ave. with 104 apartments, and has ventures in Stamford, Norwalk, Hartford and New Jersey, according to its website. 

Friday at the scene, witnesses reported hearing a "boom" and then seeing the building collapse. 

“Two people got up, and they saw that there was a hole in the roof of what they’re doing, and we can see one guy hanging on, and they were trying to get him up,” said Danean Doheny, who works in a nearby building. “All of a sudden, it was just chaos, and there was just police, fire, ambulances, fire trucks with ladders. They looked like they were pretty dire.”

In total, 36 workers were at the building when it collapsed, city officials said. 

“Victims had to be lifted out before the concrete hardened,” Alston said Friday. 

Three people were partially buried in the rubble, he said. 

The concrete may have pooled faster than workers could smooth it out, causing the collapse, Alston said. 

Liese Klein

In his 20th month in office and 32nd year as a resident of East Hartford, Mayor Michael P. Walsh is grappling with a relatively unfamiliar emotion — optimism.

“For the first time in a couple of decades, several decades, it’s a start,” Walsh said, speaking of the half-dozen major projects currently in some stage of progress in the town. “It’s a good place, as the developers are starting to rekindle their interest in coming here.”

Built-out and pocked with abandoned buildings and tattered shopping plazas, East Hartford has long suffered from a lack of interest by developers in building anything new within its 18 square miles. With per-capita income among the state’s lowest at about $32,000, East Hartford’s residents face few choices when it comes to shopping, updated housing or amenities within town limits. 

But a surge of federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act, regional non-profits and the state has sped the demolition of structures that have sat derelict for decades, with the wrecking ball set to swing starting in the coming months. 

The state bond commission is expected to vote to authorize $11 million in funding at a scheduled meeting on June 26 that will allow for the demolition of three dilapidated buildings in and around Founders Plaza, an office park along the Connecticut River. The money will also go to removal of the long-shuttered McCartin School at 70 Canterbury St.

“We’re in the summer of demolition,”  Director of Development Eileen Buckheit told the  Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) earlier this month as part of efforts to unlock the funds. “We’re trying to clear some of these development sites that have these long underutilized large buildings.”

The first three structures set to be demolished are the former Red Thread building at 300 East River Drive, an office building at 99 Founders Plaza once used by Bank of America and an adjacent parking garage. “Our conclusion is we have to move those buildings to allow for new development,” Buckheit said. “We're looking for mixed-use development that has some housing, some entertainment, restaurants — things that would work well being close to the Founders Bridge and East Coast Greenway.”

The school building, located in a residential neighborhood, will be torn down to make way for 10 to 15 single-family homes. The CRDA voted to advance the funding request to the bond commission. 

The activity that is fueling Walsh’s optimism the most at present is the forest of steel beams rising at the new East Hartford Logistics & Technology Park on land that was once part of Rentschler Field airport. Massachusetts-based National Development broke ground on the 300-acre project in March and has started erecting two buildings for a total of 2.5 million square feet to be used for warehouses and logistics operations.

Dump trucks and cranes were roaring across the land on a recent weekday, with the structures planned to be completed by summer 2024. Lowe’s and Wayfair have committed to occupy the two buildings now under construction, with two more 200,000-square-foot buildings under development with manufacturing in mind.

“Once they got into the ground, they’ve been full speed ahead, no supply chain issues to speak of so far,” Walsh said of National Development’s work on the logistics center. “The steel is starting to go up and then probably in the next two to three weeks, walls and roofs will start to be connected. It’s an impressive facility.”

East Hartford officials negotiated a $4 million impact payment as part of the logistics center project and anticipate $4.6 million in annual tax revenue after the fifth year, according to town statements.

Even with a tighter financing market, other major development projects around East Hartford are on schedule — if in some cases reduced in scale, Walsh said. 

Developers of Concourse Park, billed as the first new apartment complex in East Hartford in 50 years, revised their deal with the town in March due to financing challenges. Instead of building 480 new units at the site of the former Showcase Cinemas of Silver Lane, Jasko Development and Zelman Real Estate will build between 300 and 400 new units, Walsh said. 

“Their bankers have scaled down their budgets, so to speak,” Walsh said. By contract, the developers are required to break ground on the project by Sept. 30. 

Another 130 new apartments are planned for land near the American Eagle headquarters at 341 East River Drive, with the project moving through the planning and approval process with a target of breaking ground by the end of the year. 

