NL students get a behind-the-scenes look at State Pier wind power work

John Penney

New London ― A group of 10 burgeoning engineers from the city’s high school spent part of their Wednesday morning in an outdoor classroom that featured towering wind turbine components, a massive off-loading barge and the kinds of activity expected at a major manufacturing site.

“It’s the scale,” Masyn Smith, a 17-year-old senior attending the New London High School Multi-Magnet School, said while gazing up at a stack of wind turbine sections at the edge of State Pier. “I had no idea those pillars were this big.”

The students toured the turbine pre-assembly site in the company of several chaperones from the campus’ college career and workforce readiness program, which aids students in exploring post-high-school careers.

“This is a chance for the kids to actually see the work being done right in their backyard,” said course leader member Dale Clark. “There’re students here interested in robotics, computer engineering and mechanical engineering. It’s a chance for us to show students who might not see the value of staying in school why it’s important to at least get a diploma so they can get jobs in these fields.”

Ahead of the tour, the students got an overview of the ongoing work by Ulysses Hammond, interim executive director of the Connecticut Port Authority, which oversees State Pier.

Hammond walked students through the $309 million transformation of the site from a pair of finger piers into a heavy-lift cargo port currently tasked with assembling sections of wind turbines ahead of their delivery to the South Fork Wind project located 35 miles east of Montauk Point.

“We are bringing a new industry to America and it’s happening right here in New London,” Hammond said, rattling off the length of each turbine blade (330 feet), the weight of the nacelle generators (520 metric tons) and the height of the finished towers (more than 800 feet).

As they walked past an onloading ship and a row of stacked blades – the fifth of 12 such sets set to be delivered to the South Fork project – students looked up toward the sets of cranes responsible for shifting the wind components around the pier.

“There’s so much work involved in all this,” said Sergio Garcia, a 17-year-old senior considering a career in mechanical engineering. “It makes me wonder about the math and science behind all this. The magnitude of this – you can’t compare being here to just hearing about it in a class.”

Taking advantage of “backyard’ projects

The State Pier visit was just one of several on-the-job field trips planned by local schools taking advantage of major construction projects in their backyards. New London officials plan to take students to Fort Trumbull where a new $40 million community center is under construction.

“Once the (foundation) slabs are in we hope to get kids out there in the spring,” said Felix Reyes, director of the city’s Office of Planning and Development.

City Councilor Akil Peck said the center project offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for students interested in the building trades.

“It opens up possibilities and shows them that a career in those fields isn’t far-fetched or out of reach,” he said. “We’ve got companies like Electric Boat begging to fill spots and a police department that’s having a hard time hiring. There are opportunities beyond college out there.”

Last month, more than a dozen East Lyme High School students donned hardhats to tour an Interstate 95 blasting site where crews are working on a $148 million highway reconstruction project.

For New London sophomore Galileo Thompson, the State Pier tour offered a new perspective on the kinds of work he’d like to tackle as an aerospace engineer.

“It’s so different than just seeing pictures or hearing someone talk about it,” he said. ‘It’s a great vision of human innovation.”

Grand jury probe into CT’s school construction program continuing

Dave Altimari and Andrew Brown

A federal grand jury’s investigation into how contracts were awarded through the state’s school construction grant program has quietly continued in recent months, with four detailed subpoenas issued this year — two as recently as October.

The subpoenas, as well as two previously undisclosed from 2022, seek phone records, emails and calendar entries of as many as 16 state employees, according to the attorney who reviews Freedom of Information Act requests concerning subpoenas.

All names in the subpoenas are redacted, except for Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis, the former state representative who became the head of the state’s school construction program and a deputy secretary at the Office of Policy and Management. Diamantis retired in late 2021.

Diamantis declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont’s office also declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Novick told attorney Morgan Rueckert, hired by the state to review all subpoenas, that some details should be redacted so as not to “frustrate the federal investigation by alerting the targets of the investigation to a more complete picture of the nature of the probe, the techniques employed, the identities of witnesses, and the evidence developed to date.”

