Cheshire plans soft opening for $8 million Bartlem Park South expansion with fields already done

Mark Zaretsky

CHESHIRE —  Construction is nearing completion on the Bartlem Park South project, a nearly $8 million expansion of the town's major park on South Main Street across from Cheshire High School, officials said. 

New playfields, including a new turf field with lighting, are done. Work is expected to be complete near the end of the year on a new bandshell, officials said. 

"I think right now it's set for delivery ... potentially in late November or December," said Town Council Vice Chairman Jim Jinks, D-2. "Overall, it's a great example, I think, of the community and the town working together."

"We're planning some sort of soft-opening celebration for the holidays, and also a grand opening for the spring," Jinks said. 

The total cost of the project is $7.9 million. Of that, $2 million came from American Rescue Plan Act funds, plus $750,000 in additional state grants. Contractor DeRita & Sons Construction Co. began site work and excavation for the project in March 2023.

The master plan for the project, approved in 2021, includes a Great Lawn and a bandshell to be used as a community gathering place for activities ranging from concerts to movie nights and other events, officials have said. 

A splash pad adjacent to the town pool will come later, Jinks said.

"A lot of people wanted to leave the park to be sort of open space, not to be overly-structured," Jinks said. "Previously, there were gravel walking trails. Now, they will become paved paths in what's called the Great Lawn Area, and also in the front corner."

In addition, the plan calls for a passive recreation picnic grove area, multiple fields, walkways throughout, a new bathroom facility and additional parking spaces, including in the pool parking lot area.

"We hope to officially open soon," said Town Manager Sean Kimball. "We accepted the turf field back in the spring." 

He said they got the lights on the field turned on and inspected about two weeks ago. The field is used for lacrosse, field hockey, soccer and football.

"The rest of the park is really close," he said. "We're excited."

Town officials are planning the improved park's first public event, a holiday winter festival and tree lighting celebration in early December, Kimball said.

"We're incredibly proud of the park," Kimball said. "It was the result of years of planning."

Kimball said in two recent reports that most of the construction was nearing completion, with final topsoiling and landscaping being done this fall. Scoreboard footings were being installed in September. The town's electrical work was done and approved by town inspectors. Paving was complete with the exception of final work around the bandshell area.

Kimball told the Town Council this month that the turf field lighting was operating and four bleachers had been purchased along with benches with backs.

Bartlem Park was named for the town's first recreation director, Richard C. Bartlem, who served as director from 1968-1993. The park includes the Cheshire Community Pool, a 90-foot baseball diamond, soccer, lacrosse, a playscape, a pavilion, a picnic area, community gardens and a skate park.

Remington Woods' owner unveils new vision for Bridgeport's urban forest

 Brian Lockhart

BRIDGEPORT — Three years ago city planners approved a new land use policy allowing construction of an office park at Remington Woods, 419 acres of forested property with a large lake.

That arrangement was less permissive than the then-existing regulation and also encouraged setting aside open space. Proponents deemed it a "compromise" in the face of calls for the entire site to be saved from redevelopment.

But this month the property's owner, Sporting Goods Properties Inc., a subsidiary of Corteva Agriscience of Delaware, gave the preservationists hope by announcing a new "reuse vision."

That plan, outlined on a just-launched website, lakesuccess.net, would set aside 358 acres for "conservation space" and use the remaining 61 acres for "renewable energy" projects. It also proposes construction of a "natural science center (to) offer visitors an educational and immersive experience with the region's wildlife and forest ecosystem.

"I will say I was pleasantly surprised," said Jhoni Ada, community organizer for the Sierra Club Connecticut.

Her organization has been among the group of entities and individuals lobbying hard for Remington Woods to be left in a natural state for some passive recreation once Corteva completes a lengthy environmental cleanup. The company's estimated completion date for the cleanup is early 2026. 

Last February, the Sierra Club helped organize a petition drive on behalf of the urban forest, delivering 2,300 signatures to the owner.

"Organizations always have free will to choose how they want to respond to community," Ada said. "So seeing them (Sporting Goods Properties/Corteva) respond in a way that is reflective of community needs I think is a very beautiful thing.”

