CT Construction Digest Monday March 27, 2023
New DOT commissioner road tested: Torrington native took a scenic route to state’s top job
BRUNO MATARAZZO JR.
TORRINGTON – Garrett Eucalitto has found you can go home again, and the ride north from New Haven involves more than 40 miles of state roads he now oversees
The Torrington native is the newly appointed state Department of Transportation commissioner, getting acclimated to his new role since his appointment in January. He previously served for three years as deputy secretary of the state agency responsible for the state’s roads, bridges and rails.
Eucalitto sat down last week with the Republican-American for his first interview since he took on the department’s top job.
Eucalitto was born and raised in Torrington and graduated from Torrington High School in 1999. He went on to Holy Cross College in Worcester where he studied political science, graduating in 2003. He spent six months substitute teaching in Litchfield before going to graduate school at Boston University, graduating in 2006 with a master’s degree in international relations.
An interest in transportation since childhood revved up in Washington, D.C., where Eucalitto worked on infrastructure and appropriations with the National Governors Association, part of his circuitous route to DOT headquarters in Newington.
“I initially wanted to do foreign service,” Eucalitto said. However, as a gay man, he was formerly “in the closet. It wasn’t really as accepted in those communities.”
“I pivoted to work on Capitol Hill where I can be myself,” Eucalitto said.
His salary as the DOT’s commissioner is $220,000 a year. The position is appointed by the governor, so the job is tied to each governor’s term.
Eucalitto started working as a deputy commissioner a couple of months before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With so many DOT staff working in the office, he and his boss at the time, former commissioner Joseph Giulietti, worked in the office as well.
“We went into the office basically every day because our crews kept working. Our agency is 3,500 people …, during the peak COVID during March, April of 2020, half of our employees were unable to telework so they were coming into work every day, doing split shifts to do separation before we had any PPE. The other staff, like finance and the engineers, they were able to telework but we felt like we had to go in if they’re going to go in,” Eucalitto said.
In Torrington, where Eucalitto as a kid enjoyed playing with Legos and Sim City, his family is well known in the construction business. His father, grandfather and great grandfather were all in the trade. He never had any interest in following in his father’s footsteps, but he said he always had a fascination of how transportation networks work.
Since starting his new job, Eucalitto is making a point to visit each of the 65 DOT garages and 40 DOT offices across the state each week or every other week, depending on his schedule. Last Friday, he stopped by the Thomaston garage to visit with the staff and hear what they have to say. He brought his work with him and sat down at an empty cubicle for part of the day.
During the last snowstorm, he rode with one of the plow trucks along Interstate 91 and saw how they set up in formation to clear snow along the entire span of the highway. “You don’t get (to watch it) behind a desk so it was great to actually get to see that,” Eucalitto said.
On his weekends, he hops on a random train or bus to ride it back and forth, taking notes and talking to riders.
Eucalitto comes on board at a time when there are hundreds of vacancies within the department. The department, which has about 3,000 employees has 500 job openings. The department is competing for engineers who can make more money in the private sector.
“They’re being recruited by the private sector. The private sector is able to pay a lot more than state government so they’re recruiting a lot of our engineers, pulling a lot of those mid-career people out so we’re trying to get as many engineers as possible,” Eucalitto said.
He said the state only graduates 400 engineers a year in colleges and university in Connecticut, prompting the DOT to go to career fairs in New York City and Washington DC and reaching out to universities in Maine and Massachusetts and even the southern states.
Torrington Mayor Elinor Carbone said it’s always exciting to see Torrington “sons and daughters” succeed in their careers.
“Garrett’s passion for his work and his commitment to his community are a part of his DNA and Garrett has never forgotten his hometown. As Deputy Commissioner, Garrett was always accessible and an advocate for infrastructure improvements that he felt would benefit Torrington,” Carbone said. “I am confident his new role as Commissioner of DOT will be a tremendous benefit to the entire State of CT. I look forward to the work we can do together to advance public transportation and create safe streets and pedestrian pathways right here in Torrington.”
NEWTOWN – Engineers expect to finish the project to replace the Interstate 84 bridges over the Housatonic River in time for traffic to return to its normal pattern by summer.
