New Britain housing redevelopment wins zoning approval for 850 KW solar array

Skyler Frazer

The 154-unit affordable housing conversion of a former factory building in New Britain got a boost from the city last week with municipal officials unanimously supporting a zoning change to allow a solar energy array on the property.

New Britain’s Common Council last week voted to allow developers to construct a solar facility at 321 Ellis St., on the same lot where an affordable housing redevelopment is currently underway of the former Landers, Frary & Clark factory, which is more than 115 years old.

Developers from WinnCompanies and WinnDevelopment, the Massachusetts-based developer and housing management firm doing the housing redevelopment project, had been planning to construct the solar farm but previously approved master plans for the site dating back to 2015 reserved the land for a 20-story residential tower. The planned tower, which is separate from the affordable housing project, was removed from plans in 2019 because of the “economic feasibility of the project,” according to town officials.

With the approved zoning change earlier this month, developers can go forward with the solar farm. The array will provide 850 KW to the Eversource grid, WinnCompanies officials said, which is expected to cover the energy footprint of the redeveloped residential building and its amenities. That energy savings will be passed along to residents of the building through cheaper bills, the developer said.

The factory building at 321 Ellis St. was added to the state’s historic registry in 2022, and was previously used to manufacture electric appliances until 1965. Much of the property has sat vacant since then.

The housing redevelopment will include 79 one-bedroom units, 59 two-bedroom apartments and 16 three-bedroom units geared toward young professionals, middle-income households and fixed-income seniors earning 30%, 50%, 60% and 80% of the area median income. The property will also have fitness, community and game rooms, flex workspaces and outdoor seating areas, developers said earlier this year.

With $2M brownfields grant and new ownership, former Stanadyne campus in Windsor looks for new life

Hanna Snyder Gambini

The town of Windsor has been awarded more than $2 million for environmental and remediation work at former industrial sites that will become a new riverfront business park, town officials said.

A $2 million brownfields grant was awarded June 14 by the state Department of Economic and Community Development for remediation work at the former Stanadyne plant at 90-92 Deerfield Road.

Another $200,000 was awarded to conduct an environmental assessment study of a neighboring property, which will collectively become part of a new Connecticut River Business Park.

Ohio-based IRG Industrial Realty Group LLC bought the fully vacant property in late 2023 for $250,000. It covers 52 acres and contains three empty buildings. The campus now has 740,000 square feet of flex space that will soon be leased to multiple tenants.

Buildings range from 500,000 square feet down to 90,000 square feet, and the spaces are “flexible” in their use, said Windsor Economic Development Director Patrick McMahon, who said IRG has made “significant upgrades” to all three buildings in order to try to bring new businesses to Windsor.

Ideal uses include manufacturing, distribution, assembly, storage, office or laboratory. 

Commercial real estate firm JLL is the leasing broker. 

One building is available now for lease, and more space will come online when site work is completed, McMahon said. The remediation work will follow IRG’s previous work on the campus, including exterior cleanup and security improvements, along with interior work, which will include wall demolition and new lighting and painting. 

IRG bought the property in a bankruptcy sale, and plans to invest at least $5 million into building improvements and upgrades, said IRG Senior Vice President Peter Goffstein.

Windsor was among several municipalities to receive a remediation grant, which according to the DECD, “will enable the adaptive reuse of the property to a business park that will provide new manufacturing, research and development, warehousing/distribution, and offices to meet local market demand.”

IRG has also purchased properties in Torrington, New Britain, Meriden and East Hartford, including the former Pratt & Whitney aircraft manufacturing facility in Southington.

Stanadyne is a gas and diesel fuel injection systems manufacturer that was founded in 1876 as Hartford Machine Screw Co., and renamed Standard Screw Co. in 1900. In 2009, Stanadyne announced plans to close its Deerfield Road manufacturing plant and relocate 250 employees to North Carolina.

Developers Pitch 444-Apartment Project in Milford as Alternative to Affordable Housing

Nick Sambides Jr

MILFORD  – A 40-year-old office complex near Route 15 may get a big infusion of rental apartments under a plan pitched as an alternative to the state’s affordable housing law, 8-30g.

Wheelers Farm Partners and Greenview Equities have asked the city to change the zoning of a five-building, 47-acre complex at 470-488 Wheelers Farm Road to allow the addition of 444 apartments and some commercial or retail uses, according to their 85-page proposal.