"You've got Seaside Park for the shoreline, Beardsley Park for recreation. Now you would have upland forest so people can experience nature and the like," said state Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford. 

Gresko has been involved in trying to save Remington Woods because a portion of it is located in Stratford, and also because Gresko works for Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim in the city's sustainability office.

There is, however, a bit of a catch to Corteva's revised approach. The new website also makes it clear that while conservation is now the over-arching goal, the company wants someone else to own and manage the land, name-dropping in particular the "State of Connecticut" as a possibility, along with an unspecified "conservation steward" to manage the site.

Thomas Stilley is vice president of environmental affairs for Sporting Goods Properties helping to oversee the remediation of the woods. In a statement, he explained why Corteva's approach to the property altered from three years ago,

"Corteva’s 2021 plan identified significant areas of the site to be conserved, so that part ... has not changed," Stilley said. "What has is that we are working with a renewable energy group to bring battery storage and solar energy to the site. This maximizes the sustainability of the site while benefiting the regional electric grid and generating lease revenue that could possibly be used towards the future maintenance of the site."  

Gresko said he helped introduce the parties.

"I knew they had pivoted (from an office park) when they started to entertain the conversations with the groups of investors who want to put battery storage and solar onsite," he said.

In terms of any negotiations with the state or other potential new owners, Stilley said, "We are now in the process of connecting with the many public and private stakeholders that could play a significant role in the conservation of the site, including the State of Connecticut."

He continued, "While our plan is conceptual in nature and could change, we feel very good about the plan that we are working to implement."

Stilley declined to get into whether, should a sale not proceed, Corteva would remain committed to the open space/renewable energy vision or reconsider building an office park.

"Right now, our only focus is on developing the approach that we presented," he said. 

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which would likely be involved should Connecticut buy Remington Woods, did not respond to a request for comment.

Gresko would like to see the DEEP involved in some capacity but wants to be sure that agency can handle taking on the responsibly of more parkland and is not "overextended." He also believes Corteva is open to leasing the property under certain conditions. Overall, he called the change in plans "encouraging."

Thomas Gill, Bridgeport's economic development director, said the city only recently learned of Corteva's revised plan with the rest of the public and was not involved in developing it.

"It's only under consideration," Gill emphasized. "The city has not been involved in any discussion regarding a sale to the state. (And) the city has no idea what Corteva will do if they do not sell to the state."

David Brant, executive director of the Aspetuck Land Trust, which has nature preserves throughout Fairfield County, is also keenly interested in the future of Remington Woods. He confirmed that nonprofit is open to being part of the site's future.

"There's a lot of questions and issues that would need to be resolved regarding funding, ownership of the property and liability," Brant said. "We are interested in being involved in some way, shape or form if we could work out the other issues.”

Like the Sierra Club's Ada, Brant said he too was "pleasantly surprised" to learn Corteva had "changed their orientation towards preservation versus the business park."

"It has significant conservation value," Brant said of Remington Woods. "Geez, criminy it's a big piece of land."

Waterbury Branch Line to return to service 10 weeks after floods washed out large sections of track

John Moritz

Train service will resume later this month on the Waterbury Branch Line following weeks of repairs to sections of track that were washed away during Connecticut’s historic August floods, officials announced Friday.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation said that service along the line will resume Monday, Oct. 28 with a 4:45 a.m. train departing from Waterbury, followed by a 7 a.m. from Bridgeport. Afterwards, the service will resume its normal schedule.

Rail service on the route was suspended on Aug. 18 and replaced with buses while workers raced to replace nearly 7,000 tons of washed out trackbed near the Kinneytown Dam in Seymour.

Another washout along the tracks in Beacon Falls also required repairs, according to the DOT.

“The damage sustained along the Waterbury Branch Line was devastating and access to these areas was incredibly difficult,” DOT Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto said in a statement Friday. “It’s remarkable what crews and contractors have been able to accomplish in two months to get trains running again ahead of our initial timeline.”