“We identified a very limited amount of information for redaction which, if disclosed, would cause ‘prejudice to a prospective law enforcement action,’” Novick wrote.

The materials sought in the subpoenas suggest that the grand jury has made progress in its investigation. For example, it asked for communications between two unidentified parties for one specific day: May 12, 2020.

The most recent subpoena, issued on Oct. 4, 2023, sought all available records of incoming and outgoing calls to/from the office telephone numbers for four state employees, including Diamantis, from Jan. 1, 2020 through May 31, 2020.

A separate subpoena issued on June 28 seeks all of Diamantis’ emails for that same time period.

That same subpoena also seeks all communications from an unnamed state employee containing the words “Kosta,” “Konstantinos” or “Diamantis.”

Diamantis led the state’s school construction grant program for more than six years, but he retired in October 2021 after Lamont placed him on paid administrative leave in conjunction with an investigation into his daughter’s hiring at the state Division of Criminal Justice.

Diamantis was fired from his other position as deputy commissioner at the Office of Policy and Management the same day.

The state was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury around the same time for records related to Diamantis and several state-financed projects, including school construction grants and the State Pier in New London.

The focus of the initial subpoena was a school project in Tolland in which D’Amato Construction of Bristol was awarded a no-bid contract. 

Tolland school officials said Diamantis pushed them to hire a construction management company that later hired his daughter Anastasia.

Tolland officials hired Construction Advocacy Professionals, or CAP, based in Plainfield, to first oversee installation of portable classrooms at the Birch Grove Primary School on June 20, 2019, according to contracts obtained by The Connecticut Mirror. They were paid $70,000 for the work. 

Then, in July 2019, CAP hired Diamantis’ daughter Anastasia, documents state.

Weeks later, a contract amendment, giving CAP another $460,000 worth of work, was signed on Sept. 18, 2019 for the construction of a new Birch Grove school. The old school needed to be replaced immediately because the foundation was crumbling.

The CT Mirror also published a story in February 2022 that showed Diamantis and another state employee, Michael Sanders, pressured Groton and Bristol to hire two specific contractors to deal with hazardous material at their schools. 

The subpoenas show federal prosecutors asked the state for records related to those two school projects, and several others, a few days later.

Other school projects that the grand jury subpoenaed records for include the Platt Technical High School in Milford, the Bulkeley High School or Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Hartford, New Britain High School and Birch Grove Elementary in Tolland.

Officials in New London also told the CT Mirror that they felt pressured into hiring one of the same contractors, AAIS Corp. of West Haven, to perform work on the city’s new high school project. 

Altogether, at least five municipalities received federal subpoenas requesting documents tied to their school construction projects. 

AAIS Corp. was one of two companies that got nearly all of the hazardous waste removal contracts through a state contract that was run by Michael Sanders, who worked for Diamantis under OSCGR.

The contract was originally supposed to only be for emergency hazardous waste removal jobs at state buildings but was quickly expanded to include municipal school projects.

The CT Mirror also reported that two of the state’s hazmat contractors — AAIS Corp. and Bestech Inc. — netted nearly all of the $29.2 million that was spent from the state hazmat fund between 2017 and 2022. 

AAIS Vice President Glen Mulrenan said his company “was awarded contracts with the state because we provided high quality work at reasonable prices and every review by the state has confirmed that.”

“In fact, since our contract was dropped, the state has paid significantly more for the same services at additional cost to taxpayers. We stand by our bids and our work, and we look forward to continuing our service to the state of Connecticut,” Mulrenan said. 

DAS officials responded to that story by immediately canceling the state contract through which the companies were paid, and the state agency sought to expand the list of contractors who were eligible to perform hazmat cleanup work on state-owned buildings.

Some in Simsbury fear 580-unit complex at The Hartford's former campus may ruin town's character 

Natasha Sokoloff

SIMSBURY — As the proposition of a 580-unit development looms over Simsbury, multiple residents passionately expressed their opposition to its construction, saying that it could destroy the rural character of the town they call home.

Located at the site of The Hartford's former campus on Hopmeadow Street, the development will comprise 580 units, ranging from one-bedroom apartments to four-bedroom houses, an uptick from the 540 units depicted in an earlier proposal.

