The entrance in March was moved from its Newell location to the Cancer Care Center door, which sits off of Brewster Road. The move was part of a four-phase, $15 million project to the hospital’s EC.

Although the Emergency Center entrance will be moved back to Newell Road by late November, this entrance will serve as another temporary location before it will ultimately be moved again to a 12,500-square-foot addition.

Thomas Roche, director of facilities and construction at the hospital, said a crane should be at the site by Dec. 1 to erect the addition’s steel structure. That process is expected to run through February. With the exception of snowfall, crews should not be affected by the winter months during this phase, Roche said.

The addition is expected to be ready sometime in 2021 in alignment with the hospital’s 100 year anniversary. Following that, the Emergency Center operations will be moved into the addition while crews begin renovations on the current EC space -- which is slated for completion in summer 2022.

Newell Road, which is owned by Bristol Hospital and is currently closed, will likely reopen on Nov. 1, Roche said. Those who previously accessed the Medical Office Building using Goodwin Street should use Newell instead once it reopens.

Last week, the new entrance for ambulances opened at its permanent location. There are currently two bays in use, which will ultimately be expanded to three in use with an extra bay.

The covid-19 pandemic has created some struggles for hospital officials and construction crews, but the project has mostly been able to stay on schedule.

“We were fortunate that we’re outside,” Roche said, adding that interior projects in the state were shut down early on in the pandemic. He also said a second wave of the virus later this season or in the winter, if it were to come, would likely not have much of an impact on the outdoor construction.

“We struggled with staffing early,” he added, as some initially expressed concerns about working during the pandemic.

Materials were also a concern as many suppliers were shut down as well.

Hospital officials said moving all of the utility lines underground during construction was somewhat challenging, as Eversource needed to be involved and had to contend with a major storm over the summer, in addition to struggles with the coronavirus pandemic.

Through it all, Roche said, the nurses of the Emergency Center “have been nothing but the best to work with.” One nurse was even seen physically moving things to help with the projects and “got her hands dirty,” he continued.

Having the nurses involved in the planning of the endeavor was “priceless,” Roche said.

“No matter what an architect thinks, (the nurses) know,” Roche said. “They’re in there.”

Hospital officials said fundraising for the Emergency Center construction project has gone well thus far, with plans for a community campaign kicking into high gear in January.

“We have hit the $4 million mark and hope to raise another $500,000 in the next year,” said Mary Lynn Gagnon, executive director of the Bristol Hospital Development Foundation.

The ball has been cancelled, Gagnon said, “but we will supplement it with a Centennial Celebration auction to go live to the general public” on Nov. 21, “which would have been the same date as the Red Carpet Ball.”

The auction will run for two weeks, and winners will be notified on Dec. 4.

“Auction items will include a diamond necklace, an RV trip experience and approximately 20 baskets or items valued at $100 and higher,” Gagnon said.

“To date, all of our business partners have honored their contracts with the foundation to support special events, even though two of the three have been cancelled due to covid,” she continued. “We are very thankful for those businesses that support us year round and believe in the mission of Bristol Health and the Bristol Hospital Foundation.”

The hospital is planning a community mailing to towns of Plainville, Plymouth, Southington and Burlington in December to build awareness for the project and year-end giving.

“In January we will do an all-out blitz to the Bristol community with letters, social media posts, video messages and more,” Gagnon said. “All in conjunction with the Hospital’s 100th Anniversary. We will be promoting $100 for 100 years of Bristol Hospital in our community through our auction, our letter and our social media campaign.” 

Norwich agency considers buying large Occum tract for second business park

Claire Bessette  Norwich — The Norwich Community Development Corp. is considering purchasing a more than 400-acre site in Occum where a luxury golf and condominium resort had once been proposed, to develop the city's second business park.

The site includes the former Tarryk and DoLittle farms on Canterbury Turnpike and Lawler Lane that run along Interstate 395, and several properties off Route 97. It is considered the largest undeveloped tract in Norwich.

Two New York developers had acquired the land for the proposed luxury golf course and condominium project, owned by Byron Brook Country Club LLC. Additional land was acquired by developers Joseph Manzi and Robert Arnone under the ownership name M&A Holding for proposed commercial development off Route 97.

The NCDC Board of Directors on Sept. 24 voted to authorize signing a purchase and sale agreement with Byron Brook Country Club LLC for an undisclosed amount of the property. The board authorized two one-year options, the first expiring in December 2021 and the second in December 2022 to allow time for the city to investigate whether creating a second business park there is feasible, NCDC Attorney Mark Block said Thursday.

The purchase and sale agreement could be signed by early next week, Block said. The purchase price and the cost of the options was not disclosed.

“We are in the process of determining whether this property is fully developable, as we think it might be,” Block said. “If it is, we would exercise the agreement to purchase. If not, it will not be purchased. We believe it is an opportunity we need to take advantage of, because the city does not have another large tract of land similar to the Norwich business park.”

The country club project was scaled back and then withdrawn in the summer of 2010, with the developers citing the Great Recession that started in 2008 as the reason. The property was put on the market for $13.75 million in 2011.