“Traffic will switch to the final configuration with two lanes of traffic on each bridge this summer,” said Josh Morgan, a spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation. "There will continue to be median cleanup, landscaping and other miscellaneous work before the project is substantially completed by the end of this year.”
The $53 million rehabilitation of the Rochambeau Bridge in Newtown and Southbury began in the summer of 2020, Morgan said. The long spans carry traffic over Lake Zoar, a reservoir formed on the Housatonic River by the Stevenson Dam, which is located just south of the bridge.
The side-by-side bridges that carry traffic east and west had wide enough shoulders for engineers to route two-lane traffic in each direction onto one bridge while the other was rebuilt.
The work on the westbound bridge has already been finished, opening to traffic in January 2022. The construction on the eastbound bridge is “nearly completed,” the DOT said last week.
The project is slated for completion by the end of 2023, according to DOT.
Stamford's South End has changed a lot in the past decade. But is development finally slowing?
STAMFORD — A walk down Atlantic Street in Stamford's South End neighborhood inspires countless stories, depending on who's telling them. For Patrice Bardliving, it tells the story of home.
For nearly all her life, Bardliving, 59, has lived in the South End. She waxes nostalgic about the landmarks of her youth — her childhood home on Pacific Street, the fire station on Henry Street and the old markets and pharmacies near Lathon Wider Community Center, where she used to play basketball in the summer.
Only a handful of these buildings remain. The people are different, too, she said. When development ramped up, so did the cost of living, causing many of her friends to look for property in states like North and South Carolina.
More development has also meant more investment and attention for her neighborhood, Bardliving said as she stood outside her newly renovated apartment building.
"Back in the day, we used to have problems," she said. "Now, since Harbor Point opened up, police actually patrol most of this."
Google Earth images from 1991 to 2019 show the changes in Stamford's South End.
Over the past 15 years, as Stamford grew to become Connecticut's second-most populous city, no area experienced more of a transformation than the South part — also known as Harbor Point courtesy of the large mixed-use development that bears the name. The 350-acre peninsula's two census tracts saw a combined 140 percent increase in population in the 2010s.
Development doesn't appear to be ending in the near future. According to a city map, three residential and two office buildings have been approved, with several more projects proposed.
In total, development firm Building and Land Technology has facilitated the construction of more than 4,000 new apartments, more than 400 of them rented out through Stamford's below market rate program. Harbor Point is also home to about 30 retailers, more than two miles of public waterfront access and more than 20 acres of new public parks, BLT spokesperson Nicholas Kyriacou said in an email.
BLT's presence has not been welcomed by all of its South End neighbors, though. Throughout the redevelopment, some longtime South End residents have decried what they see as overdevelopment in the neighborhood; preservationists say they are hoping to create a historic district that would clamp down on future development.
In the meantime, the pace of development is — for now, at least — slower. For the first time since the redevelopment of Harbor Point began, BLT is not actively building in the South End.
Prepped for development
Harbor Point became possible because of the South End's past.
Occupied by colonial settlers since Stamford's 1641 incorporation, today's South End became, over the years, the best example of a place where residents lived within walking distance of their jobs, thanks to employers Yale & Towne Lock Works, Pitney Bowes and Blickensderfer typewriters.
But by the 2000s, industry had mostly departed, leaving the neighborhood with blighted lots and economic depression.
In the early 2000s, Greenwich developer Antares Investment Partners bought up much of the vacant property but when the fledgling real estate empire crashed and burned, BLT, now the city's largest developer, purchased the vestiges of Antares’ Stamford empire in 2008.
BLT Co-President Ted Ferrarone has been involved in the Harbor Point project since the beginning. He worked on acquisition and planning with Antares, before joining BLT in 2008 to work on construction and development.
Ferrarone said it's been rewarding: Sites that were brownfields are now home to thousands of people. Where a chain link fence once separated factory buildings from Long Island Sound, the water is now publicly accessible. Neglected infrastructure has been revamped.
"When you do those renderings, they were always full of kids and dogs and people having fun, and then you come down here on a Saturday in the summer and it looks just like that," Ferrarone said.
Seeking protection
As BLT's presence in the South End has grown, so has some residents' resistance to the firm's work.