Officials initially estimated that it would take between four and five weeks to restore service to the line, before pushing that timeline back to mid-November after encountering difficulties accessing the largest portion of affected track, which sat on a steep embankment overlooking the Naugatuck River.

The repairs ended up taking about 10 weeks to complete, and necessitated the construction of temporary access roads to move equipment to the washed out areas.

Crews will be out over the next week operating test trains in both directions between Waterbury and Bridgeport to inspect the tracks and railroad crossing along the entire line. The DOT cautioned the public to follow posted signs and avoid walking along the railroad tracks.

Prior to the floods that washed out sections of track and damaged homes and businesses within the Naugatuck River Valley, the Waterbury Line had been experiencing a post-pandemic resurgence with more than 138,000 riders over the six months of the year.

Jim Gildea, the chair of the Connecticut Public Transportation Council and a Waterbury Branch rider from Derby, said credited DOT with “exceeding expectations,” in light of the extent of the damage.

“The storm damage just did an absolute number on the Waterbury Branch Line and we certainly did not expect it to come back this early,” Gildea said. “They did a great job.”

The department did not reveal a final cost Friday for the repairs, which were contracted to O&G Industries out of Torrington. Earlier estimates placed the price tag at around $11 million, with the state seeking federal disaster relief funds to help cover the cost.

Old Lyme Sewers Move Forward, Bid Expected By End of Year

Francisco Uranga

OLD LYME — The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved an agreement this week for wastewater treatment that town officials said would allow the sewer project for the Old Lyme beach communities to go out to bid before the end of the year.

The agreement voted at a special meeting last Tuesday established the terms of service that the New London wastewater treatment plant would provide to Sound View neighbors and residents of the private beach associations Old Colony Club, Old Lyme Shores and Miami Beach. These include a reserve treatment capacity of 170,000 gallons per day for these communities and the definition of all costs associated with the service.

Steve Cinami, chair of the Old Lyme Water Pollution Control Authority, told the CT Examiner on Thursday that he estimated the service would cost between $450 and $600 a year for each resident, based on what residents of East Lyme and Waterford currently pay.

Residents of Sound View and the neighboring chartered beach associations would have to pay that amount — which includes the cost of treatment, the so-called initial connection cost and capital costs — in addition to the cost of sewer construction. Cinami estimated that for the construction, financed over 20 years, Sound View residents would pay $1,350 per year for an equivalent dwelling unit, or EDU. An EDU represents a standard dwelling in the area. More than eight out of 10 residents would pay for an EDU, according to Cinami.

In addition, homeowners would need to hire a contractor to hook into the sewers, according to Cinami, at a cost of between $4,000 and $6,000.

The construction of sewers on the Old Lyme shoreline is a project that has been under discussion for more than a decade and is intended to replace the area’s septic systems to solve a water pollution problem identified by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection — a problem that many in the neighborhood dispute, pointing to a lack of up-to-date data on water pollution, to cheaper alternatives, and to the cost burden for less-well-off residents.

DEEP committed to paying up to 50 percent of the estimated $53 million project cost through a grant and a forgivable loan from the Clean Water Fund to reduce the burden on residents.

First selectwoman Martha Shoemaker said at Tuesday’s meeting that because of the size of the project they had looked at all of its aspects but said she was concerned about the possibility of losing state funding if they did not move forward quickly.

“This is a very difficult situation because this is a forever thing. Once this project begins, there’s no going back,” Shoemaker said. “My concern is not to lose that funding. If this project has to move forward, it’s certainly unaffordable without the funding.”

Graham Stevens, chief of water protection and land reuse at DEEP, told CT Examiner Friday that the money was not going to be “committed forever for this project” but that funding was not in doubt either. Steven explained that the agency has a list of priorities that it reviews annually and, in the event that there was no significant progress on the project, it could move down in priorities but that was not the case for Old Lyme.

“There’s not a written deadline. There is a need for continued collaboration and partnership as we’ve been doing,” Steven said. “I don’t think that there should be any fear that the state is poised to take away without significant discussion any money that has been committed to this project.”

