Old Greenwich School renovation will cost $1.5M more because of town funding delays, committee told

Jessica Simms

GREENWICH — The Old Greenwich School renovation project did not get construction funding last year, so the building committee is trying again — with a more expensive project estimated to cost $44.3 million to build.

Originally, the OGS renovation project's construction cost was estimated to be around $42.7 million, but the delay in approvals has resulted in a nearly $1.5 million increase in the project's construction because materials now cost more. The new recommended estimate is around $44.3 million, which does not include the $2.086 million in architectural and engineering funding the Board of Estimate and Taxation has approved in past years for the project.

Jeff Anderson from Downes Construction Company, the project's construction manager, told the Board of Education at its special Thursday night meeting that his team told them last year that there would be a cost escalation of the project was postponed another year.

At that time, his team predicted about a $2.9 million cost increase. Over the past six weeks, Anderson said his team went through "every detail that we can on this design development set of drawings to ensure, again no stone was left unturned." 

Anderson and Ryan Patrick, also from Downes Construction Company, presented three different cost estimates on Thursday. 

The full scope version is the most expensive and would cost $49.2 million to build. It would include items not added in the project's educational specifications, including replacing all of the windows and the roof. The items will need to completed eventually, as part of the building's maintenance, but they were never included in the project's ed specs, said James Waters, the building committee chair. 

Another version, the cost management option, and would be less expensive than the recommended version at $43.5 million. However, it would not include all of what the recommended version would pay for, including replacing the school's playground. 

The last version — the recommended option at $44.3 million — is the one the building committee unanimously voted for during its Tuesday evening meeting.

"I went around and asked every individual member of the building committee on Tuesday, 'Do you have any changes from the recommended scope?'" Waters said. "The answer I got to that question from every single member was, 'No.'" 

The BOE followed the building committee's recommendation and voted 7-0 in favor of the recommended cost estimate version with one member abstaining. 

During the presentation, Patrick gave more detail on the costs, saying primary drivers include replacing the playground and having a hygienist be on the construction site, since there will be abatement activity taking place, to take air samples during the work.

"We seriously want to have somebody on site 24/7. ... The No. 1 priority is kids' safety and this is just showing our commitment to it," Waters said. 

 The team also found ways to decrease the cost by reducing plantings and finding alternate solutions for window treatments, Waters said.

"All these numbers and words on the page here, this was a lot of real work," Waters said. He added that the building committee and the professionals took the time to "really dive in and say, 'Do we really need this? Is there a better way to do that?'" 

The school board also approved changes to the educational specifications for the project 7-0 with one abstention. 

David Stein, from Silver Petrucelli and Associates, the project's architects, told the BOE that the changes focused on deleting overly specific language, fixing typos and making sure that everything in the ed specs were aligned with the project scope, cost and other requirements when the building committee applies for state reimbursement. 

The committee still needs construction funding approval from the BOE, the finance board and the Representative Town Meeting to be able to meet the state's June 30 deadline to get on the 2025 priority list for reimbursement. 

If the project gets approved by the BET and RTM, construction is scheduled to begin the summer of 2025. If the project does not get approval from the BET and RTM, Waters said "the project will be delayed another year."

"We had hoped last year to be able to start (construction) this coming summer," Waters said. "Unfortunately, without construction funding, that is no longer possible."

Lyman Allyn museum grounds ready for $4.5M facelift

John Penney

New London ― When Sam Quigley was named director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum 10 years ago, he arrived with some ambitious plans for the Williams Street property, particularly the sprawling acres of green space extending out past the main museum building.

“It was clear to me that gorgeous surrounding area was underutilized,” he said on Thursday. “In her 1926 bequest, our founder, Harriet Allyn, requested a park and museum be created using her estate’s money – in that order.”

A new piece of state funding in the form of a $1.6 million Community Investment Fund award announced this month, which requires final approval by the state Bond Commission, will enable the museum to fully realize Allyn’s wishes by transforming 12 acres of grounds into an “urban art park,” Quigley said.

The park will feature a pedestrian path, pollinator meadow, eco-friendly waterfall and filtration pond, along with a restored entrance lawn and new parking area.