When Sue Halpern, Irene Toigo and Elizabeth McCauley remember the South End of their youth, they recall "a world to itself."
McCauley remembers a "mini melting pot" of immigrants walking to work and nearby businesses. She still owns the home her grandparents — who came to Stamford from Poland in 1910 — built on Walter Wheeler Drive.
“This was a big, big Polish area," McCauley said. "Actually, they called it ‘polska ziemia,’ which means Polish land, way back in time."
Over the years, Harbor Point built closer to McCauley's family home. The service entrances of a BLT-developed building, NV @ Harbor Point, now casts a shadow over the house from across the street. In 2018, BLT purchased a brownfield in her backyard, the former site of B&S Carting, between Woodland Avenue and Walter Wheeler Drive.
The latter motivated McCauley to join Halpern and Toigo, who had already been involved in efforts to preserve old South End buildings.
They have been trying for about two years to have some of the area designated a Local Historic District, which is the strongest legal form of historic preservation available to towns and cities in Connecticut.
But of March 14, the Land Use Bureau had received 78 letters from property owners in the district expressing opposition.
For the district to be approved, at least two-thirds of the roughly 210 property owners in the district would need to vote in favor, before a final decision can be made by the Board of Representatives.
In November, Sheila Barney, a former South End Historic District Study Committee member, sent a notice to property owners that included procedural information and suggested that those who don't want to be included in the boundaries should send letters to city officials. Barney has said she didn't previously realize the oversight power an LHD commission would hold – once established, a commission appointed by a local legislative body can regulate exterior changes to any building within the district – and she called out the study committee for what she described as a lack of community engagement and information given to property owners.
redeveloped. This includes her house at Walter Wheeler Drive, which her grandparents, who immigrated to US from Poland in 1910, built.
Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media
Halpern said she wishes that property owners concerned about a LHD would have reached out to the study committee instead.
"They see it only as a layer of control, that they can't do certain things to their house and they get scared, saying 'Oh, after zoning, we don't want any other control.' But it's really about protection," Halpern said.
Life in the neighborhood
On a recent Friday afternoon in Commons Park at the heart of Harbor Point, dozens of residents and workers can be seen walking about the neighborhood, able to access businesses, transportation and parks.
Creating an area that's active 18 hours a day, seven days a week, has always been the goal, Ferrarone said.
"This neighborhood did not have that feel prior to that because you had these large vacant factories, so the activity level just wasn't very much," Ferrarone said. "And that's what we've done."
Tasha Dessance, a preschool teacher, has lived in Harbor Point with her mother and daughter for about three years.
Dessance said the South End has been a friendly neighborhood for raising a kid. She hopes to stick around as long as she can afford the cost of living.
"(Kids) just like the playground and they just come and visit, which is nice because they get to see their friends and stuff," Dessance said. "It's a nice place to have a little play date."
Casey Fredericks, 32, moved to Harbor Point from White Plains, N.Y. in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. He and his wife said they plan to stick around until they can buy a home.
"We definitely see ourselves having a child here in the next year and then we will upsize from a (one-bedroom apartment) to a two," Fredericks said while walking his dog. "But I see it also being kind of transient here in that you have a lot of young families from Manhattan that come here. They settle down, and then they go and they buy (property)."
Takin Tomlinson, 24, works as a barista at Harbor Point Organics, one of the small markets that service the peninsula. He said the neighborhood is a lively environment to work in.
"It's really nice to be around the people. In the summertime, about three times a week, you'll see 30 or so dogs right in front of our market," Tomlinson said. "You've got (runners) that come through this area. You've got people who do car shows bringing their Ferraris around here for a spin. Stuff like that just makes this a very unique place in Stamford that you can't really get anywhere else."
Lucia Siecola, 21, has lived in the South End since she moved there as a fourth grader. As a young girl, she said the neighborhood didn't feel safe for her.
"You couldn't really go outside, or go to the store by yourself, as a female child. Men would look at you," Siecola said.
But now, she said the neighborhood, where she raises a toddler, is a place where she feels comfortable walking around.
"That sort of got swept away with all these new people coming," Siecola said. "They come with more money, more wealth, so ... their voices are heard more than ours were."