Citing concerns over overcrowding local schools and damaging the rural character of the town, more than 15 residents spoke out against The Silverman Group's, a New Jersey-based developer, plans for a residential development at a Zoning Commission public hearing Monday night.

"We live here, and purchased our homes here because of the character of Simsbury," one long-time resident said, which resulted in applause from the audience.

As a counterpart to the already developed The Ridge at Talcott Mountain North, the new development would occupy the site of the 645,239-square-foot former office complex, which closed in 2013 and was demolished in 2016 to prepare for redevelopment. Developer representatives emphasized Monday that the design of the project prioritized staying within the already disturbed area occupied by The Hartford and its parking lot infrastructure.

But at 124 acres, the sheer size of the residential community — called The Ridge at Talcott Mountain South — was the source of many residents' opposition, who feared that the construction could mean the beginning of Simsbury's spiral into a more developed town.

"The town is turning out like the town I left," said Simsbury resident Mary Turner.

Another reason that many residents love Simsbury is because of its quality school system, but building more developments will overcrowd these schools, they said.

The number of public school students that will be generated by The Ridge at Talcott Mountain South development and enrolled in the Simsbury Public School District is estimated at between 96 to 115, according to the school impact study conducted for the developer. But multiple community members said at the meeting that they felt that was an extremely conservative number.

Developers projected that the increases in enrollment would not result in increases above the recommended class size. But Latimer Lane School, which is located less than one mile from the development, is already struggling with capacity, residents said.

Additionally, several residents said that the traffic in this area was terrible when The Hartford complex was active, and now that there are additional developments nearby as well as potentially this new one, it will be even worse. The project site abuts Hopmeadow Street (Route 10/Route 202), which serves as the main southern gateway and commercial corridor of Simsbury.

"The commission should be representing not people who want to live here, but people who do already live here," said resident Lori Boyko at the public hearing. "By speaking to literally anyone in this town, you know, that this is unequivocally not what any of us want."

But resident Pete Harrison, who is the director of Desegregate Connecticut, also spoke at the public hearing, saying that the need for affordable housing should take precedent.

The Ridge at Talcott Mountain South will set aside 10 percent, or 58, of the dwelling units across all building types as “affordable” units in a manner consistent with the requirements contained in Connecticut General Statutes 8-30g, according to the application.

Simsbury's affordable housing stock is currently at 5.1 percent, according to a recent statewide report.

However, Harrison did also note that the town should be doing more to create not only rental homes, but homes to buy, an idea that many other residents at the meeting agreed with.

“I would strongly recommend this admission push for some homeownership options,” he said. “We do not have enough homes in Simsbury.”

The one-bedroom apartments will be priced at around $1,600 per month, and the two-bedroom apartments at $2,100 per month, said Holden Sabato, development director of The Silverman Group, at the meeting. The duplex units are priced at $3,500 a month, and the single-family houses are estimated at just over $5,000 in monthly rent.

In addition to the residential units, a 5,500-square-foot community building, including a playground, gym, game room, and other amenities, is proposed to be centrally located among the cluster of apartment buildings.

The project site is also surrounded by protected wetlands that abut the Farmington River, and development plans also include a multi-use trail system along the site’s frontage that would link the newly extended Farmington River Trail to the north and continue toward the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail Rail Trail (off site) to the west.

The Zoning Commission voted Monday to continue the public hearing to its Jan. 3 meeting.

Full build-out of The Ridge at Talcott Mountain South is estimated to be completed some time between the middle of 2026 and the start of 2027, according to the project application documents.

Whole Foods to anchor new Cheshire mixed-use complex, developer says

Luther Turmelle

The developer of the 300-unit apartment complex currently under construction in Cheshire's Stone Bridge Crossing mixed use development is telling prospective tenants that the retail anchor of the project is a Whole Foods Market grocery store.0:00

Fairfield-based Eastpointe LLC is building an apartment complex that will be know as Riverpointe and has created a web page to market the 10-building complex. The page refers to the Stone Bridge Crossing retail component describing it as "adjacent to a Whole Foods-anchored retail center."