The hook for both sides might be a first in Milford: a compromise on 8-30g, said attorney Timothy Hollister, who represents the developers.

Under the state’s affordable housing law, the developers would have to set aside 30 percent of the apartments for renters whose households earn 80 percent of the State Median Income or or 60 percent of the Area Median Income, whichever is less.

Under the developers’ proposal, both sides would do it differently. The city would allow only 10 percent of the dwellings, not 30 percent, to be available to renters whose households earn 80 percent of the area’s median income, and the developers would agree to follow the typical review process for any application, Hollister said.

“The town is retaining control of the regulatory process. The city stays in control,” Hollister said. “It is a good deal for the city.”

The proposed multi-use apartment and retail/commercial complex near Route 15 in Milford covers about 47 acres. (Illustration courtesy Avery Capital)

The Planning and Zoning Board will start its review of the proposal within 60 days, City Planner David Sulkis said. He declined to comment further.

In their proposal, the developers claimed the project might not be viable if its affordable-housing component is increased. Instead, they proposed to build 29 three-bedroom, 237 two-bedroom, 163 one-bedroom and 15 one bedroom and den apartments. About 294 apartments will be rented at market rate in six new buildings to be built; the rest, about 150 apartments, will be part of a five-story residential building that will be reserved for “active adult” tenants, the developers said.

The developers warned that under 8-30g, the alternative, “many more units will be necessary if an affordable component is required; and higher density will require more parking, most likely in garages; more impervious coverage; and less green/open amenity space.”

The developers purchased the property in foreclosure in Dec. 2021, and now say they haven’t been able to fill the office complex to capacity.

“The property’s current function as a multi-building office complex is no longer economically viable; demand for office space is low, and the office buildings on site are collectively utilized today at less than 35 percent occupancy,” according to their proposal. “The property provides a great opportunity to create a mixed-use community because of its large size, accessible location, and existing utility infrastructure.”

They also promised that at least 30 percent of the property would be landscaped as open or recreational space or left in its natural state.

Two of the office buildings will be renovated and designed to accommodate small and large businesses with common area shared uses, including possibly co-working and communal meeting spaces, a café, restaurant, and fitness facility, according to the proposal.

Several other office buildings will be replaced with a five-story residential building accommodating 150 units connected to the parking garage. Six more buildings will be built for the other 294 apartments.

If the board approves the change in zoning, the developers said they plan to provide final site plans within a year of the approval.

No board review date has been set.

CT diesel tax to jump 3 cents after yearlong freeze

Keith M. Phaneuf

Connecticut’s trucking industry will face a small tax hike next month when the state tax on diesel fuel rises slightly more than 3 cents per gallon.

Truckers dodged a much larger increase over the past year when legislators and Gov. Ned Lamont froze the tax, blocking a projected hike of nearly 12 cents per gallon.

Still, the latest increase, coupled with a new highway mileage tax that began last year and a nine-cent diesel hike in 2022, has truckers and others calling for reforms.

“Thankfully, it’s only going up a little bit,” said Department of Revenue Services Commissioner Mark Boughton, who recently notified the legislature the per-gallon tax on diesel fuel would climb 3.2 cents on July 1, from 49.2 cents to 52.4 cents. That’s a 6.5% increase.

Boughton noted the diesel tax has been adjusted annually each summer since 2007 based on a statutory formula that relies heavily on wholesale diesel prices from the prior 12 months. The formula has generated several tax cuts over the past 17 years, he added.

But the president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, John Blair, said the new tax hike is the latest in a series of financial burdens recently placed on his group, which represents more than 500 trucking and trucking-related businesses.

Though the diesel rate was frozen last July, it had risen 9 cents per gallon in July 2022.

Truckers also were frustrated in January 2023 when the state launched a new highway mileage tax on many large commercial trucks, excluding those transporting dairy products.

The diesel tax and highway mileage fee each represent a relatively modest share of the state budget’s Special Transportation Fund, which covers operating costs for the Departments of Transportation and Motor Vehicles and debt payments on bonding for highway, bridge and rail projects.

Final totals for the current fiscal year, which closes June 30, weren’t available this week, but Boughton said the diesel tax collected about $133.5 million in 2022-23, when the rate also was 49.2 cents per gallon. Those collections represented 7% of total STF expenditures in 2022-23 and about 6% in the current year.