What's next?
Though they're not building at the moment, BLT still owns several large lots on the peninsula. The portfolio includes the B&S Carting site and the former Blickensderfer factory lot at 650 Atlantic St.
Ferrarone did not comment on the status of the two redevelopments. As for what's next, he said, what he most has his eyes on is connecting Stamford's downtown area to the still-growing South End.
Officials have been working for decades to piece together a riverside walking path — a central facet of long-term plans to expand Mill River Park.
"I think it would make the South End more dynamic and it would make downtown more dynamic," Ferrarone said. "If you think about Stamford and go back to 20 years ago, it was a very limited public waterfront. And if you fast-forward years from now, you're going to be able to walk from the tip of Kosciuzko Park all the way up to Scalzi Park. And that was a vision that 10 years ago, people were like, 'Wow that's kind of crazy. That's never going to happen.' But it does happen."
Plan B for Enfield sports complex: New design would not lease land at Enfield park
Susan Danseyar
The development team for All Sports Village has come up with a way to build its proposal in Enfield without using any part of Brainerd Park.
But until the new approach goes successfully through the land-use process officials are taking a dual approach to the project.
The proposed project to build a sports complex at the now-vacant MassMutual office park on Bright Meadow Road originally called for developer Andrew Borgia of Fast Track Realty and Anthony Ardolino of All Sports Village to lease a portion of the nearby 32.6-acre town-owned Brainerd Park for artificial-turf playing fields as part of their financing requirements.
Residents, however, said at a March 6 public hearing that they are against the town transferring the land, which was donated to the town in 1958, for private use by a developer.
In response, Borgia and Ardolino last week said they are revising their plans by removing a proposed indoor turf building and adding it to the basketball building that would be constructed on the MassMutual property. This would allow for the fields originally planned for the park to be placed on the MassMutual site.
The developers also have a purchase and sale agreement for property at 113 Brainard Road to use for the sports complex. They will be going before the Planning and Zoning Commission to request a zone change from residential to business regional.
According to Town Manager Ellen Zoppo-Sassu, it’s unknown at this time what will happen with the new development plan when it goes before the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency and PZC. So she advised the Town Council on Monday to consider a dual plan approach to the proposed project.
To that end, the Town Council on Monday in a 9-1 vote, approved conducting a title search for leasing a portion of Brainerd Park, consulting with the Charitable Trust Unit at the attorney general’s office about leasing a portion of the park, and authorizing her to enter into discussion with Fast Track Realty about a fixed tax assessment agreement for 100 Bright Meadow Road.
According to Zoppo-Sassu, Borgia has said he is willing to continue paying taxes on the current assessed value of the property and explore the option of a possible tax break on any new improvements he brings to the site.
Town Council member Michael Ludwick voted against the three resolutions and Town Council member Ken Nelson has recused himself from voting on the project because he is representing Borgia in the sale of the MassMutual campus.
Several Town Council members said that although they would vote for the three resolutions, it is disappointing to them that the plan has changed.
“I think Enfield is losing out on an amazing upgrade to Brainerd Park,” Deputy Mayor Gina Cekala said. “The benefits to the town, give or take $6.5 million, are ones we would have seen for years to come.”
In return for leasing a portion of Brainerd Park, Borgia had proposed to spend $6.5 million in park improvements at Brainerd and improved fields at the Enfield Annex so the town would have contingency fields during what would have been construction at Brainerd.
The new plan would remove all consideration for Enfield teams to have access to the fields for free, an annual park maintenance fund allocation, park improvements at Brainerd, and the developer improving fields at the Enfield Annex.
Town Council member John Santanella said he agreed with Cekala and would support the idea of dual planning, but he is disappointed that what he called a “loud minority” asked that officials walk away from what would most certainly benefit the town.
Mayor Bob Cressotti said it was unfortunate for the town to hear there is now a different plan for the sports complex.
“We can’t be satisfied with a town of our size to not have great fields,” Cressotti said. “We had an opportunity to enhance our park,” he said. “The new plan eliminates a lot of those visions, which is a big loss to our town.”
He said there are people in the community who are afraid of change but they need to have confidence in the people proposing the project and the economic development that could be brought to the town.