The grocery store anchor has been the subject of wide speculation for more than a year. Officials with Texas-based Whole Foods were unavailable for comment.

Dan Zelson, a founding principal of Faifield-Couinty-based Charter Realty, which is overseeing the procurement of retail tenants for the complex, said the company is not identifying the anchor grocery store.

"Hopefully, we'll have some good news to announce early next year," Zelson said.

Despite the website announcement, an Eastpointe executive said identity of the new grocery store was not yet official and declined to say whether it was indeed Whole Foods moving in.

Stone Bridge Crossing is being developed near the intersection of Interstates 84 and 691 in Cheshire. The main entrance to the development is off Route 10, near the town's border with Southington.

In addition to a grocery store, restaurants and other retail tenants, Stone Bridge Crossing will also include an extended stay hotel and a Mobil gas station with a convenience store. And in addition to the apartment complex, a Southbury developer - EG Home - is developing high-end townhouses and carriage homes in the northwest corner of the project on Dickerman Road near the intersection of Route 322 and Clark Street in Southington

Construction of EG Home's townhouses was started in 2022.

The flurry of construction activity since then came after decades of stops and starts in development efforts for the sprawling vacant property. Whole Foods has a distribution center on East Johnson Avenue in Cheshire, near the town's border with Meriden.

Whole Foods continues to develop new Connecticut stores at a brisk pace. A new store will open in mid-January in South Windsor at The Promenade Shops at Evergreen Walk lifestyle center, making it the chain's 11th store in Connecticut.

And Whole Foods, which is owned by ecommerce giant Amazon, is also looking to open a store on the Boston Post Road in Old Saybrook.

New Southington library gets a new look after additional funding

Jesse Buchanan

SOUTHINGTON — Town leaders are close to approving expansion plans for the library following a redesign made possible with state money.

Jim Morelli, a town councilor and library building committee chairman, said his group approved a new look for the library and is settling on colors for some of the exterior materials.

He’s pleased with the changes.

“It’s hard to look at a drawing with some colors on a page and visualize what it’s going to look like,” Morelli said. “I think that people are generally pleased that they made the modifications, (although) I think there’s still some confusion about what it’s going to actually look like.”

New look

A state grant approved this fall provided $5 million more to the $17 million library project, which allowed an increase to the square footage as well as design improvements and other upgrades. Additional money will also allow an upgrade to the exterior aesthetics of the proposed library, which had been criticized by some town officials and residents.

Among those critics was Robert Hammersley, Planning and Zoning Commission chairman, who said the original library design looked like a factory. The commission approved the initial plans for the library, saying the design wasn’t in the purview of the commission and that the plan otherwise met regulations.

Hammersley was impressed with the new aesthetic.

“I think the building committee has done a fantastic job with this thing,” he said, Monday. “They’ve incorporated enhancements and a redesign that reflect (the town’s concerns).”

“I think they should get a lot of credit for being responsive in that manner,” Hammersley said.

More space

State money also funded an expansion of the building. A change to the original plan goes back to the Planning and Zoning Commission for approval on Tuesday.

Town leaders had initially pitched the idea of a 30,000-square-foot library to voters prior to last year’s $17 million referendum. When costs of such a building came in high, the plan was reduced to about 24,000 square feet. The addition of $5 million allows the construction of a library closer to the initial size.

“It’s pretty close to what we’d originally planned,” Morelli said.

He’s hoping for approval on Tuesday so that construction on footings for the new space can begin before the cold weather sets in.

“The sooner we get the approval, the sooner we can get the footings,” Morelli said. “We’ve been very fortunate with mild weather … We’ve got to get in the ground before it’s too late.”

Town officials hope to open the new library in the fall of next year. 

Hammersley said approval would hinge on whether the amended plans met town regulations, particularly in regards to parking.

“I think the outcome will be a positive one,” he said, Monday. “If they meet the regulations with regards to the amount of parking they’re providing, we’re obligated to vote in favor of that.”