“We want this museum to be a welcoming, healthy, free place for visitors,” Quigley said. “Our guiding light has been to serve our community, and we’re doing that by investing in this park.”

An initial property upgrade plan was discussed in 2016 with the project gaining steam in 2022 when the Kent + Frost architectural firm was contracted to draw up plans for the work.

The $4.5 million first phase will be funded with $3.2 million in state monies and $1.3 million in private donations, Quigley said, praising legislators, including state Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, and state Rep. Anthony Nolan, D-New London, and state Rep. Christine Conley, D-Groton, for championing the funding requests.

“This project is about broadening the museum’s reach in our community ― including to our Black and brown residents ― and letting it offer more performance and educational opportunities,” Nolan said on Friday. “I’ve already heard from some local churches interested in using the grounds for services. This project is such great thing and will give the museum more exposure.”

The upgrade work includes the creation of a meandering walking and biking path running from the southwestern section of the property near Williams Street to the museum. The “Vitale Walkway,” in honor of landscape architect Ferruccio Vitale, will pass a new “lightly landscaped” pollinator meadow Quigley said that will be filled with wildflowers and butterflies.

He said a “boggy mire” on the grounds will be transformed into a filtration pond fed from an upstream waterfall. The current main parking lot will be reclaimed into a “great lawn” leading to the museum doors, work that will not impact the property’s popular sledding hill. A new parking area will be built at the facility's rear.

“I’ve been going to the museum since I was about 3 and remember it as a special place ― anyone who grew up around here has been on that sledding hill ― and this work is going to unite the city,” Marx said. “It’s going to be gorgeous.”

Quigley said upgrade work is slated to begin in May or June and be finished by next summer. The museum will remain open during construction. Other master plan improvements, including the construction of 250-seat open-air amphitheater, and a refurbished 9/11 memorial garden, will be tackled later.

“We want people to feel this is their park,” Quigley said.

With new Sherman St. bridge nearly complete, Norwich plans NL Turnpike bridge replacement

Claire Bessette

Norwich ― Reconstruction of the Sherman Street bridge is expected to be completed by August, and Norwich Public Works has its eye on replacing another key local bridge over the Yantic River on New London Turnpike.

The bridge is located near the side entrance to the Norwichtown Commons shopping plaza, a short distance from the West Town Street intersection.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn, recently announced that the Senate passed a funding bill with $106 million for projects across the state including $800,000 for the state Department of Transportation to fund design work for the bridge replacement. The grant requires a 20% local match, and Norwich has placed $200,000 in its current budget for the match.

Norwich Public Works Director Patrick McLaughlin said the design work will take about two years, and it is too early to say whether the bridge would have to be closed to traffic during the reconstruction, as has been the case on Sherman Street. Both locations are key connector routes between the Norwichtown area and the East Great Plain area.

McLaughlin said he hopes the work can entail single lane crossings during construction rather than total road closures, but that would add to the cost of the project.

“It would be difficult to close that bridge,” he said.

The Sherman Street bridge has been closed since July 2022 for a $10.3 million project to replace the double-span bridge over the Yantic River and a narrow former mill canal. Sherman Street connects Asylum Street, which becomes Lafayette Street and then connects to Washington Street and the Backus Hospital.

The project is about 80% completed, with a portion left to reconstruct Asylum Street, raising the roadway 18 inches to meet the higher bridge over the river.

McLaughlin said the Sherman Street bridge project is on schedule and should be completed by late July or early August of this year, in time for the new school year in late August.

With Fort Trumbull development planned out, what happens to the RCDA?

John Penney

New London ― Last September, attorney Bill Sweeney stood in front of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission to praise a development deal that would transform three long-vacant Fort Trumbull parcels into two apartment complexes and a six-story parking garage.

“This is a day a lot of us have been waiting for,” he said, calling the proposals brokered by the Renaissance City Development Association ― the city’s development arm ― and his client, New Haven-based RJ Development + Advisors, another step toward reinventing the peninsula into a “place of new vibrancy” that would complete the redevelopment of the area.

The Fort Trumbull area in the late 1990s was cleared of homes and businesses as part of a plan developed by the city and the New London Development Corp., the predecessor of the RCDA, to help jump-start economic development in association with the construction of Pfizer’s research headquarters.