Ludwick said it’s wrong to say that the town is not moving forward just because it is “not giving away a piece of property.” He said he doesn’t need a lawyer to tell him that Brainerd Park is taxpayer property.
Town Council member Nick Hopkins said he’s excited to see the new plan and it makes sense for the town to explore all of its options at this point.
He said there’s an opportunity for the town and residents to have a renewed focus on Brainerd Park and referred to a group that wants to hold a clean-up day at the park.
“I hope that keeps up,” Hopkins said.
Public hearing on proposed Bloomfield warehouse postponed until April
A public hearing on a 521,886-square-foot warehouse in Bloomfield has been postponed until April, due to a lack of quorum of Planning and Zoning Commission members at the meeting scheduled for Thursday night.
The new date for the hearing is tentatively set for 7 p.m. April 4.
The warehouse is proposed by Missouri-based NorthPoint Development LLC. The company is seeking a special permit that would allow it to construct the warehouse, with 118 loading docks, 206 trailer parking spaces and 361 car parking spaces.
The property, 60-116 West Dudley Town Road, is owned by CT Valley Properties III LLC, an affiliate of Windsor-based Butler Company. A 15,750-square-foot building that sits on the property would be demolished.
NorthPoint Development, a privately held real estate development firm specializing in industrial and multifamily development, is also moving forward with a nearly 750,000-square-foot distribution center inside Windsor’s Great Pond Village mixed-use development.
The commission was also scheduled to hold a public hearing on New Jersey-based developer Pritam Patel’s application for a special permit to establish a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen drive-thru restaurant at Filley Pond Plaza at 40 Tunxis Ave.
That hearing will also be postponed.
Avelo celebrates millionth passenger at Tweed as airport expansion fight ramps up
Avelo Airlines marked its one millionth passenger at Tweed New Haven Airport on Friday with a media event and gifts for customers on one Florida-bound flight.
The millionth passenger was set to be on a flight to Fort Myers departing at 2:25 p.m. from the airport, which has served as one of Avelo’s East Coast hubs since November 2021.
Avelo CEO Andrew Levy and New Haven and state lawmakers were scheduled to be at Tweed on Friday to present a gift to each of the 179 passengers on the flight. Fort Myers is one of 15 destinations now served by Avelo from Tweed.
Even as the airline celebrated its milestone, airport officials were girding for a key vote over expanding Tweed’s facilities to meet growing demand. Avelo flew 600,000 passengers in its first year at Tweed, representing a 1,400% increase over the airport’s pre-pandemic passenger numbers in 2019.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a draft environmental report earlier this month endorsing a $100 million plan by airport operator Avports to extend the runway and build a new terminal on the East Haven side of the facility. The report found minimal additional impact from the expansion and even predicted less noise and pollution if the airport started serving larger planes.
Earlier this week, the FAA extended the comment period on the draft report to 60 days from 45 days. Those wishing to comment now have until May 1 to register their opinions. The airport is also taking part in an event in East Haven on April 1 to address community concerns.
The Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce issued a plea on Friday asking businesses to support the expansion and submit comments as part of the FAA process.
In an e-mailed message from CEO Garrett Sheehan, the chamber stressed the economic impact of Tweed and the importance of expanding the airport to meet demand.
“Our goal is to assist Tweed in getting this cutting-edge project started as soon as possible,” Sheehan said in his statement. “The airport’s expansion will have a positive, enduring impact on the overall regional economy.”
Opponents of the expansion cite environmental concerns and the impact of traffic, noise and air pollution on surrounding neighborhoods. Vocal opponents have slowed several recent efforts by Tweed to expand parking on its property and vow to continue fighting the expansion.
City Officials Approve 77-Unit Development for ‘Stagnant’ East Norwalk Under New Zoning Rules
Sophia Muce,
NORWALK – City officials approved plans for a mixed-use, 77-unit project in the East Norwalk Village on Wednesday, calling opposition to the project by more than 700 neighbors misplaced frustration with recent zoning changes to encourage development in the “stagnant” area.