In 2018, a Portland, Oregon firm secured an option to explore a possible solar array project on 271 acres of former farmland and woodland on the property, but that did not come to fruition.

The NCDC board, the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners and the City Council have discussed the issue in executive session at times since July of 2019, when NPU agreed to spend up to $250,000 to investigate the feasibility of extending utility services to an undisclosed area not fully served in the city.

On Jan. 28, the utilities commissioners added $250,000 to the investigation for a total of $500,000, with plans to update the City Council on the status of the project in the fall.

NPU spokesman Chris Riley said NPU made economic development the utility’s top priority in its strategic plan. He said NPU’s $500,000 investment is helping NCDC: “evaluate a potential opportunity that would create new jobs and tax revenues for the City as well as generate new revenues for NPU,” Riley said.

The City Council on Monday went into executive session to discuss “the acquisition of real estate or interests in real estate when adversely impact the price of the same; to discuss preliminary drafts of proposals concerning the development and use of the property; to discuss engineering or feasibility estimates and evaluations, including perspective public supply.”

Along with city leaders, NPU General Manager Chris LaRose, utilities commission chairman Robert Staley — both also NCDC board members —and NCDC attorney Block attended Monday’s executive session.

Mayor Peter Nystrom said Thursday the feasibility study “speaks to the city pursuing a possible development.” He said he frequently gets calls from prospective developers asking about land in the city available for development, of which there is very little, Nystrom said.

“In order to do that, you don’t just jump in,” Nystrom said. “You have to do the review, determine any costs. NPU decided to take a proactive role in that.”

How infrastructure improvements can aid inclusive revival

Tom Condon  The Brooklyn neighborhood in the south end of Waterbury once was a city within a city, a self-sufficient ethnic enclave, originally with a large Lithuanian population. But like many urban neighborhoods in the state, it was badly wounded by disinvestment and highway construction in the last century. It was left without a single park for neighborhood children.

Soon that will change. Though it is a poor and somewhat shopworn area, it has a very active neighborhood association. That group, led by a woman named Lisa Velez — until she passed away from cancer last year — pushed the city for several years to build a park.

Though it has been delayed by the coronavirus crisis, Brooklyn will get a small park. The city acquired the half-acre site of a former restaurant that had burned down, and completed environmental cleanup earlier this year. Officials are now selecting a designer, and they expect to begin construction in the spring, said Dan Pesce of the Waterbury Development Corporation.

Though it is a small park, it’s a start.

“At least kids won’t have to play basketball in the street,” said Frank Perella, a board member of the Brooklyn Neighborhood Association. 

As many cities try to include struggling neighborhoods in their downtown revivals — known as inclusive growth — the Brooklyn park offers two lessons. The first is that focused, well-led neighborhood activism can improve the built environment. The second, which perhaps should be the first, is that the built environment is important.

Inclusive growth is a multi-faceted challenge, made more so by the coronavirus crisis. The primary thrust must be the people — getting the residents of a distressed area the education and training to take some of the jobs coming to the city. But the physical neighborhood, the place where the people live, also is important. If an area can be made safer, functional and attractive, then residents’ lives will improve and, as Perella said, people with choices might choose to live there and even start businesses.

Renovating older urban neighborhoods is hardly a new idea; the post-World War II era has seen a plethora of programs aimed at urban revival. These have had mixed results; the problems persist. But recent years have brought new approaches in at least three areas: blighted properties, environmental justice and street design.
New tools to eliminate blight
Blighted or abandoned properties are millstones around the necks of neighborhoods. Run-down, litter-strewn, dilapidated structures invite crime and public health problems, depress property values and drain city dollars. Almost no one wants to buy a house next to one that is abandoned.

In the past, dealing with such properties has often been a long and frustrating process for city officials. But two companion pieces of legislation passed last year by Connecticut’s General Assembly should expedite things.

One of the new laws allows towns or groups of towns to create land banks: nonprofit entities that can acquire, hold and dispose of properties. The first such program in the state was created this year in Hartford and is headed by Laura Settlemyer, who formerly directed the city’s blight remediation effort.

Using $5 million in seed money from the state and other grants, the land bank will take foreclosed properties off the city’s hands — or buy properties — and do what it takes to get them into the hands of a responsible owner and back on the tax rolls. The work could be anything from clearing the title and back taxes to a full-scale rehab, depending on the situation.

The other new law concerns blighted properties that are still in private hands. Heretofore, neighbors had to wait for the lengthy foreclosure process and change of ownership before a property was cleaned up. Under the new legislation, interested parties – including neighbors, nonprofits, the city or even the land bank – can petition the Superior Court to appoint a receiver or conservator with the power to eradicate the blight, with ownership issues worked out later. Owners are also given the opportunity to repair their properties.

Neither of the new programs is mandatory; neither expands the powers of eminent domain. But both are tools that have worked in other states to eliminate cancerous blight from city neighborhoods.

Blighted or abandoned properties can be barriers in a neighborhood, places that discourage passage. Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said in an interview earlier this year that restoring a derelict building or building a new structure an empty lot can create a sense of connection to the broader city. That is one of the goals of inclusive revival.

