After 3 years, Amazon is delivering on massive 3.2-million-square-foot warehouse in Connecticut

Paul Hughes

WATERBURY — After three years of eager anticipation, online retail giant Amazon is on its way to delivering on a towering and massive state-of-the-art warehouse and distribution center to Waterbury and Naugatuck.

The announcement on April 21 that Amazon.com Services officially closed on the purchase of the 157-acre project site in the Waterbury-Naugatuck Industrial Park put the planned fulfillment center on the road to realization at long last.

With the logistics hub, Amazon is also expected to bring the equivalent of up to 1,000 full-time jobs to a part of the state with the highest regional rate of unemployment. The construction of the five-story, 3.2 million-square-foot building is additionally anticipated to create 300 construction jobs.

The tax bases of the city of Waterbury and the borough of Naugatuck are going to get a boost, and their local economies, too. The project site extends over Waterbury's southern border into Naugatuck. The two municipalities have agreed to evenly split the property tax revenue from the Amazon fulfillment center.

No construction timetable has been announced yet. The project developer has three years to complete construction under its contract, but can request two extensions totaling 18 months. Waterbury and Naugatuck officials have been advised Amazon is looking to have the fulfillment center up and running in 2027.

Work on preparing the 157 acres of hilly, rocky and wooded undeveloped land for construction of the Amazon fulfillment center is expected to start shortly. Building officials in Waterbury and Naugatuck are reviewing permit applications for this preliminary site work. 

The initial site work will include construction of an access road to the project site and a retaining wall that will wrap the perimeter of the planned truck court. Applications for demolition and excavation permits will follow next, and then finally permits for the construction of the five-story, 3.2-million square-foot building once the site is readied for construction.

Once opened, the Amazon distribution center will operate 24-hours-a-day, year-round. As planned, the building will have 59 tractor-trailer bays and loading docks, and it will be equipped with the latest robotics and AI technologies to assist employees store, pick and pack goods for delivery. The plans call for a parking lot of about 600 parking spaces and a two-level parking deck with about 400 spaces.

Picking off problems one at a time

The milestone announcement on Monday that the project site had been purchased came more than three years after then- Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary, Naugatuck Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess and Gov. Ned Lamont announced Pennsylvania-based Bluewater Property Group had been selected to develop a plan for a logistics center for Amazon in the Waterbury-Naugatuck Industrial Park.

This much cheered 2022 announcement had come with a caution that much due diligence and work still had to be done to make the Amazon project happen, including needed approvals on the state and local levels. Subsequent developments underscored reason for the caveat, including a post-pandemic environment that created delays for the Amazon project.

Waterbury ended up giving Bluewater two extensions to to complete the sale and close on the property. In between, the city and Naugatuck granted wetlands and zoning approvals for the project.

Waterbury Mayor Paul K. Pernerewski Jr. said the extensions created doubt and concerns in some quarters that Amazon might pull out, and the unease was exacerbated by Amazon closing or scrapping plans for numerous fulfillment centers and delivery stations in 2022 and 2023. 

"That gave some people pause that they weren't going to go forward," he said. 

Amazon had also been pursuing local approvals for construction of a 97,954-square-foot "last mile" delivery center on a 20-acre East Main Street property on the city's border with Cheshire at the time the plan for the much larger fulfillment center project in the Waterbury-Naugatuck Industrial Park was announced. That smaller project did not move forward.

But Waterbury and Naugatuck officials were encouraged through the delays and other business developments by the level of  interest Amazon continued to express in the Waterbury-Naugatuck Industrial Park site, and also because while Amazon was scaling back elsewhere the company's reasons for requesting the extensions were unrelated to its moves to streamline its logistics network.

Bluewater representatives had said a construction feasibility analysis and the final design for the fulfillment center were taking longer due an uncertain economic climate and what they described as complicated and challenging site conditions, including the topography and rock conditions

"We remained hopeful that they were trying to straighten things out, and that's what happened. They came back last year ready to pull the trigger, and obviously we were able to close on Monday," Pernerewski said.

Hess said he had some moments of uncertainty, but there always are ups and downs with development projects of the magnitude of what Amazon proposed in Waterbury and Naugatuck.

"I would say for the last 18 months Amazon, Bluewater, Naugatuck and Waterbury have been picking off problems one at time to get to the point where they can get their approvals, building permits, and everything they need in order to build the building," Hess said. "I guess it took a few months longer than anticipated, but not that much longer. It is a huge project."

One remaining piece of unfinished business is the sale of 17.3 acres of city-owned land in Naugatuck to Amazon. The Board of Aldermen earlier this month scrapped a planned public hearing on the proposed $325,000 sale because Amazon required more time. Pernerewski said he expects this sale will be successfully concluded in the near future. In addition to the Board of Aldermen, the city's Board of Public Works must also conduct a hearing and vote on the land sale.

The city had granted Bluewater Property Group an easement over the parcel for an access drive to the planned the Amazon fulfillment center. City officials later offered to sell the land to Amazon after they determined the lot would have limited development opportunities due to being divided by the access road and the difficult topography on its remaining sections. The city and the company negotiated the $325,000 sales price.