The approval of the agreement with New London is a step forward but it is not the first time the project has reached that stage. Cinami recalled that Old Lyme had signed a similar agreement with New London before and it expired in 2023. The new agreement, Cinami said, is five percent more expensive than the previous one and the initial connection costs are funded at a higher rate. The project’s shared infrastructure had also been bid in 2021, but the bids exceeded the amount approved in the 2019 referendum. 

For Cinami, bidding again before the end of the year would be a key.

“If the bids are under budget, that’s the point of no return,” Cinami said.

Cinami warned that residents would have to start paying back the cost of the design loan starting in January if the project fails to move forward, and Clean Water Funds aren’t available.

He told CT Examiner that Sound View residents, the only ones relying on the town’s WPCA, asked for a six-month extension for the payment deadline but that the beach associations did not have that option because they had asked for the extension before.

The agreement with New London calls for 50,000 gallons per day of treatment capacity for Sound View and 120,000 for the beach associations, with the possibility of extending up to an additional 130,000 gallons per day.

The cost of treatment would be the same as that paid by New London residents since the plant would not charge a profit for the service. The current rate is $2.5 per 1,000 gallons, but the rate could change in the future given actual audited costs. 

Residents of the sewered area would also be charged an initial connection fee, which corresponds to the payment for accessing the service and would be financed over 20 years at a rate of 2.625 percent. Sound View residents would pay about $700,000 while the beach associations would pay more than $1.5 million.

Sound View residents would also pay 0.5 percent of the treatment plant’s capital costs and the beach associations would pay 1.2 percent.

Barry Weiner, chair of the New London WPCA, said the $2.25 million the city expected to receive over the next 20 years as a so-called initial connection cost could be used to fund future plant expansions, and the agreement is also expected to improve facility efficiency.

“In the future, we may be able to do this for a lower cost, but I’m not going to project rates will go down,” Weiner said. “They will be stabilized and that itself will be a tremendous benefit for the people in New London.”

Weiner said that the agreement still needs to be discussed and approved by both the WPCA and the New London City Council, but he was optimistic it would pass.

“This is a win-win-win. It’s great for the environment, it’s great for the parties involved and it shows cooperation between multiple towns,” Weiner said. “It’s another example of how New London is stepping up and leading the area in regionalization and helping others with the resources that we have.”

Joseph Lanzafame, New London’s Director of Public Utilities, said the agreement would not have a considerable impact on the city given the scale. New London’s treatment plant has a capacity of 10 million gallons per day and the agreement requires less than 2 percent of that.

“We’re trying to help the beach communities get to their end goal. And, frankly, if we weren’t cooperating, we probably would have a consent order from the Connecticut DEEP, forcing us to do it anyway,” Lanzafame said. “We’re trying to be good neighbors to the surrounding towns.”

Lanzafame said the town’s current wastewater treatment plan usage averages between 3 and 6 gallons per day, although it can reach 9 gallons per day during storms.  

The opposition

Dennis Melluzzo and Mary Daley were two of four people in the audience at this week’s special Board of Selectmen meeting. Melluzzo and Daley are Sound View residents, members of the Old Lyme WPCA and the most active opponents of the project.

Leaving the meeting, Meluzzo questioned the beach associations and especially the role of the Old Colony Club Beach Association, which is going to be responsible for raising the funds to pay New London under the terms of the agreement approved this week.

“They want to keep the whole carriage. They want the money,” Melluzzo said. “Since when does a private beach association do the work of the Old Lyme Finance Board? I don’t trust them.”

Melluzzo also criticized the role of the Old Lyme Sewer Shared Sewer Project Alliance — a group formed with neighboring chartered private beaches.

“We don’t know what they’re doing behind our backs,” Melluzzo said.

Melluzzo and Daley also questioned Cinami’s role as president of the Old Lyme WPCA and said it could be a “conflict of interest” since he works in the construction industry and builds sewer projects in other towns.

Asked later by CT Examiner, Cinami dismissed the criticism as “crazy” and said it was better for the town to have someone with 40 years of experience in the business.