Except for construction of the Pfizer facility, now occupied by Electric Boat, and Fort Trumbull State Park, the rest of the peninsula remained undeveloped for years, with the area becoming overgrown and devoid of activity.

But with all Fort Trumbull properties now obligated for use ― but not yet developed ― the RCDA has only one major new project on its plate: the redevelopment of a pair of commercial fishing piers at the northern end of the peninsula.

RCDA notes on its website that its overarching mission, to work with developers on projects that will “complement and support the ongoing redevelopment and revitalization of the Fort Trumbull” area ― as well as nearby downtown ― is “nearly completed.”

RCDA Executive Director Peter Davis on Tuesday said the group’s board of directors has been “wrestling internally with the larger question” of what’s next for the association.

“I know there’s been rumors the RCDA might just fold up, but that’s not true,” he said. “But I don’t know where we’ll be in five or 10 years. Before he was re-elected in November, I asked (Mayor Michael Passero) that question. We want to decide before the end of June where this organization is going.”

Passero said he knows exactly where the RCDA is going: nowhere soon.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done at (Fort Trumbull) in shepherding the development projects already designated,” he said on Wednesday. “That’s going to take years of work and there’s nothing in the ground yet. Their work is far from over.”

A pink cottage, 600 apartments and an expanded mission

Fort Trumbull’s recent history includes a bitter fight in which a handful of property owners refusing to sell their land led to the landmark 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London. The court ruled in favor of New London and its use of eminent domain to seize the properties for private development.

The pink cottage owned by Susette Kelo, lead plaintiff in the case, was on East Street, the same road where a new $40 million community center is being built and is scheduled for completion this year.

In response to the backlash against the Supreme Court ruling and the NLDC’s role in the eminent domain controversy, former Mayor Daryl Finizio in January 2012 renamed the group the RCDA and ordered a reorganization of its leadership and policies. Finizio further ordered that the power of eminent domain rest solely with the city.

Passero said one part of his campaign platform ahead of his 2016 inaugural election involved providing an expanded role to the RCDA.

Felix Reyes, the city’s director of economic planning and development, said it’s unfair and inaccurate to compare the RCDA and its predecessor group.

“It’s different leaders and a different mission,” he said. “We need a core agency like the RCDA. They’re vital to assisting us with our redevelopment goals. They’re typically the first boots on the ground providing guidance on next steps, like funding development opportunities and best uses of a property. They create the strategies that the city then either decides to use or not use.”

Talks with developers interested in Fort Trumbull land have moved in fits and starts in the years after the ruling but only gained real momentum in 2022 with the purchase of 4 acres by the Optimus Construction Management company, which plans to build 104 apartments and a hotel with extended-stay suites on the site.

That project has not yet broken ground, though. Davis said the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent supply-chain issues interrupted the construction schedule.

“They are still trying, though there’s been discussion about another developer taking over the project,” said Davis, who called the project “in progress” as of earlier this month.

The latest and last project approved involves the construction by RJ Development of 500 apartments in two buildings and a 1,200-space parking garage on three parcels bracketed by Chelsea, Walbach and East streets.

Reyes noted the Optimus and R.J. Development projects were the result of years of behind-the-scenes lobbying and site coordination by the RCDA.

“Just because the homes there were demolished and the property separated into parcels didn’t mean you just start building,” he said. “The RCDA had to do a tremendous amount of investigating into geo-technical and site coordination issues that involved meeting with state and federal officials. If you built without that due diligence, it’d be like having a shoe without a sole, a major support piece missing.”

Passero said the RCDA was instrumental in helping forge a modified flood management certificate between the city and the state in 2022 allowing more multi-unit housing to be built on the peninsula.

The scope of redevelopment, though, has since expanded past the peninsula.

Davis, who was interviewed for the RCDA’s top post 11 year after the Supreme Court ruling, said he initially declined the part-time position mainly due to the narrow scope of the group’s responsibilities.

“The only mission was Fort Trumbull, which wasn’t enough of a workload or challenge for me,” he said. “I wanted them to come up with other projects, like those related to downtown. That was done and the council approved $100,000 in operating expenses. Then, I was in.”