An application for a major traffic generator permit is also pending before the DOT. State law requires certain large developments to get permits from the Office of State Traffic Administration. The Amazon fulfillment center meets the statutory criteria.

The access to the Amazon fufillment center will be via Sheridan Drive and Great Hill Road in Naugatuck. Bluewater traffic engineers reported that  90% of the traffic to and from the site would be from employees, with only 10% truck traffic.

More recently, the Board of Aldermen in Waterbury and the Board of Mayor and Burgesses in Naugatuck approved amendments to an intermunicipal agreement concerning the Amazon project clarifying the sharing of municipal oversight and services between the city and the borough, including building inspections and the provision of fire services.

Pernerewski and Hess said Waterbury and Naugatuck have retained two land-use and construction consultants to advise and assist local officials, and Amazon is paying the cost for each. One of the advisers is retired Waterbury building inspector E. Gil Graveline, who has been retained to serve as a part-time liaison to Bluewater and Amazon for Waterbury and Naugatuck building departments. 

Bluewater representatives have said the Amazon fulfillment center will have an estimated tax assessment of more than $200 million. Hess has projected that taxes would add about $2.5 million in revenue for each municipality. 

Waterbury and Naugatuck have agreed to evenly divide the revenue from the real estate and personal property taxes on machinery and equipment. The city and the borough will each apply its local tax rate to the portions of the land, the building, and equipment located within its borders. Roughly 115 acres of the project site is situated in Waterbury and 52 acres in Naugatuck.

Waterbury and Naugatuck officials had explored the possibility of using Waterbury's higher mill rate to tax the Amazon fulfillment center, but state law would not allow it.

The current tax rate for Naugatuck is 41.79 mills, and the Waterbury rate is 49.44 mills. A mill is equal to $1 for every $1,000 of assessed property value, and property taxes are based on 70% of appraised market value. The city and the borough will be adopting new tax rates for the upcoming budget year. Pernerewski proposed a rate of 44.98 mills and and Hess recommended a rate of 39.79 mills based on recent grand list revaluations in both municipalities.

Amazon reviewing tax abatement options

Pernerewski said Amazon has not approached the city about property tax abatements. But the e-commerce company could apply through the state because the project site is located in enterprise zones in both Waterbury and Naugatuck, and also the Naugatuck Valley Enterprise Corridor Zone follows Route 8 from Ansonia through Naugatuck to Torrington and Winchester.

Among the incentives that state law authorizes the state Department of Economic and Community Development to provide to qualifying businesses that start up or expand in enterprise zones is a five-year, 80% abatement of local property taxes on real estate and machinery and equipment.

Amazon said in a statement that the company is reviewing the incentive options available through the state's enterprise zone program and their applicability to the fulfillment center project.

Bluewater representatives have said construction of the warehouse and distribution center is expected to take 24 to 30 months. Pernerewski said Amazon officials have advised that the company is looking to gave the fulfillment hub up and running in 2027.

Pernerewski and Hess acknowledged the expressed concerns and objections nearby Waterbury and Naugatuck residents have had concerning traffic, noise, lighting, demolition, tree clearing and landscaping, and views of the fulfillment center from their properties. They said they believe the project plans go a long way to mitigate these issues, but will not completely alleviate them, or satisfy residents who have continuing doubts and complaints about the development.

Minority contractors say CT not following its own rules, proposed fix doesn’t go far enough

Emilia Otte

For decades, minority-owned businesses in Connecticut have struggled to win contracts to do work for the state — despite a nearly 50-year-old program requiring that a certain percentage of state contracting funds be awarded to businesses owned by people of color, women, veterans or people with disabilities.

In 2021, in response to concerns about underrepresentation of minority businesses and the alleged presence of “front businesses” taking advantage of the system, the legislature commissioned a study examining whether state contracts were being awarded fairly.

Last December, the results of that study were published — and they largely validated the concerns minority contractors have raised for years.

But business owners say lawmakers have thus far failed to take meaningful action in response to the findings.

According to the report, conducted by consultancy Griffin & Strong, about 14% of all construction firms in Connecticut are owned by Black individuals. But between 2017 and 2021, these firms received only 0.57% of state contracts valued at less than $1 million. Of the $544 million spent on these contracts in total, $91 million went to firms owned by women and minorities — or roughly 17%.

Bottom of Form

The law requires that the state reserve, or “set aside,” 25% of its contracts for small businesses and minority-owned businesses.

Colin Dawkins, chair of the construction committee of the Greater Hartford African American Alliance and vice president of MCM Acoustics in Hartford, said the study didn’t capture the full scale of the challenge minority contractors face, since it did not factor in work at the University of Connecticut, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities or any of the quasi-public state agencies. 

Aside from the state not meeting its mandate on contracts, minority subcontractors describe barriers across all aspects of the business: from seeking a line of credit from banks, to paying higher prices for materials and experiencing poor treatment by lead contractors on projects, including delayed payments.

