CT Construction Digest Thursday July 8, 2021
HARTFORD — The Hartford area is close to securing $16 million from the federal government that would boost — and potentially accelerate — the development of a comprehensive plan for solving the area’s transportation woes, possibly burying highways and reconnecting Hartford with its riverfront.
The plan is expected to examine options for the aging I-84 viaduct and I-91 interchange in Hartford — both notorious for congestion — and the jumble of on- and off-ramps along the Connecticut River in East Hartford. East Hartford officials has long argued the land, nearly the size of downtown Hartford, could be better used for economic development.
The plan, however, also is expected to place emphasis on alternative modes of transportation such as bus, rail and bicycle — and how they could work together with the highway system. The plan would tackle the thorny but crucial issues of emissions and climate change, and how to encourage more pedestrian access.
On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st, held a news conference highlighting the $16 million on Hartford’s Mortensen Riverfront Plaza. With the Connecticut River as the backdrop, traffic roared by on I-91 below the plaza, the noise so loud at points that it nearly drown out speakers.
Larson said the $16 million has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives as part of the $715 billion INVEST in America Act, a five-year plan to upgrade the surface transportation. Larson said he expects the $16 million win passage in the U.S. Senate.
“This isn’t going to be a study that sits on the shelf and collects dust,” Larson said. “We are going to get this done.”
The $16 million would give a significant boost to the “Greater Hartford Mobility Study,” formally launched earlier this year. The study is expected to come up with a regional transportation plan possibly by the end of 2022.
It isn’t yet known how much it would cost to rebuild the area’s transportation system. Two years ago, replacing the I-84 viaduct with a lowered highway alone was pegged at $5 billion or more.
A timetable for construction also is uncertain. One early estimate placed the start of construction in late 2020. But a comprehensive plan could allow the state to seek funding for individual pieces, knowing how they will eventually fit with the larger vision that has been mapped out.
Larson has long pushed the idea of burying or capping I-91 as it runs along the riverfront in Hartford to reconnect it with the city. He also supported a similar idea for the I-84 viaduct as an option for stitching back together Hartford neighborhood torn apart by highway construction in the late 1960s and 1970s.
In 2019, the state Department of Transportation was close to recommending lowering the viaduct to reconnect neighborhoods, after six years of study. But Larson argued that the future of the viaduct should be part of a larger comprehensive plan for the Hartford area, and he won the support of the state transportation department.
Elements of Larson’s vision and iQuilt’s “Hartford 400″ study could become part of the final plan.
“We have the opportunity to reshape how people move, where and why,” Joseph Giuletti, the state’s transportation commissioner, said at Wednesday’s news conference. “For this generation and the next, connectivity will be key. It’s what every one of the millennials and the younger people coming up today look for as places where you can live and work.”
The $16 million could also help fund preliminary designs, but not the actual construction. The study would become a blueprint to seek federal funding, possibly from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package sought by President Joe Biden.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, at the news conference, pointed out that Biden’s infrastructure package included a “specific focus” on reconnecting communities that were cut in half by highway projects.
“That’s true in Hartford,” Bronin said. “And this project helps heal that wound.”
AGC to Biden administration: Stop 'paying people not to work'
Several key factors are slowing commercial construction in the U.S. and one of the industry's largest trade groups is looking to Washington, D.C., for solutions.
Nonresidential construction activity dropped in May as firms struggled with supply chain disruptions, rising materials prices and labor shortages, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. Officials with the association called on President Joe Biden's administration last week to remove tariffs on key construction materials, allow unemployment supplements that are keeping people out of the workforce to expire and take steps to address supply chain backups.
"Many construction firms would likely be even busier if only they could find materials for their projects and workers for their teams," said Stephen E. Sandherr, the association's chief executive officer in a statement. "Ending a program that is basically paying people not to work will help, especially if the administration also removes tariffs that are driving prices up on key construction materials."
Dozens of states have already cut off weekly $300 federal pandemic unemployment benefits in the hopes that their unemployed residents will head back to work. AGC officials noted that firms in states that have ended the unemployment supplements have experienced an increase in the number of workers looking for employment. They added that firms in other parts of the country are still struggling to find qualified workers to hire. The federal benefit is scheduled to expire on September 6.
Nevertheless, in two states that have pulled back on benefits — Maryland and Indiana — judges have recently issued rulings requiring them to continue paying pandemic unemployment aid, according to CNET. Jobless residents in Texas have also filed a lawsuit seeking to bring back the aid that was cut off on June 26, though no decision has been made, CNET reported.