Developers of the mixed-use project at 1 Cemetery Street leveraged waterfront access to the nearby Mill Pond, a plaza, parking and the inclusion of a rain garden to expand the development from 44 apartments to 77 apartments – allowed under 2021 zoning changes, which grant developers bonus points to construct additional stories and apartments in exchange for including public amenities in their plan.
A petition signed by 731 residents called on the developers, Spinnaker Real Estate Partners and M.F. DiScala & Co., to scale back the project, citing concerns of increased traffic on busy, local roadways and potential environmental impacts on water and air quality.
But at the Wednesday Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, an attorney for the developers told local officials the vast majority of neighbor opposition was not about the impacts of the development itself, but the zoning that allows it to be built.
“You could say that it was about this project, but it wasn’t about the project. It’s about the zoning,” said attorney Adam Blank.
Blank said the developers were asking Norwalk to fairly apply the town’s existing transit-oriented development regulations to their application. He told commission members that if neighbors wanted to halt development, they would need a zone change.
Louis Schulman, chair of the commission, agreed with Blank and said a steady decline in East Norwalk’s businesses and housing warranted change.
“We specifically changed the regulations to encourage development of the area,” said Schulman.
Under the 2021 zoning change, developers in the East Norwalk TOD Zone could build mixed-use buildings up to 3.5 stories high with one unit per 1,250
square feet of lot area given amenity bonuses. The zoning changes were opposed at the time by neighbors who feared massive developments and the city putting developers above community needs.
In addition to the 77 residential units – seven apartments designated as affordable with rent capped at no more than 30% of the median area income, and 70 market-rate – developers of the 1.66 acre, two-building project planned to provide commercial space and more than 100 parking spots.
The development is the first step toward the city’s goal of transforming the area into a transit-oriented community. The project would be less than a quarter of a mile from the East Norwalk train station. Commission member Mike Mushak denied resident claims that Norwalk was growing at an “outrageous rate,” and pushed for growth around the East Norwalk train station.
“It looks like we’re building a lot, but we’re building smartly,” Mushak said. “We’re building near transit. We’re following millions of dollars of recommendations. We’re doing what every city in America is doing.”
Mushak said many of the resident claims about impacts on traffic and the local environment expressed in the petition and public hearings were based in fear, not fact.
“I know how passionate everybody feels about this and there’s a lot of fear and a lot of anger,” Mushak said. “And I can relate – I’ve been at that podium.”
Commission member Tammy Langalis said she listened to East Norwalk neighbors, and had concerns of her own about traffic.
A traffic analysis by engineers Hardesty & Hanover concluded that the project would have no adverse impact on traffic, projecting that intersections and lanes off Cemetery Street, East Avenue and Gregory Boulevard would continue to operate the same during peak hours.
But Langalis echoed doubts from the East Norwalk Neighborhood Association – a local nonprofit organization that, according to their website, works to preserve the residential character, natural and historic resources and quality of life in the community.
“They want to get to and from their homes like everybody else, and they’re concerned that [if] you add a building with 77 units, it’s just going to add more traffic,” Langalis said.
At a crowded March 22 public hearing for the project, ENNA President Diane Cece said the association had hired consultants from SIMCO Engineering to review the submitted traffic studies. She said the Hardesty & Hanover traffic analysis was flawed and told commissioners that SIMCO engineers had “serious concerns” about the study.
In a letter to Cece, SIMCO recommended that the applicant should consider increased traffic from additional delivery vehicle stops, analyze traffic counts in the summer, consider additional access points to ease congestion and analyze pre-pandemic crash data.
“The firm identified nine different recommendations for those deficiencies that should be looked at,” Cece said.
At the March hearing, Cece said that she’d petitioned for intervenor status in the project application given environmental concerns. But on Wednesday, the project team backed their traffic analysis and commission members denied Cece’s petition to intervene.
Commission Chair Schulman said it was “perfectly appropriate and right” for the ENNA president to petition. But during the meeting, commission members passed a resolution – seven in favor and member Ana Tabachneck opposed – that they did not believe the application would unreasonably pollute, impact or destroy the public trust in city air, water or other natural resources.
The commission ultimately approved the developer plans in a 6 to 2 vote, with members Langalis and Tabachneck opposed. Cece was unavailable for comment upon request