“I just think that if it doesn’t get fixed now, we might have to wait until another 15 years for them to do another disparity study in order to fix what needs to be done,” said Dawkins.

In the wake of the Griffin & Strong report, lawmakers drafted legislation this year that was intended to ease some of the barriers faced by business owners.

The bill removes the 25% set-aside requirement, and instead assigns the state’s Commission of Human Rights and Opportunities to annually “establish goals for including small contractors and [minority business enterprises] on all public works contracts to attain parity with the availability of contractors required for the specific contract according to their industry and the relevant geographic area,” according to a nonpartisan analysis of the bill. CHRO would also be given a greater ability to penalize lead contractors who do not treat minority subcontractors fairly.

CHRO, which currently oversees the set-aside program and played a large role in drafting the legislation, said it’s meant to give the agency a greater ability to hold large contractors accountable for their treatment of minority subcontractors.

“This bill represents an important opportunity for Connecticut to address continuing disparities within state contracting while improving a program that aims to keep state contracting dollars within the state and giving all businesses, including small contractors and [minority and woman-owned business enterprises], an equal chance to compete for those dollars,” Tanya Hughes, executive director of the CHRO, wrote in testimony.

But owners of minority construction businesses who spoke with the Connecticut Mirror said the legislation won’t address the real barriers that keep small contractors like them locked out of state projects. 

“ It’s clear that the author and the architect [of the bill] have little understanding of the plight that minority businesses are facing contracting. They’re the ones who are supposed to know what we’re facing,” Bernard Thomas, the owner of Global Construction Services LLC and Vice President of the Minority Construction Council, said. “If not, ask. Don’t write up [a bill] and assume that … what you’re writing is good enough for the minority contractors.” 

Gwen Samuel, former owner of Samuel General Contracting, said it didn’t make sense for CHRO to continue to oversee the set-aside program when it was under that agency’s watch that the disparities found in the study were allowed to propagate. 

“ My concern with this whole [bill], it still doesn’t hold Connecticut accountable to fair practices,” Samuel said. 

An ‘aspirational’ program

In 1976, the state created a voluntary set-aside program for small businesses. A senator who spoke during a debate at the state Capitol at the time said the program was designed to keep a few large contractors from overtaking all the state contracts. The next year, the legislature made the program mandatory, and in 1982 it expanded the program to include mandatory set-asides for minority-owned businesses. 

Lawmakers in office at the time the minority-owned set-asides were created said they were intended to help minority businesses during a difficult economic period and create jobs in communities with high unemployment. At the time, a representative of the CHRO also noted that only a small number of minority-owned businesses were accessing state contracts. 

Subsequent changes to the law expanded the program to cover all state agencies and quasi-public agencies and increased the percentage of contracts that needed to be reserved for small and minority businesses. 

The current set-aside program requires that the state reserve 25% of its contracts for small businesses and minority-owned businesses. A quarter of that — 6.25% of contracts overall — must be granted to businesses owned by people of color, women, veterans or people with disabilities.  

In testimony to lawmakers in 2021, when the legislature was considering a disparity study, Hughes of CHRO pointed out that the last time the state studied the program was 1992. “The diversity and economy of Connecticut has changed substantially in almost 30 years,” she wrote, adding that a more “accurate picture” of the challenges facing minority contractors, “ensure equity and equality in state contracting by affirmatively addressing underutilization.”

Ultimately, last year’s Griffin & Strong disparity study characterized the program as “aspirational” rather than setting solid requirements for contracting, and it concluded that the state has failed to meet those goals in multiple categories of contracting for nearly every minority. 

A range of problems to solve

This year’s proposed law, which advanced out of the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee in late March, incorporates a recommendation from the disparity study to shift from having overarching set-aside goals to having the CHRO decide on a project-by-project basis what percentage of the work should be reserved for minority businesses. 

Attorney Spencer Hill for the CHRO told CT Mirror that this was to ensure that what they were doing was legal, since the state constitution only allows race to be used narrowly as a criteria in government programs.

“You want to be very narrowly tailored and have a focused approach, to ensure that you’re being as effective as possible and not being overly broad and relying on race in any way that’s inappropriate,” Hill said.

Still, contractors said there were other problems with the set-aside program that the legislation failed to address.

For one, Colin Dawkins said, he believes the definition of “small” business is too large. Under federal guidelines, a masonry, framing, poured concrete or roofing contractor can make up to $19 million annually and still be considered a small business. 

Furthermore, the study referenced concerns from state staffers about “fronts” — situations where firms owned by men were registered in a woman’s name to make the business appear to be female-owned. According to the study, about one-third of business owners Griffin & Strong surveyed were under the impression that non-minority or woman-owned companies were misrepresenting themselves in order to circumvent certification requirements. 

Data from the disparity study shows that in construction, Black-owned businesses earned only 0.3% of the total amount of money the state paid out directly to contractors between 2017 and 2021. Non-minority woman-owned businesses earned 7.22% of the money during the same time period. 