“I have no conflict of interest. I have no financial interest in this project. I’m not bidding for the job. I’m not running the work,” Cinami said. “I could, but if someone wanted to hire me to run the work, I would probably leave WPCA because this is what I do for a living.”

Looking forward, Melluzzo raised concerns that the project was approaching a point where it could no longer be stopped.

“We care about our neighbors, we care about their finances,” Melluzzo said. “When it passes, it’s going to be a financial burden on the majority of our community who are on fixed incomes.”

Proposed development in downtown Naugastuck advances following zoning commission approvals

ANDREAS YILMA

NAUGATUCK – The proposed residential/commercial development at Parcel B downtown is moving closer to fruition after more approvals. The Zoning Commission opened a hearing Wednesday at Town Hall for the special permit application for phase two of a proposed residential and commercial development for the property at 90 Old Firehouse Road.

The commission extended the hearing to Nov. 20 at 6:05 p.m. before giving applicant Pennrose Properties more green lights to move ahead to ultimate development. Those approvals include architectural renderings for phases one and two of the commercial/residential buildings and a revised landscaping plan for phase one with a condition to add a general access path to Blue Star Memorial. The commission also approved to revise a landscaping storm water quality and sediment and erosion bond with a reduction of $25,000 to $209,000.

The commission previously approved the special permit for Phase 1 of the transit-oriented project at the end of 2022.

Pennrose Senior Developer Karmen Cheung said each phases will include 60 units consisting of one or two bedrooms with solar panels on the roofs and retail space in each building. Financing has been approved for the project with work expected to begin in the Spring of 2025.

“We’ve also been coordinating a lot with the Department of Transportation because a part of the whole revitalization and redevelopment effort is to bring transit right next to where we have housing,” Cheung said.

Phase one of the project will be at the corner of Old Firehouse Road and Maple Street while phase two will be placed on the other end by Rubber Avenue. The middle of Parcel B will hold phase three. As DOT expects to be under construction with new train station in the next couple of years, phase three will be the lay down space that will be shared, Cheung added.

Project Manager and WRT architect Sergio Duran said they have placed the retail spaces on the side to trigger connections throughout the downtown.

“We want to make sure that we capture those spaces to activate the engagement with pedestrians, the connection to the site, to the Naugatuck town green and to really activate the connection to the train station as pedestrian areas,” Duran said.

The phase one site plan calls for a few retail spaces with a couple on the Maple Street side and another on the opposite site along with a residential community rooms some gardens and outdoor seating and lawn as well as several plantings of trees, flowers, and shrubs

Landscape architect WRT Paul McGehee said the Blue Star Memorial on the corner of Old Firehouse Road and Maple Street will remain in place with plantings.

“We are conceiving this site to be open and green and flexible to allow for larger community events that happen in Naugatuck’s downtown along the streets,” McGehee said. “So we want to be able to pair this street, with street activity with soft green space.”

Duran said some of the materials for the building will include masonry, fiber cement panels, fiber planks and brick which relate to the materials that are found throughout the borough.

McGehee said the shrubs will grow about eight feet tall and wide in order to provide some screening for residents. The grass will be a no-mow lawn where it will require little maintenance.

The idea is to provide a secondary network of circulation with the primary circulation along Old Firehouse Road. Developers have these paths and walkways that would bring people to the entrance of the building, both front and back, to these retail places and for egress to get out of these community amenities.

“We (Pennrose) are a long term owner/operator of these projects. We build them and we don’t plan to sell them so often times when we start designing, our goal is how do we make sure that the project is something that we can maintain in the long term,” Cheung said. “We have a property management company that’s affiliated with us that will be the property management company here so when we start designing something, we get their feedback from day one.”

Remediation has already begun on the parcel.

Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess said the material that had to be taken off site by the borough for phase one has been taken away.

“Whatever is really bad has been taken off site,” Hess said. “Whatever doesn’t have to go off site will be capped with an asphalt parking lot and the other areas where the grass is will be treated in accordance with all appropriate environmental standards.”