Bridgeport strong
Struggling neighborhoods often face environmental issues as well as housing, transportation and historic preservation challenges. An innovative project in a Bridgeport neighborhood is tackling all of these issues at once.

The Park City’s low-lying South End neighborhood, subject to chronic flooding for years, was badly inundated by storms Irene and Sandy in 2011 and 2012, respectively. After Sandy, the state won two federal grants totaling more than $60 million for a project to better protect the South End from sea level rise and extreme weather, the inevitable results of climate change.

Instead of just building a seawall, the project’s planners went holistic. There will be a flood barrier, artfully tucked into new landscaping, and also a stormwater park to collect and drain excess water; elevated roads for dry access in case of severe flooding; upgraded sewers; a pump station and green infrastructure.

There also will be a “resilience center,” a place for community climate change education and other activities. It will be built as part of the restoration of the historic Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses — part of an early 19th century neighborhood of free Black people called “Little Liberia.”

Officials completed the environmental review last year and worked through the pandemic this year on design and site preparation, with the scheduled goal of completing construction by September 2022, said Shante Hanks, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Housing.

When completed, Resilient Bridgeport will protect 110 buildings, including two substations and a power plant, and will reduce the threat of flooding to the point where a 64-acre area will be removed from the federally-designated flood plain, a state official said earlier this year.

The resilience project is being built in conjunction with the city’s phased demolition and replacement of the decrepit, World War II-era Marina Village public housing project. The new housing will be mixed-income apartments within walking distance of the train station.

So there will be multiple benefits that work together — and that is the takeaway, said Alan J. Plattus, executive director of the Yale Urban Design Workshop, which is part of the design team for Resilient Bridgeport.

“As a principle, every project should have multiple goals,” he said.

Street smart

One area where the “multiple benefits” thinking would apply, Plattus said, was with roads. In the past, when a town wanted to build or repair a road, it would send in the traffic engineers and they’d, well, build a road.

Today, especially in light of the pandemic, many cities are beginning to take a broader view and use road construction projects to look at sidewalks, lighting, burying utilities and, increasingly, the design of the road itself. Poorly designed roads are both unsafe and unsightly; well-designed streets are safer, healthier and more attractive.

The countless thousands of people out walking and biking during the pandemic gave impetus to a growing sense that public rights-of-way should serve all members of the public, not just drivers. This does not come out of the blue. Growing interest in “active transportation” – walking and biking – over the past decade has given rise to the Complete Streets movement , which encourages street design for all users of all ages and abilities: pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users, as well as motorists.

A complete street should at minimum include sidewalks and safe crosswalks, and might also include bike lanes, bus lanes, accessible transit stops, curb extensions, median islands, roundabouts and other features.

Travelers to Vienna, Copenhagen and other European cities, as well as to a few U.S. cities, have seen streets safely shared by cars, trams, bicycles and pedestrians. The concept has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation, three dozen states including Connecticut and about 1,500 municipalities, including a dozen here.

New Haven and Hartford closed roads in parks during the pandemic, as did a few other communities. New Haven, which produced its own Complete Streets manual a decade ago, opened the state’s first protected on-road bike lane along Long Wharf Drive in 2017. But implementation has gone more slowly that many residents would have liked; one called the plan “incomplete” at a meeting last year.

Still, there is movement in New Haven and elsewhere. Hartford added about 100 speed humps in late 2018, doubling the existing number, to calm traffic on city streets.

The state Department of Transportation, for decades the de facto highway department, began to shift more attention to transit and active transportation a decade ago. Among other things, the department has awarded made 80 grants totaling $25 million in its Community Connectivity program to enhance walking and biking in community centers, and committed to closing the gaps in the state’s multi-use trail system.

The DOT formally adopted a Complete Streets policy in 2014 and now requires that complete street principles — accommodations for walkers, bikers and persons with disabilities — be incorporated into each project. Some recent projects include a traffic roundabout in Monroe, guardrails, fencing and sidewalks along Route 17 in Watertown and curb extensions on Main Street in Middletown, reducing the trek across that wide thoroughfare from 97 feet to 50 feet.

Such measures are important because the state, like the rest of the country, has seen an uptick in non-motorist deaths and serious injuries since 2015.

The pandemic was a help for complete street and other infrastructure projects. With car traffic way down some cities across the country striped new bike lanes, retooled traffic signals, suspended transit and bike-share fees, and closed streets to nonessential vehicles to ease social distancing for pedestrians. 

These are steps that complete street advocates have championed to increase safety and cut carbon emissions. Whether the measures will continue after the pandemic remains to be seen.

The post-pandemic period offers perhaps a greater opportunity. When the crisis abates, there will be a lot of people in need of work. A major national infrastructure program is being talked about by both parties in Washington. If properly planned and executed, it could bring new life to downtowns and struggling nearby neighborhoods.

I-84 Exit 40 ramp near Westfarms mall reopens as DOT works on $55 million highway widening

Don Stacom  WEST HARTFORD — The busy I-84 on-ramp near Westfarms mall has reopened to traffic after a months-long shutdown as part of a major reconstruction of the highway through West Hartford.