Leigh Appleby, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Administrative Services — which administers state contracts — said in an email to CT Mirror that while the department has heard anecdotes about this for years, it “employs a rigorous review to prevent such things from happening.” He said DAS conducts random site visits, and that falsely placing a male-owned business under a woman’s name can be punished by fines or disqualification.

“DAS procurement has never disqualified a business based solely on a false representation of minority ownership,” Appleby said in a follow-up email. “In some cases, it has been determined that the certification as a small business is justified, while the certification as a minority-owned business is not.”

One woman quoted in the study, a construction firm owner, also said the state had begun to crack down on those “fronts” by interviewing companies to confirm ownership. 

Along with changing the set-aside program, CHRO attorney Hill said, the bill was also designed to increase the CHRO’s ability to oversee construction projects in real time and penalize contractors who do not follow through on efforts to engage minority businesses. 

Hill said the agency typically receives “a handful” of complaints each year from minority contractors. Most come from contractors who say they believed they were selected by a lead contractor to be part of a project solely in order to meet state requirements for minority contracting, and were later dropped from the project. 

“Small and minority contractors deserve the chance to compete in a level, fair marketplace.”

Bernard Thomas, Global Construction Services LLC

He said that new reporting requirements outlined in the bill would allow the commission to catch any problems in the contracting process early on, rather than in a review period at the end of the project. 

Additionally, the commission would withhold 2% of the contract cost until their review was completed. 

But Bernard Thomas of Global Construction Services said in testimony to the legislature that the bill did not address inequities in the state’s contracting procedures “by any stretch of the imagination.” 

Thomas said he believed there was no way to hold towns or state agencies accountable when they fail to bid the project properly, and he said a $10,000 fine for violations of the law was “laughably low,” especially for out-of-state companies or contractors who only do business with the state on occasion. 

“Small and minority contractors deserve the chance to compete in a level, fair marketplace,” he wrote. 

Several state agencies also raised concerns about the bill’s intent to set project-by-project goals, saying they felt it would delay projects. 

Office of Policy and Management Secretary Jeff Beckham said the state needed better data collection in order to comply with the bill’s requirements, and DAS Commissioner Michelle Gilman questioned what would happen if available contractors did not bid on the contracts. Gilman also noted that requiring CHRO to set goals for each project without a clear timeline could stall projects.

Hill said he believed that the new requirements would not cause the delays that the state agencies feared. “We hear their concerns about efficiency. We don’t want to be holding anything up. But I don’t think that the processes are as labor intensive as they’re kind of painting it as,” he said.

Even if there are some delays, he said, making sure tax dollars are properly spent is critical.

“It would be very efficient to not have oversight and just give out tax dollars without anyone scrutinizing where they’re going or why. But as the state of Connecticut is saying, we need to be better than that,” Hill said. “If there is oversight that needs to happen, we’re not going to sacrifice that just for the sake of business expediency.”

‘Bigger, better breaks‘

Minority contractors say they operate within a system that favors larger, established firms over theirs. That disadvantage is present in every step of the process, from bidding to purchasing materials, they say.

Michele Clark Jenkins, Director of Research and Methodology for Griffin & Strong, told attendees at an informational session that more than half the firms they spoke with for the disparity study described an “informal network” that they said was “monopolizing public contracting with the state.” 

Clark Jenkins also made recommendations around CHRO’s accommodations of lead contractors’ “good faith efforts” — a concept that minority subcontractors have criticized. Under current policy, lead contractors who have made “good faith efforts” to reach out to minority businesses can be exempt from the set-aside requirements. But Clark Jenkins said their research showed that contracts were being awarded whether or not that “good faith effort” was made. 

CHRO Executive Director Hughes said in an email that the new bill would improve the agency’s ability to assess good faith efforts from the start of a project. 

In response to comments about an “informal” or “old boys” network, Appleby said DAS “follows all statutory guidelines concerning procurement,” limits how many contracts one business can have at a time, and has “worked to expand the breadth of our outreach when advertising to reach a wide swath of potential bidders.”

There are other roadblocks within state requirements, business owners told CT Mirror.

State rules require that contractors provide 10% of the total amount of the bid for any project over $50,000 up front. This is known as a “bid bond,” which acts as a kind of security deposit proving that the contractor will complete the project. 

Dawkins said many minority contractors aren’t able to access bid bonds at a level that would allow them to compete for multiple large contracts at once. They don’t have a large amount of assets, and any hits they take on credit can detract from their ability to get a bond. 

Both Dawkins and Rollo Jones, the owner of Capital Masonry LLC in Hartford, said getting a bank or insurer to sign off on a bond was about relationships. Larger construction companies, they said, have established credit lines they can draw on. 

In addition, minority companies often pay more for materials like sheetrock and drywall. Larger firms are able to purchase in bulk, Dawkins said, meaning they often get a better per-unit price. 

“The big guys, they get bigger, better breaks. They get better deals, they get better contracts,” Rollo Jones told lawmakers. 

With higher material costs, minority business owners say they can’t always complete a project at a low price comparable to what larger firms can offer. 