Downtown projects

In 2016 the City Council directed RCDA to assess three city-owned properties: the Richard R. Martin Center at 120 Broad St.; the Little Red Schoolhouse at 96 Hawthorne Drive; and Parcel J, a vacant plot of land at Bank and Howard streets.

The Martin Center, owned by the city until 2020, had been an unofficial recreation center with a gymnasium, auditorium and offices that housed the Recreation Department. The building was given to Tauche Capital by the city in 2020 at no cost in exchange for its redevelopment into senior apartments.

The property was sold by Tauche to 120 Broad Street Associates LLC for $7.4 million in 2022, according to city property records.

The schoolhouse on Hawthorne Drive was sold to the Leigh Property Management group for $125,000 in 2022 and is now home to the String Theory School of Music.

Parcel J, off Bank Steet, is now a 137-unit apartment complex called The Docks.

Passero also lauded the work the RCDA did in coordinating the remediation and demolition of the former Thames River Apartments complex on Crystal Avenue amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s only so much capacity our city staff has to tackle those kinds of redevelopment projects,” he said. “Peter Davis has done an amazing job reinventing the RCDA and, in this era of getting things done in the city I can’t imagine that continuing without the RCDA.”

Pier project on horizon

Davis said his group will next be focusing on planned infrastructure upgrades to the Fort Trumbull piers courtesy of a $3 million commitment made years ago by Ørsted, the Danish renewable energy company. Ørsted and Eversource are partners in major wind farm development projects being staged from New London’s State Pier.

Davis said the RCDA will aid the city in crafting bid packages, as well as take part in the interviewing and issuing contract awards for the pier work. The project will focus first on repairing – or replacing – the smaller of the two fishing piers that extend out past the state park’s riverwalk area.

Davis said that although a preliminary assessment of the docks, leased to a commercial fishing business, was done, a more extensive overview is required by a marine engineer before work bids can be solicited.

“It’ll be some months down the road before we get to that point,” he said, noting the City Council has not yet approved a budget associated with the Ørsted grant. “And we’re looking at 18 months to two years for completion of the job.”

And though there are no concrete plans for future projects the RCDA might be involved with ― the group has not formally met since October ― Davis said there are plenty of possibilities.

“For instance, if there’s ever money that comes down from the state to increase affordable housing, we’re in a position to go out and secure properties for the city,” he said. “Or we could be put to work assessing blighted or non-performing properties in the city.”

Davis, who said his tenure with the RCDA is finite, noted quasi-public agencies like his, with their bond-issuing authority and ability to leverage federal funding not available to municipalities, are more than just “real estate brokers.”

“We’ll wait and see what the next four years brings,” he said.

Massive tunnel under CT city for sewer waste is behind schedule. It could cost tens of millions more

KENNETH R. GOSSELIN 

A 4-mile tunnel carved out of bedrock under Hartford’s South End — the city’s very own Big Dig — is now nearly complete and will be a crucial component for eliminating sewer waste that overflows and pollutes Wethersfield Cove, the Connecticut River and other streams especially when there are heavy rainstorms.

The Metropolitan District Commission project would seem to come at the right time: Experts say climate change is bringing on more wild and intense swings in weather.

But the $279 million tunnel and its pumping system, designed to serve Hartford’s southside, West Hartford, Newington and Wethersfield, won’t go into service until late 2026. That’s three years later than initially forecast when the MDC, the regional water and sewer authority, broke ground on the project in 2016.

The tunnel, which winds its way from Talcott Road in West Hartford to Brainard Road in Hartford, took two years longer to build than expected. That pushed back the construction of a $115 million pumping station now underway on Brainard Road near the MDC’s water treatment plant.

“It was successful, though,” said Susan Negrelli, MDC’s director of engineering. “The tunnel-boring machine got through. It just went a lot slower than we anticipated.”

According to the MDC, the contractor hired to carve out the tunnel argues it took longer to construct the tunnel structure because the original designs did not reflect the actual conditions encountered underground. Chief among those was the volume of groundwater.

And now, the contractor has taken the MDC to court seeking tens of millions in additional payments, which has the potential to significantly increase the cost of the tunnel. In turn, the MDC is seeking millions of dollars to compensate for the delay.