President Joe Biden indicated last month that he supports allowing the enhanced unemployment benefits to expire in early September, Business Insider reported.
"A temporary boost in unemployment benefits that we enacted helped people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and who still may be in the process of getting vaccinated," he said. "But it's going to expire in 90 days — it makes sense it expires in 90 days."
In addition to labor challenges, supply chain backups and rising materials prices are also hurting the industry. Nonresidential construction input prices increased nearly 24% in May compared to the previous year, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In addition, the prices of petroleum, natural gas and lumber all skyrocketed over the past year.
The elevated prices will not decrease anytime soon, ABC chief economist Anirban Basu told Construction Dive. "While global supply chains should become more orderly over time as the pandemic fades into memory, global demand for inputs will be overwhelming as the global economy comes back to life."
In response, the AGC released the third edition of its Construction Inflation Alert to inform project owners and government officials about the threat to project completion dates and contractors' financial health.
"Being able to find workers is important, but contractors also need materials delivered on time and at a reasonable cost, to be successful," Sandherr said.
While residential construction has seen gains since last year, nonresidential construction spending has lagged, according to an AGC analysis of federal construction spending data. Among the other large private nonresidential project types, commercial construction—comprising retail, warehouse and farm structures — retreated 2.6% year-over-year and 0.7% for the month. Manufacturing construction fell 3.2% from a year earlier and 2.7% from April. Office construction decreased 8.3% year-over-year but remained flat from April.
Public construction spending plunged 8.7% year-over-year and 0.2% for the month. Among the largest segments, highway and street construction declined 4.3% from a year earlier, although spending rose 1.4% for the month. Public educational construction decreased 14.2% year-over-year and 1.9% in May. Spending on transportation facilities fell 10.4% over 12 months and 1.9% in May.
Details emerge of new 43-year deal for Tweed-New Haven Airport
The runway lengthens, a new terminal and garage get built, and the name “New Haven” remains under newly released terms of a proposed 43-year lease between the city and Tweed’s airport authority.
The deal includes lifting of a weight limit on local aircraft — and the teeing up of a long-term sub-lease with a deep-pocketed private investor.
Those terms, and many more, were revealed Tuesday in a new proposed amended and restated lease and operating agreement between the city and the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority and a proposed ordinance amendment.
City officials submitted the proposed lease extension to the Board of Alders at Tuesday night’s monthly meeting.
They also submitted a related proposed ordinance amendment that would repeal a city law that prohibits airplanes that weigh more than 160,000 pounds from using Tweed.
Both proposals now advance to an aldermanic committee for a public hearing before returning to the full board for a final vote, likely in the early fall.
The proposal lease renewal and aircraft weight-limit repeal come two months to the day after local, state and federal officials held a celebratory press conference at the East Shore airport to announce that Tweed’s current private management company, the Goldman Sachs-owned Avports, has promised to invest $70 million to upgrade and expand the current airport —and to bring in new airlines along the way.
The proposed 43-year lease extension between the city and the airport authority is an intermediate, necessary step before the airport authority can finalize a separate long-term sub-lease with Avports.
City Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli described in a cover letter addressed to the Board of Alders on this matter “our shared goals for economic growth in a manner that is responsible to the surrounding community and the environment. The above-referenced communication represents a significant step towards implementation of these goals in light of the recent progress on an update to theAirport Master Plan together with new air service development and a proposed public/private partnership with the Airport’s management contractor.”
Morris Cove neighbors critical of the Tweed expansion, meanwhile, have formed a new group called 10,000 Hawks, and have promised to watch with a close eye every step of airport’s major new moves.
Click here, here, here, and here to read in full the new lease and related documents submitted by the city.
Longer Runway; “New Haven”
The 29-page proposed lease agreement between the city and the airport authority, as well as the half-dozen supporting documents submitted by the city to the Board of Alders, flesh out many of the details already brought up by city, state, federal and airport officials over the past two months.
Some of the key provisions of the new lease include:
The extension of the airport authority’s $1-per-year lease of the city-owned airport land through June 30, 2064.
The extension of the airport’s main runway from 5,600 feet to 6,635 feet long.
The construction of a new four-to-six-gate passenger terminal and a new parking garage on the East Haven side of the airport property.
“New Haven” will remain in the airport name, with any future airport naming rights requiring city approval.