Dawkins suggested the state could eliminate the requirement for bonding for minority contractors for any bids of $500,000 or less. This way, he said, smaller businesses that couldn’t afford a bid bond would have a chance at getting a contract. 

But Appleby said bonding protects taxpayer money if a contractor fails to complete their contract, and that it also protects workers and subcontractors if the contractor who hired them ends up unable to pay them for labor or materials. He said having a bond provides evidence that a contractor is financially stable.  

Another problem businesses cited was the sometimes lengthy periods they wait to get paid for their work. Although the state requires minority contractors to be paid within 25 days, about 45% of the contractors surveyed in Griffin & Strong’s disparity study said it took at least a month and a half to receive payments from the state. 

For about 10%, it took three months or longer. 

‘A domino effect’

Rollo Jones and his wife Rochelle say they’ve experienced many challenges with their business, Capital Masonry, in the 30 years it’s been operating.

In one case, the company was contracting in Hartford for a project with the state Department of Transportation. Rochelle said they completed the job in September 2023 but didn’t receive their last check until December 2024. 

“I’ve never seen anyone who worked so hard to do a job and yet does not get paid on time,” Rochelle said of Rollo. “We have a contract we write up, [it’s] supposed to be recognized, but it’s never recognized.”

Department of Transportation Communications Director John Morgan told CT Mirror in an email that the department “has frequent communication and dialogue with Prime Contractors” about payments, and that the department is rolling out a new system that will monitor payments and give subcontractors more access to the department. 

Morgan said the primary contractors who receive payment directly from the department can delay payments to subcontractors “based on quality assurance and quality control of the work that was performed.” 

“If you don’t pay me on time, then I can’t pay my vendors, I can’t pay my taxes … It’s a domino effect.”

Rollo Jones, Capital Masonry LLC

But such delays can put small contractors in a tough position, particularly if they need to make payroll and they don’t have much in savings to draw on. It can also prevent them from taking on additional jobs, and it can hurt their credit. 

In October 2019, Rollo filed a complaint with CHRO against a lead contractor, Viking Construction, whom he alleged had refused to pay Jones the full amount for the work they did and treated him “unprofessionally overall.” 

CHRO ultimately ruled, in May 2022, that there was “reasonable cause” to believe that Jones had been discriminated against based on race. But Rochelle told CT Mirror that even with the CHRO finding, Capital Masonry was paid only a fraction of the amount they were owed.

(Viking Construction attorney Jeffrey Mirman told CT Mirror in an email that Jones entered into a confidential agreement, withdrew his complaint from the CHRO and that Jones later signed a document in which it stated that he had been “paid in full.”) 

Rochelle said she felt the CHRO didn’t support them during hearings after the finding of probable cause, instead encouraging them to come to an agreement with Viking. In the midst of difficulties with her own lawyer, she said, she felt pressured to acquiesce. 

Hill declined to comment on specific cases, but said the CHRO does not represent any one party in proceedings.  

“If you don’t pay me on time, then I can’t pay my vendors, I can’t pay my taxes, you can’t pay your guys, it’s a domino effect,” Rollo Jones said. “That destroys you. You can’t go to a lender. You can’t go to a bank. You can’t get any material. You can’t get anything. It really destroys you.”

‘We should be embarrassed‘

Thomas, Dawkins and the Joneses asked members of the legislature to place woman-owned businesses in a separate category from ethnic minority-owned businesses, and they asked for the state to require subcontractors be paid on time. Dawkins also recommended eliminating bonding requirements for minority contractors taking on smaller contracts. 

Lawmakers who heard the contractors lay out the minefields they faced said they agreed the legislature needs to address the long-running problems. 

“That level of disparity is just a shame. And to be perfectly honest, I agree with you,” Rep. Joshua Hall, D-Hartford, told Jones at the hearing. “We should be embarrassed as representatives of our community that we’ve allowed this to transpire.”

Earlier in the session, Hall proposed his own bill that would have eliminated the bonding requirement for all contracts of less than $1 million. The bill failed to receive a public hearing. 

“Our legislative people do not push on these issues,” Thomas told CT Mirror. Thomas said he felt the bill had been drafted “behind closed doors,” without necessary input from the contractors.

CHRO Executive Director Hughes said in an email to CT Mirror that the agency had been in contact with the Minority Construction Council and had updated the council throughout the process about their plans to address what was laid out in the disparity study.

Jennifer Little-Greer, president of the Minority Construction Council, declined to comment for this article. 

Rep. Derell Wilson, D-Norwich, vice chair of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, told CT Mirror that the bill was still being negotiated. He said while caucus members took the disparity study’s findings seriously, they’re still working to find the right way to help the minority contractors while staying within constitutional boundaries. 

“ We are all-in about this. I think that’s a no-brainer. I think for us [it’s] making sure we create something that’s, one, going to last [and] two, going to be beneficial and helpful. And we know that that’s not something that’s going to happen overnight,” Wilson told CT Mirror. 