Environmental advocates say they are frustrated by the shifting timetable for this MDC project and others mandated by revisions to the federal Clean Water Act two decades ago.

The tunnel project is particularly critical for Hartford where a century-old system combines storm and wastewater management. In recent years, the systems have become overwhelmed causing widespread flooding and sewage back-ups in homes and businesses, especially in Hartford’s North End. The tunnel is not part of a separate plan to ease problems in Hartford’s northside neighborhoods.

Engineering feat

The tunnel is an engineering feat that involved burrowing through rock 200 feet below homes and businesses to create a passageway that is 18 feet in diameter and can store 42 million gallons of combined storm and wastewater. The holding capacity will ease flooding and largely eliminate sewer overflows into waterways that eventually lead to Long Island Sound.

What’s held in the tunnel — the largest capital improvement ever attempted by the MDC — will be pumped to the MDC’s treatment plant before it gradually is released into the Connecticut River.

On a recent tour at Brainard Road, the circular shafts where pumping equipment will draw water from the tunnel are starting to take shape, the MDC treatment plant visible at a distance.

The cost of all this is high.

The tunnel is the centerpiece of a project with a half dozen components, including the pumping system, that is expected to cost $500 million. Financing is a combination of taxpayer-funded grants and monthly charges on the bills of customers who receive MDC sewer service.

For the tunnel, the largest component, funding includes $125 million in state and federal grants, plus another $154 million in state and federal loans.

The loans are paid back by the customer charge on a monthly bill. The charge is based on water usage but on a typical bill of $92, the charge is $35, about a third of the bill and its largest component, according to the MDC.

The charge is paying not only for the tunnel project but others in MDC’s region needed to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act.

If there are any additional costs for the tunnel, they would not be shouldered by MDC sewer customers, according to Christopher Stone, district counsel for the MDC.

Those, Stone said, would come out of a “contingency” reserve that is typically set aside on most construction projects for cost overruns and unforeseen expenses.

The tunneling contractor hired by the MDC — a joint venture of Kenny Construction Co. of Illinois and Obayashi Corp., one of Japan’s largest construction firms — is seeking between $36 million and $100 million in court to cover the cost of the tunnel construction delays, Stone said.

Stone would not say what the contingency is for the tunnel because the matter is in court.

The MDC is seeking $20 million-plus, Stone said.

‘Fouled by Sewage’

Environmental advocates say they are frustrated by the pace of solving the problem of pollutants entering waterways in the Hartford area. The tunnel project is part of a larger plan for more than $2 billion in improvements to protect waterways.

“So the problem that the tunnel is supposed to address — Wethersfield Cove — is going to be put off a few years,” Roger Reynolds, senior legal director at New Haven-based Save the Sound, an environment advocacy group, said. “But the whole (larger) project is going to be even more indefinite and out there. That’s really discouraging and a really bad sign for environmental justice and sewage tainted waters in and around Hartford.”

Reynolds said there are myriad human health and ecological impacts from the discharge of untreated or undertreated wastewater into waterways.

The pump station shaft in under construction at The Metropolitan District’s water treatment plant in Hartford. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)

“Environmental justice is chief among these because people should really have the right to live next to water that’s not fouled by sewage,” Reynolds said.

In West Hartford, town officials are anxiously awaiting the activation of the tunnel. The system will help better protect waterways along the Hartford-West Hartford line.

Town Manager Rick Ledwith said the tunnel will, in particular, provide relief for property owners in the area of Piper Brook, where there is wastewater discharge in heavier rainstorms.

“So this will alleviate that problem for that neighborhood and a couple of others as well,” Ledwith said. “So, we are looking forward to it.”

Torrington Co. campus being razed

SLOAN BREWSTER

TORRINGTON – Buildings on the campus of the Torrington Company are coming down piece by piece to preserve historic elements for reuse.

As of last Thursday, 21 of the 29 structures on the 14-acre property have been slowly razed. To keep the site contained, crews work inside a shell of walls and roadside edifices.

Once a top manufacturer of ball bearings, the plant, which was shuttered in 2007, is being leveled to make room for a new development, Gary Greenstein and Justin Lichter, of IRG Realty Advisors, said in October, at the start of demolition.