High on the city’s priority list is redevelopment of Silver Lane Plaza, a derelict three-building shopping center on 22 acres acquired by the town for $4.5 million via eminent domain in March. Now mostly vacant except for nine small businesses, the plaza is on target for redevelopment with the anchor building scheduled to be demolished by the end of the summer. 

“We’ll be working hard to relocate those tenants and we'll try to repackage this up by the end of the year for a developer to see what we can put in there,” Walsh said. “What I’m hoping to see might be different than what the market is willing to undertake. But I would love to see a grocery store, I would like to see retail, I would like to see restaurants.”

With the completion of the Rentschler Field logistics center, new apartments coming online and ongoing demolition and improvements around town, Walsh said he anticipated the town would attract more notice from developers into next year. More people, more income and more jobs should raise the town’s profile, he added. 

“All of these things in one degree in one way, shape or form are moving forward, some faster than others,” Walsh said. “It’s a good time in East Hartford — it has a different feel  than it has in decades.

Why this area of Hartford could be in store for major redevelopment

A key connector between downtown Hartford and neighborhoods to the north is one step closer to a new look.

Three properties in the city’s Arrowhead Gateway section were approved for rezoning at a special meeting of the Hartford Planning & Zoning Commission this week, including the historic “Flat Iron” building that now stands vacant at 529 Ann Uccello St.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said the redevelopment plans were a priority in the area even as a judge's ruling on Tuesday threatened ongoing apartment construction nearby at Dunkin' Park.

"We're not going to slow down when it comes to finding opportunities to continue the the momentum and the construction of new residential units and mixed use development," Bronin said. 

Modeled after New York City’s Flatiron, the wedge-shaped building at the corner of Main and Ann Uccello was built in 1901. Now boarded up and decaying, it once housed apartments and businesses including Travel Bees Auto Accessories, whose sign is fading on the west facade.

The Flat Iron property and another lot across the street at 532 Ann Uccello were rezoned to allow the construction of 14 apartments and 2,400 square feet of commercial space at street level as part of a redevelopment plan. The overgrown empty lot behind the Flat Iron would become parking under another application set to go before planners

The vacant city-owned land at 532 Ann Uccello — once home to a soup kitchen — was also rezoned to allow for its combination with property at 1359 and 1355 Main Street for construction of a new building that will house 23 apartments and 5,000 feet of commercial space. The structure that once housed the infamous Arrowhead Cafe sits to the north of the property.

The zoning on the three parcels was changed from “neighborhood mix” to “downtown” to reflect developers’ plans to blend housing and retail “intended to create an active atmosphere,” according to the city planning department staff report.

Under the redevelopment plan, a wedge-shaped new building would be erected on the combined properties, its design echoing the shape of the Flat Iron across the street.

Another six apartments are planned for a co-op building at 506-520 Ann Uccello, for a total of 43 new units on what is known as the “Salvin Block,” named for a shoe store on Main Street that closed in 2020 after nearly a century in business.

Hartford has partnered with nonprofit organization San Juan Center and The Carabetta Companies of Meriden on the planned development, seen as vital to revitalizing a visible and long-blighted section of the city near Dunkin’ Park. The cost to revamp the area was originally calculated at $17 million, although the project has since expanded in scope. 

The state allocated $6.3 million to the project last year as part of the Connecticut Communities Challenge Grant Program.

The construction of I-84 and riots in the 1960s and early 1970s cut off the area from the rest of the city and sped up its deterioration, according to a 2022 city study of the neighborhood, dubbed the Arrowhead Gateway. 

Earlier this month the city announced it was seeking to buy the La Iglesia De Dios Church at 1313 Main St. for $625,000 to further expand the Arrowhead Gateway redevelopment efforts.

"The purchase of The La Iglesia De Dios Church represents a rare opportunity to pursue a creative adaptive reuse that will add to the envisioned community and neighborhood,” Bronin said in a statement.

Speaking at the reopening of City Steam Brewery on Wednesday, Bronin emphasized the importance of the Arrowhead project.

"The redevelopment of the historic arrowhead Cafe building and Flat Iron building next door along with some of the vacant lots nearby is a really important piece of our broader economic development strategy for that neighborhood," Bronin said. "It's the first step of a broader vision for developing a number of vacant lots in that area to help with rebuilding the connections between downtown and our neighborhoods to the north."