Black and Puerto Rican Caucus Chair Antonio Felipe, D-Bridgeport, confirmed to CT Mirror Thursday that negotiations were ongoing. He said they were discussing ways to ensure prompt payment to contractors and to verify that major contractors made “good faith efforts” to reach out to minority businesses.

Felipe said lawmakers likely wouldn’t be able to include everything the minority contractors requested, but he said he hoped they could fill some of their requests this year and build on that work next year.

‘This is about fairness’

The contractors said that having minority business owners flourish does more than add diversity to an industry — it provides jobs in communities where people are in need of work. These contractors often train and employ residents of areas with high rates of poverty and unemployment. 

Gwen Samuel, the former co-owner of Samuel General Contracting, said she wants to restart the business this summer with a specific goal: training young people in construction. 

“They may not be skilled in engineering and plumbing,” she said. “But you can get a basic entry job and make a livable wage in construction.” 

At a public hearing, Samuel urged lawmakers to invest in minority companies, calling it a “fiscally sound decision.”  

Dawkins used to run a program teaching incarcerated people at Cheshire Correctional Institute about construction and helping them get certified, before COVID shut it down. He also crafted a proposal years ago to train young people in construction and then have them fix up blighted houses. “ It’s been a passion of mine,” he said.

And the Joneses have been offering classes for decades to people coming out of prison who want to learn a trade. They offer six to eight week classes in things like concrete, carpentry and electrical work. They help them get an OSHA card and a driver’s license. 

Samuel said minority contractors aren’t looking for “help” — what they want is a system that they can operate in. 

“This is about fairness,” said Samuel. “We could help ourselves if we have fair access to the opportunity.”

Hopes are high for redevelopment of CT trash-to-energy plant. Now 1,000 acres are being looked at

Kenneth R. Gosselin

Since the mid-1980s, the view for motorists cruising across the Charter Oak Bridge has been dominated by one major sight: a trash-to-energy plant perched below on the banks of the Connecticut River that was still taking garbage from nearly 50 towns when it shut down in 2022.

The 80-acre property is seen as promising for future redevelopment — given its location on the river — and now, so are more than an estimated 1,000 acres to the south and west that all could become part of a massive, new redevelopment district in Hartford’s gritty South Meadows.

The district, part of a bill in the legislature this session, would include a wide swath of land between the Connecticut River and Wethersfield Avenue, taking in not only the trash-to-energy plant but also the Connecticut Regional Market and Hartford-Brainard Airport.

The bill is touching off opposition — not for redeveloping the trash-to-energy plant — but for again stoking up controversy that has surrounded a push in recent years to close and redevelop the airport. Those efforts, aimed at mixed-use redevelopment, have been led by state Sen. John W. Fonfara, D-Hartford and former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in recent years.

The proposal for the new development district was tacked onto a bill that seeks to transfer control of the trash-to-energy plant to the Capital Region Development Authority to guide its future redevelopment.

Fonfara, who envisioned the new district, recently told members of the legislature’s finance committee, which he co-chairs, that the closure of the trash-to-energy plant invited the idea of looking at the South Meadows area more broadly.

“This is an underdeveloped area and including the site of the [trash-to-energy] plant,” Fonfara said, as the committee debated whether to send it to the full General Assembly possible adoption. “It has taken the garbage of the state for 50 years, and now we’re left to figure out what to do with it. And so, we’ve expanded the boundaries to a much larger area, much larger than the airport area to attempt to begin a conversation on how to improve that area.”

Fonfara said the goals included boosting the grand list and property taxes; promoting economic development; and creating jobs.

“There is nothing in the bill that involves — there is no language that would provide for any subsidy, enticement — any encouragement for development,” Fonfara told committee members. “It just simply creates a boundary for economic development purposes, including the airport.”

Rocky road

But some legislators see a rocky road ahead for the bill, if the airport stays in the proposed district. And the Connecticut Airport Authority, which oversees Brainard, said the bill, as now drafted, “leaves undefined the mission, organizational structure and powers of the development district.”

Closing an airport requires the approval of the General Assembly and the backing of the Federal Aviation Administration. If approved, a closure could take years. A $1.5 million legislative study last year recommended keeping the airport open, but it did outline possible alternatives should the decision be made to close it.

While agreeing with Fonfara on the need to redevelop many portions of the South Meadows, state Rep. Dave Yaccarino, R-North Haven, said he considers the airport a vital asset to the area that needs to be preserved. Brainard not only serves aircraft arrival and departure but also supports job training for the aviation field and is critical to supporting nearby hospitals, Yaccarino said.

“Why don’t we just write it into the statute that they are protected?” Yaccarino said, at the meeting. “And that land is theirs, and it’s able to be used going forward unless they choose to sell?”

The future of the Hartford-Brainard Airport has been hotley debated in recent years. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)

Fonfara told the committee that he could not counter the perception that linked the redevelopment district with downside change for the airport.

“The assumptions made that this is somehow aimed at affecting the airport in a negative way — I can’t control that narrative,” Fonfara told the committee.

The finance committee voted late last month to send the bill out of committee for further debate in the wider General Assembly.

Subsequently, when contacted by The Courant, Fonfara — through a spokesman — said he had no comment on the bill.

Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam has been far less supportive than his predecessor, Bronin, about redeveloping the airport. Arulampalam has questioned the viability of such a plan and how much of a priority it should be.

In a recent interview, Arulampalam said he is enthusiastic about the potential for pushing forward on the redevelopment of the former trash-to-energy property under the guidance of CRDA.

He acknowledges the realities of the cost of an environmental clean-up, a price tag that could run into a challenging tens of millions — perhaps more — and stretch out for years for a site with an industrial history reaching back a century.

“We are focused right now on redevelopment of the [trash-to-energy] site, which we see as a much more immediate possibility for economic development,” Arulampalam said.

Arulampalam said he believes decisions must first be made about the vision for the site because the costs of contamination remediation can vary widely depending on future uses — or combination of uses. He said he hopes initial planning can start later this year.

‘Son of Adriaens’

In the 1920s, the trash-to-energy plant property was a coal-fired electric plant before converting to an oil-fueled generator in the 1940s. In the mid-1980s, an expansion created a waste processing center paired with an electricity-generating plant. The plant operated until 2022 and is now in the final stages of winding down under the MIRA Dissolution Authority The authority the successor to the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority, which operated the trash-to-energy plant.

A recent recent study commissioned by the dissolution authority detailed the challenges facing redevelopment. Clean-up could take years, the costs are dependent on what is envisioned for the property and not only what’s in the soil but how many buildings are demolished. Environmental remediation requirements become much more stringent if residential development becomes part of the plan.

According to a 1,535-page report on the study’s findings, the costs just to get the property ready for development could range from $48 million for industrial and commercial uses to $334 million for heavily residential. Those figures are based on getting started in 2026 and rise significantly waiting five or 10 years.

The trash-to-energy plant in Hartford, a fixture on the Connecticut Rivr since the 1980s, was closed in 2022 and will complete the winding down of its operations in late June. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant0

According to the MIRA Dissolution Authority, it expects to wind down in late spring with $50 million in reserves that could cover remediation for future development.

“Truly, it’s not much different than Adriaen’s Landing was,” Michael W. Freimuth, CRDA’s executive director, said. “I mean, Adriaen’s was coal tar and tank farms and multiple properties and the waterfront. The process is pretty similar. Land use controls and environmental land use restrictions and all that stuff. It’s really kind of the son of Adriaen’s.”

Coal tar was left behind by the early coal-burning plants that provided heat and light to city residents in the early part of the last century.

Adriaen’s Landing in downtown Hartford now includes a convention center, hotel, apartments, an entertainment district and the University of Connecticut’s downtown regional campus. The trash-to-energy plant property is more than double the size of Adriaen’s Landing.

Initially, Adriaen’s Landing — launched in the early 2000s after years of planning  — was envisioned as unfolding in just a few years.

But the Front Street entertainment district, for example, wasn’t completed until 2010, and its first lease signed two years later as the country slogged through a deep recession. There was a change in developers and housing — originally planned for above the storefronts — was taken out of the design.

The trash-to-energy plant in Hartford was built on the site of a coal-burning plant that provided electricity to the city in the 1920s. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)

Arulampalam, the Hartford mayor, acknowledged that the cost of environmental clean-up could limit future residential development on the trash-to-energy plant property.

“For the conversion of the entire parcel into residential — at least right now — seems like it would be cost prohibitive,” Arulampalam said. “But I think there’s probably some eventual blended use that can be achieved on that site.”

Madison Votes on Adding 50% to Community Center Budget, Critics Say Cost Will Be Higher

MADISON — The town will hold a referendum on Tuesday to decide whether to add $8.1 million to the budget to transform the former Academy School building into a community center. That’s 50% more than the cost of the project approved in 2022, and some critics say they expect the final cost will be even higher.

Andrew Vallombroso, a Madison resident and one of the first to raise concerns about the project, told CT Examiner in late April that two issues could increase costs. One is the insulation of the building’s exterior walls and the other is the need to remove more hazardous materials than initially planned.

“They’re purposely hiding all of this from the public,” Vallombroso said. “I think what they’re doing is another bait and switch.”

Town officials publicly debated these issues, acknowledging that it is a risk that could drive costs beyond what was anticipated.

At a meeting of the Academy Community Center Building Committee in January, the architect in charge of the project, Tom Arcari, explained that there was an ongoing discussion about the need to insulate the exterior walls. Arcari said that Madison’s building official, Vincent Garofalo, believed that they should be insulated. Arcari said that he, as the project designer, had never considered this and did not think it was necessary.

The project was open to bids last year without insulation for the exterior walls.

Arcari argued that he had followed the current International Building Code standards, on which the Connecticut state building code is based. According to Arcari’s criteria, the project was a “level 2 alteration,” meaning it did not involve a change of more than 50% of the original building’s footprint and therefore did not require upgrading the entire building to comply with energy efficiency regulations for new construction.

At a meeting in February, architect Brian Ken, also on the project design team, explained that the building official had decided to hire third-party reviewers to determine the criteria to be adopted regarding the building code. This was the last meeting of the project committee, and there were no further public comments on the review progress.