In its heyday, the company, which included two divisions – Excelsior Needle and Standard Spoke Nipple – that were combined into the Torrington Company, comprised one of the most important industries in Torrington in terms of employment, gross revenue, taxes paid, factories in Torrington as well as factories nationwide and worldwide, according to Mark McEachern, executive director of the Torrington Historical Society.

Excelsior Needle Company was incorporated on Feb 24, 1866. The company, which used a water-powered swaging machine to make needles, initially worked out of the former Ashborn Guitar Factory. In 1870, the company was moved to a three-story wood building in Railroad Square. Then in 1890 operations were relocated to Field Street.

Before the project began, a wide space beyond the Field Street gate contained about 18 buildings, said Glenn Carbone, operations manager for IRG. Pointing to a multifamily house above the site on North Elm Street, Carbone noted how the neighborhood was changing as demo continues and light- filled spaces open where eyesores once stood.

“Can you imagine their view out their front window? It just drastically changed. They’ve never had this view” he said. “It changes the landscape forever.”

As the sun shone over the demolition, Tim Fleming, of Manafort Brothers Inc. Construction of Plainville, operated a grappler. Using the clawlike attachment fixed to the end of the arm of an excavator, he dragged the teeth down into piles of debris, dropping his catch into the back of a waiting truck.

Using a grappler is the number one rule for razing a building with the intent to salvage material, Carbone said. Crushing everything is not the way to go.

“These guys are number one,” Carbone said, pointing to where Fleming worked the grappler. “He’s so meticulous. It’s so careful.”

Pointing to piles of beams stacked on the ground, Carbone said while Fleming was moving material with the tool, it is also used to disassemble buildings in pieces “a little bit of facade at a time.” He noted the beams had been removed so meticulously there is little evidence, such as bits of cracking “here and there,” suggesting they were ripped down.

Certain areas of the buildings, including top floors near other buildings, have to be hand-wreaked, meaning the crew will take pieces off individually by hand.

Throughout the site, materials were sorted into piles to be taken by salvagers. Lumber will go to a wood-salvage company that IRG is in the process of contracting. It will be repurposed for such things as flooring and siding. The hard yellow pine is more than 100 years old and came from South Carolina, Carbone said. He noted the beams are dated at least to 1912, pointing out the year etched into a cornerstone from the site that was saved from demolition and sat on the ground near the gate.

“If you open this, what you’ll smell is turpentine,” he said, indicating one of the thick beams. “They used to make turpentine out of this wood.”

While folks have stopped by and asked if they could get some of the lumber, Carbone has said no as it’s already committed to the salvage company.

Bricks, after they are organized on pallets and sealed in plastic wrap, are shipped to brick salvagers to be sold to people looking to use repurposed bricks for buildings such as barns, he said. “We’ve shipped over 240,000 (bricks) so far out of approximately 1.5 million.”

Piles of granite that once graced windowsills and floors were also promised new life.

Steel, on the other hand, is headed to the scrap yard and concrete will be taken to a recycling yard where it will be crushed and reused.

Roofing on the site contains non-friable asbestos, Carbone said. Unlike friable asbestos, which can become airborne, it can be removed safely because it’s encapsulated in the asphalt and the tar in the roof. Still, as crews remove it they use a sprayer to wet the material in case any toxins get out. Carbone pointed to a large spritz of water raining over a pile of rubble in the area where Fleming was working.

“It’s got to be hosed down but there (is) zero danger to the public,” he said. “It’s just a total precaution.”

Carbone estimates the demolition, which is slightly ahead of schedule, will be done sometime in July, he said. Next week, area homeowners will be notified as crews will be taking a wall near the edge of the site down and will be easing into a building behind it, so people will have to park on the other side of the street.

One of the buildings that will stay is a small brick building housing a soil vapor extractor that pumps air into the soil to remove contaminants that come to the surface. There is not a brownfield there, though, the mitigation effort is a precaution, Carbone said. Behind another building is a unit that pumps groundwater for remediation purposes.

“It’s a pretty clean site,” he said.

Looking around at the organized piles of debris and salvaged materials, Carbone took some pride in the work that has been done.