DOL rule would promote apprenticeships, tighten program labor standards

Kathryn Moody

The U.S. Department of Labor proposed a rule Dec. 14 that seeks to modernize the registered apprenticeship program. The rule intends to strengthen labor standards and worker protections as well as better promote apprenticeship pathways, among other things.

The rule also includes a program called the “registered career and technical education apprenticeship” that is designed to make it “more seamless” for full-time high school and community college students to enroll in the apprenticeship system.

“Equity and job quality have marked the most successful Registered Apprenticeship programs for workers and employers alike. This proposed rule codifies the Department of Labor’s strong commitment to these principles,” Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a statement. “Importantly, the proposed changes will also provide strong worker protections, improved employer experiences and greater clarity about the roles of federal and state governments and their partners in the National Apprenticeship System.”

Apprenticeships have received much attention of late as a way to funnel badly needed talent into key industries.

The Biden administration has pointedly proposed investments in sectoral training and apprenticeship as part of its wider jobs platform; part of the fiscal year 2024 budget proposal from President Joe Biden included $335 million for the RA program to build pathways to in-need industries, such as construction, clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing.

The Senate has also proposed bills aimed at modernizing RAs, focusing on expanding the programs to similar industries as well as improving “wrap-around” services, such as childcare and eldercare.

But apprenticeships still remain outside the mainstream in the U.S. market, a Multiverse and Burning Glass Institute report said, despite the high potential that could be unlocked through investment in such programs. If the U.S. followed the U.K.’s “mature apprenticeship” system, over 830,000 new apprenticeship opportunities could launch each year, leading to $28.5 billion in wage increases, the report said.

Biden mandates PLAs on large federal contracts

Zachary Phillips

The Biden administration announced on Monday a final rule implementing an executive order that will require project labor agreements on federal construction projects costing $35 million or more. It will likely result in PLAs being required on a majority of large federal jobs.

President Joe Biden first enacted the rule change in February 2022, but it will not go into effect until 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register on Friday, due to formal rule change processes by the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council. The executive order’s implementation replaces an Obama-era rule that encouraged PLAs on federal jobs, but did not mandate the practice.

As a result, the White House estimated as many as 200,000 workers on federal construction jobs could see boosted “wages, benefits and safety protections regardless of union membership.” 

Part of the goal of the executive order, according to the White House fact sheet, is to increase efficiency by having all stakeholders — contractors, subcontractors, unions or other labor groups — negotiate the terms of each project ahead of time.

The White House claims the PLAs will improve projects by:

Eliminating project delays from labor unrest, such as strikes.

Creating dispute resolution procedures and cooperation for labor-management disputes, such as those over safety.

Including provisions “to support workers from underserved communities and small businesses.”

Helping to create a steady pipeline of workers for federal projects.

Promoting competition on government contracts so that all builders, even those who are non-union, can bid on jobs that require a PLA.

Although labor groups champion PLAs, saying they better protect workers, many builders and employer groups claim they disadvantage contractors that don’t often work with unions.

But experts told Construction Dive when Biden first signed the executive order that all subcontractors and contractors will still be able to compete for work, regardless of their experience with collective bargaining.

“This executive order is not requiring you to be a union contractor, it’s requiring you basically on a one-off basis to agree to a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement,” James Terry, partner at New York City construction law firm Zetlin & De Chiara, said at the time. 

Construction groups’ reaction

On Monday, Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, praised the implementation.

“With this latest action to strengthen economic security, labor-management relations and family-sustaining job opportunities, President Biden is yet again demonstrating his rock-solid commitment to American taxpayers and all workers — union and non-union — across the country,” McGarvey said.

Employer trade groups pushed back against the mandate.

Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs for Associated Builders and Contractors, decried the rule in a statement released Monday, calling it “burdensome, inflationary and anti-competitive,” and claiming it would raise costs on projects and steer contracts toward unionized contractors and workers. He said ABC plans to challenge the rule in court.

“Absent a successful legal challenge, this executive overreach will reward powerful special interests with government construction contracts at the expense of taxpayers and the principles of free enterprise and fair and open competition in government procurement,” Brubeck said.