Building official Garofalo did not respond to repeated CT Examiner requests for comment.

After a town meeting in mid-April, First Selectwoman Peggy Lyons told CT Examiner that they would seek an exemption from the State Building Official’s Office.

“There’s been a little bit of a disagreement between the building official and the architect about what part of the code applies to what part of the renovation,” Lyons said. “We’ll go to the state to appeal to waive certain things.”

Vallombroso opposed that decision.

“By continuing with the referendum on May 6 and not having that clarification, our selectwoman is being disingenuous to the citizens of Madison,” Vallombroso said. “The cost is going to be a lot greater and that’s not being disclosed to them.”

At a January meeting of the Board of Selectmen, newly-hired town construction manager Ben Whittaker said that exterior insulation could cost “seven figures” and have a significant impact on the project.

Whittaker then recommended that the town allow “some room” in the budget to account for unforeseen expenses.

“What made me nervous about this project when I first learned about it and walked through the building is that normally in a building that’s been sitting that long, you’re doing more of a gut and renovate,” Whittaker said. “Your risk potential is a lot lower than in a building like this where we’re leaving hazardous materials in place.”

The project planned to remove hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead paint from the parts being renovated, while the rest would be covered in place.

That was precisely one of Vallombroso’s criticisms, who said that if the exterior walls had to be insulated, it would require removing all toxic materials from the interior side of those walls, a costly process.

Lyons said the project would comply with all health and safety regulations, and pushed back on Vallombroso’s criticism.

“Part of this building has asbestos. Every old building has asbestos in it,” said Lyons, pointing to the Brown Intermediate School building where the town meeting was held. “As we go through the renovation process, we will be remediating any kind of hazardous material that we encounter. And that’s standard practice when you’re doing this.”

Lyons clarified that the project had a contingency fund of 8% of the project cost, slightly more than $1.5 million.

“There’s always going to be hidden costs when you do a renovation,” Lyons said. “There’s no guarantee in life.”

Built in 1921, the Academy School operated until 2004, after which the school board vacated it and handed it over to the town in 2011. Following years of deliberation, town officials held a referendum approving $15.9 million to turn the building into a community center, with the intention of seeking grants to reduce the total borrowing required.

The original project included a gymnasium, commercial kitchen, recital hall, additional parking lots, and town department office space. The work included improvements to the heating and air conditioning systems, roof and window repairs and removal of some hazardous materials.

During the debate before calling for a second referendum, the scope of the work was cut. The project committee reduced upgrades to the recital hall, gymnasium, and playground and eliminated other items they deemed unnecessary. But not enough to bring the cost down.

The project received federal and state grants for $7.6 million. These funds, which were initially intended to reduce the total amount residents paid, would be used to offset the higher cost of the work.

Vallombroso criticized the project for the impact it would have on taxpayers, in addition to another million-dollar project to build a new school.

“Nobody’s going to be able to live here anymore except the ultra-rich. And that’s not right,” Vallombroso said regarding taxes. “A select person should represent everybody who lives here, especially the people who built Madison. The reckless spending in this town is disgusting.”

Lyons explained to CT Examiner that the referendum would increase the maximum budget for the project to $24 million, but that the bonding could not exceed the $15.9 million originally planned. She said the town would also seek additional grant funding.

If the referendum is approved, the project timeline calls for rebidding in six weeks. And if the cost is below expectations, work could begin in the fall and take a year, according to Lyons.

The Board of Selectmen decided to let the prior bids expire and rebid for the project after the referendum. They considered that they had not received good enough prices and that simplifying the process could reduce costs.

Lyons said she did not know what impact new tariffs would have on the final budget, but she expected that the construction portion would not be significantly affected given that the project didn’t use large quantities of steel or other imported products.

If the referendum is not approved, the project could not go ahead with the current approved budget, according to the town’s construction manager’s estimates. Nor would it be if at least one of the two grants were not awarded or if, as Vallombroso claims, the costs skyrocketed. In that case, alternatives such as selling or demolishing it would be considered.

“If bids come back at $30 million, it doesn’t move forward,” Lyons said. “This is our one shot to make it work. We are going to try to make it work.”

Robert Marchant

STAMFORD — Demolition work is moving ahead rapidly at the old Burlington Coat Factory site on Broad Street. 

Workers have gutted the building and aim to complete the demolition by the end of June.

"We hope to complete demolition within the next six weeks and to start construction right away after that," said Maria Ruales, Director of Property Management at RMS Companies, the developer of the project.

Approvals have been granted to build 280 apartment units in a seven-story structure. Burlington closed at that location in June 2024.  Scaffolding that went up around the structure before the store closed for four years, as a result of some loose masonry on the facade, was deemed an eyesore by city leaders and local residents.

The new construction at 74 Broad St. will also include around 5,700 square feet of retail space and indoor and outdoor amenities, according to Planning Board documents. 

The construction phase could take around 18 months, the development team told city officials during the approval phase.