“I’ll challenge anybody in this state, show me a more organized demolition site,” he said, pointing to the nearly level ground. “Show me one; you could almost eat off this. For real.”

Anyone interested in bricks from the site can contact Carbone at gcarbone@Irgra.com.

Borough addressing Rubber Avenue project

ANDREAS YILMA 

NAUGATUCK – The borough has been awarded three grants totaling just over $8 million.

They include more than $5.7 million in a Community Investment Fund grant to improve a section of Rubber Avenue, a $650,000 state Department of Transportation grant for a pedestrian bridge downtown and a $1.6 million federal grant for Naugatuck Senior Center.

The CIF grant will be used for Scott Street and Nettleton Avenue area to address storm water issues and enhance the development of the Risdon property, a 12-acre former manufacturing site at 0 Andrew Ave.

The funds will also supplement the borough’s Rubber Avenue project that is underway. That project calls for reconstruction of two-thirds of a mile of Rubber Avenue, from the intersection of Melbourne and Hoadley streets to Elm Street. It will include drainage improvements, new sidewalks, landscaping along the road and a new roundabout at the four-way intersection of Rubber Avenue and Meadow and Cherry streets.

“Their pipes are older and undersized,” said Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess. “There’s a lot of problems. On a townwide basis, we’re working in many areas but when we get money from the state, it really helps expedite the process,”

He added, “It’s going to help improve quality of life in those neighborhoods. It’s an older part of Naugatuck and it needs attention and this will really help.”

THE “RUBBER AVENUE CORRIDOR REVITALIZATION” will transform the Rubber Avenue Corridor by investing in infrastructure to promote private investment while enabling connectivity and increasing resiliency through storm water/storm-water drainage upgrades, according to the press release.

“Project funds will be directed toward fixing the drainage near the Rubber Avenue corridor and installing sidewalks, which will improve safety in the area,” said Rep. Seth Bronko in a news release announcing the funding. “Naugatuck High School is on Rubber Avenue, which is why it was so important that sidewalks be a part of this project, giving our students and residents a path to safely get to school and back.”

“Not only will this help students, residents living in the area and local businesses, but we anticipate this funding will help connect the area to ongoing projects, spurring economic growth,” he added.

AN IMPORTANT CONNECTION between the east and west side of the borough is another goal to boost economic development downtown through the DOT grant to design a pedestrian bridge from the southern side of Parcel B between the new proposed train station and the Naugatuck Event Center across the Naugatuck River to the eastern side of the borough. DOT will be relocating the train station from near the Station Restaurant at 195 Water St. to a portion of Parcel B.

“People coming off Route 8 will be able to park and walk across the river to the train station without having to drive and fight for a parking spot in downtown Naugatuck,” Hess said. “It will really enhance the use of the Waterbury Branch Line and it will bring more people into downtown Naugatuck to visit our stores and our restaurants and the downtown area.”

The proposed crossing will be the second pedestrian bridge in the borough and similar to the bridge at Linden Park. The proposed bridge will allow for people to ride their bikes. DOT is encouraging the borough to make the connection across the river, Hess said.

“All connections are beneficial to economic development. This connection is even more beneficial because Route 8 and the river and the train tracks have historically divided Naugatuck into two parts, the east side and the west side,” Hess said. “So this will actually connect the two sides, bring everyone together and make it much easier for people to get from one side to the other.”

BOROUGH OFFICIALS will also be working with the federal government to upgrade the Naugatuck Senior Center at 300 Meadow St. Although they won’t start with the project right away, funds have been secured, Hess said.

The initial proposed project includes connecting the garage to the building, expanding the building by putting in additional space in the garage with a connecting hallway and upgrading the interior and exterior of the building.

Hess praised U.S. Sens. Christopher S. Murphy and Richard Blumenthal as well as U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro who were instrumental for the senior center funding.

The grants are extremely helpful and the borough being awarded all three grants over a weekend period is exciting and signifies hard work done by borough grant writer Danielle Goeway, the entire development team as well as from the state and federal delegations, Hess said.

“All of these projects require not only competence but teamwork and I’m very excited to be working on these new plans,” Hess said. “We have a good team, a strong team.”