The phasing out of the city’s annual operating subsidy of Tweed. This fiscal year will see the operating subsidy stay at $325,000. Next year, it will drop to $162,500. The year after that, and going forward, the city will not pay any operating subsidy to the airport authority.
The signing of a new sub-lease between the airport authority and Avports, which has managed the airport since 1998.
The new sub-lease would allow Avports to not only operate and manage the airport, but also to “implement the updated Master Plan through a combination of on-airport revenue, new private equity and federal grants,” per Piscitelli’s cover letter.
That is, Avports will be responsible for finding the financing for and building the new terminal, garage, and longer runway—and will be able to take home the additional profits that result from that expansion.
What About Avports?
While this proposed lease agreement is between the city and the airport authority, it nevertheless does include a wealth of details about what Avports plans to do based on its separate sub-lease with the authority.
Many of those promises are laid out in the proposed lease’s Exhibit D, dubbed “Performance Standards.”
Some of those planned Avports-led improvements include:
The renovation of the current passenger terminal on the New Haven side of the airport property to accommodate new air service. Avelo Airlines has already announced that it plans to set up in New Haven as its new East Coast base, where it plans to station three 737 aircraft by the end of 2021 and hire over 100 crewmembers.
The investment of $1.5 million in traffic calming and wayfinding in areas around the airport.
The investment of $1.5 million for “noise attenuation” in the surrounding neighborhood, and an additional $250,000 to address specific concerns about noise related to general aviation traffic.
The creation of a new stormwater management plan for the airport and surrounding neighborhood.
The operation, maintenance, and upgrading of the Morris Creek tide gates.
The employment of carbon neutral and LEED principles in the design of the East Haven terminal.
The creation of an Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee consisting of three New Haven residents, two East Haven residents and staffed by the city’s engineering department.
The development of a permanent job pipeline in partnership with New Haven Works.
“Avports, on behalf of the Authority, will manage and operate the airfield facilities (runways, taxiways),” the FAQ reads. “Avports will lease the landside facilities (terminal, roadways and parking) from the Authority, and will then enter into arrangements with airlines, rental car companies, concessionaires, etc., to use the terminal facilities. Avports will have the right to collect the revenue from the Airport operations, will pay its operating and capital expenses, and will pay rent to the Authority as well as a share of revenues above certain thresholds.”
Avports will also be responsible for securing funding for the runway extension, the existing terminal renovations, the new eastside terminal, and other improvements, the FAQ states.
Biden seeks to strengthen options for workers with new order
JOSH BOAK, Associated Press
President Joe Biden plans to sign an executive order that will reduce the ability of employers to prevent workers from going to rival firms and remove some of the state occupational licensing requirements that make it harder to land a job.
The order is designed to improve workers' opportunities in the economy, increase their chances of employment and generate more competition among U.S. employers, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday.
“This affects construction workers, hotel workers, many blue collar jobs, not just high level executives,” Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that Biden “believes that if someone offers you a better job, you should be able to take it.”
The order would be a key test as to whether empowering workers will lead to pay hikes and smooth the way for them to move to parts of the country where their skills are most in demand. It also enables Biden to show in the 2022 congressional elections how Democratic policies are focused on workers, a key argument as Republicans have increasingly tried to frame their party as backing the working class.
The forthcoming order will direct the Federal Trade Commission to restrict and potentially bar so-called noncompete agreements, which have stopped workers in industries including fast food and Big Tech from going to other employers for higher pay. A 2019 analysis by the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimated that 36 million to 60 million workers could be subject to noncompete agreements.
The order also seeks to ban “unnecessary" occupational licensing that can hurt the earning power of military spouses, skilled immigrants and former prisoners. The requirements can limit the ability of teachers or hair stylists to move across state lines, while also making some spend money at for-profit schools to affirm skills they already have. Roughly 30% of U.S. jobs require a license, according to a 2018 FTC report.
This effort builds on work begun in 2015 by the Obama administration to get states to reduce the burdens from their licensing requirements.
The order will also toughen guidance to the FTC and the Justice Department to prevent employers from sharing wage and benefits data with each other so they can suppress worker incomes. The New York Times first reported Wednesday all the worker-focused elements of the order.
It was unclear when the order would be signed.
West Haven rejects Route 1 housing proposal; hoping for something 'that's a better fit'
WEST HAVEN — A plan to add housing to Route 1 has been rejected, with officials deciding that a major commercial district in the city should remain exclusive to businesses.
The Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously against establishing an overlay that would enable a developer to create 150 apartments at the current site of Universal Hotel Liquidators, with commissioners arguing that doing so would directly conflict with the city’s adopted Plan of Conservation and Development.
An overlay would allow the developer flexibility in site design when it conflicts with the established zoning regulations for that area of the city. The site, 855 Boston Post Road, is in an area of the city zoned exclusively for business and not housing.
“West Haven doesn’t have a big commercial corridor, and to sell it out would defeat the purpose,” said commission Chairwoman Kathy Hendricks.
Landscape architect, site planner and Codespoti and Associates President Jeffrey Gordon represented site owner Orange Avenue LLC before the commission to request an overlay to the Regional Business District where the site resides, to develop a project under the rules of an Incentive Housing Zone. The ultimate goal for the site, he said, is to develop 150 apartments, 20,000 square feet of retail space and 100,000 square feet of self-storage space.
Gordon argued that adding housing density to the Boston Post Road would be to the economic benefit of the city.
“Apartment demographics are driving young people to New Haven and Milford,” he said. “West Haven needs to compete with the business draw of New Haven and Milford.”
The Boston Post Road, he said, “is not as economically successful as it once was years ago,” so adding housing diversity would bring about more opportunities to attract business by creating a demand.
Gordon said the project, as planned, would create an estimated $1.1 million in annual tax revenue for the city.
But the proposed change was met with criticism and skepticism from roughly a dozen neighbors, who urged the commission not to allow housing at the site. Several said they felt it was absurd to add housing to a section of the city reserved for business.
“You don’t see housing on the strip of Route 1 in Milford,” said Katherine Tucker.
Robbin Watt Hamilton, city councilwoman for the 5th District, said she supports the development of housing — but not “just sitting in the middle of our community.” How would the development “link” to the surrounding neighborhood, she wondered.
“I don’t want to be an experiment just because it’s Allingtown,” she said.
Resident Sandra Burns said she feels like development often is proposed for the city’s Allingtown section that would not be to the benefit of the longtime residents of that district.
“We need something viable. This is not viable. Having storage units over there? For what? For whom?” she said. “If you can’t come up with a viable plan, leave us alone.”
The community opposition was not unanimous: Ken Carney, chairman of the city’s Building Oversight Committee, wrote in a letter submitted to the commission that the proposed development is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for West Haven.”
Gordon defended the plan before the commission, saying apartments always are unpopular propositions with community members until they become useful after being built. He said the building could not reasonably contain a development like a supermarket that some community members expressed a desire to see.
He responded to a question from Commissioner Gene Sullivan by agreeing that the apartments — 64 studios, 52 one-bedrooms and 34 two-bedrooms — would be ideal for local hospital workers who need temporary lodging throughout the week, as well as a college-age population.
Gregory Milano, an alternate member of the commission, said he did not understand how the application for an Incentive Housing Zone would benefit the application other than to add housing density. Hendricks said that, because 13 percent of the city’s housing is affordable — three points ahead of the 10 percent requirement — affordable housing is “not a carrot” that can be dangled before the commission.
Milano said the city has other areas of the city already approved for mixed-use development, and the developers’ presentation did not adequately explain why adding housing to a business district would fit within the city’s development plan.
Commission Vice Chairman John Biancur challenged the assertion that apartments are bringing in young renters with disposable income in New Haven and Milford, as the housing developments in those municipalities is being done in walkable downtown areas.
“You’re talking about taking our prime commercial spot,” said Hendricks, noting that it’s the deepest lot on the road. Further, she said, the city’s development plan calls for placing storefronts toward the front of the lot with parking in the back — something the plan presented to the commission did not reflect. Gordon said the developer would create an appealing plaza area for the city.
When the commission deliberated, commissioners said they were happy to see interest in the property, but they were willing to hold out for something more appropriate.
“Some opportunities come that may not come back,” said Commissioner Steven R. Mullins. “I feel like an opportunity will come to this location that’s a better fit.”
Hendricks mourned several opportunities that she believes passed the city by — such as the popular Ferraro’s meat market relocating from its longtime location in New Haven to North Haven — and said she hopes city officials can find an exciting opportunity for the parcel.
“It simply is against our regulations,” said Biancur, adding that he hopes the developer would return with a more appropriate proposal for the location after hearing the commission’s feedback.
Following the vote, Burns said she believes Allingtown residents constantly are fighting to keep development out of their neighborhood.
“West Haven itself has never treated us like a meaningful part of this town,” she said. “We’re going to pray and believe something great is going to come.”