The highway mileage tax, which ranges from 2.5 cents per mile to 17.5 cents depending on a truck’s weight, will collect $60 million this fiscal year, according to Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget office. It represents less than 3% of the STF.

Further complicating matters, the transportation fund has generated huge surpluses in recent years.

The fund finished with a $157 million or 9% surplus two years ago, according to reports from the comptroller’s office. That’s despite a gasoline tax holiday that put hundreds of millions of dollars back in motorists’ pockets.

Last fiscal year saw a $284 million surplus, equal to 15.5% of the transportation fund. And the administration projects the fund will close this fiscal year on June 30 up $283 million or 13%.

Both Blair’s group and fuel distributors say the variable diesel tax rate should be replaced with a fixed amount of pennies per gallon. This would be similar, they say, to the state’s retail gasoline tax, which has been fixed annually at 25 cents per gallon since July 2000.

“The public’s being overly taxed when it comes to these transportation-related taxes,” said Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association. “All of this is contributing to excessive funds that are being squirreled away.”

“At the end of the day, if we could come up with something predictable, that’s what’s important to us,” Blair said.

Both Herb and Blair also said the recent increases in trucking expenses have only exacerbated inflationary problems.

The Consumer Price Index hit a 40-year high in the summer of 2022 when it topped 9%. And though inflation rates have dropped since, that shoppers still are reeling from a stiff increase in the base price of groceries, department store goods and other items delivered by truck.

“Consumers are already at their wits’ end,” Blair added.

Minority Republicans in the state House and Senate have been pushing annually for repeal of the highway mileage tax. Rep. Holly Cheeseman of East Lyme, ranking House Republican on the tax-writing Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, predicted recently the GOP won’t relent on its push for repeal any time soon.

“Any tax we pass onto the truckers, that’s a tax they will pass onto our residents,” Cheeseman said. “And our residents deserve relief.”

Lamont has been adamant the highway use tax needs to stay, arguing that large trucks do the most damage to Connecticut’s aging, crowded highways. But Boughton said the Executive Branch hasn’t taken a stand against a flat diesel tax.

“The administration has always been open to other thoughts and ideas,” he said.

But Lamont and his fellow Democrats in the legislature’s majority have been wary of weakening STF revenues too much, though, despite the large surpluses in recent years.

If the Department of Transportation can launch more construction projects — thereby triggering the need for more transportation borrowing — the STF surplus next fiscal year would be just 4%, according to the governor’s budget office. And by 2025-26, the STF would run a very modest $8 million deficit, equal to roughly one third of 1%.

Connecticut’s construction industry and trades say the state’s transportation infrastructure needs even larger investments than the administration is aiming for to overcome decades of neglect.

And labor unions say the DOT is woefully lacking in engineers, planners and the other professionals needed to launch more projects annually.

Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto, who inherited that challenge when Lamont tapped him to run the DOT a little more than a year ago, has said that he’s aggressively trying to recruit more engineers and other professionals to bolster the agency.

Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, co-chairwoman of the finance committee, also said she’s willing to explore a flat diesel tax. But Horn also said legislators are determined to see more transportation upgrades underway. And even if the diesel tax is decoupled from a formula that makes annual adjustments, that doesn’t mean officials might never need to increase it in the future.

“Nothing stays flat in life,” she said. “The STF surplus is not long for this world.”

Eastern Co. building razed for restaurant, urgent care facility

ANDREAS YILMA 

NAUGATUCK – Demolition began Monday of a nearly century-old structure, the former Eastern Company building, to make way for new businesses including a Chipotle Restaurant.

The Zoning Commission in April 2023 approved the site permit application for the applicant, Berlin RE Development of Farmington, for a proposed Chipotle restaurant and retail store at the former headquarters of the Eastern Co. on about 2.2 acres at 112 Bridge St.

The plan calls for a roughly 6,690-square-foot, one-story building with a few store fronts.

The Chipotle restaurant would occupy about 2,400 square feet. Urgent Care, a Hartford HealthCare urgent care facility, would occupy roughly 2500 square feet on the other side of the building with an unknown tenant in the middle portion of the building.

The Eastern Company, a maker of industrial hardware, security products and metal castings, previously had its corporate office at the location across from the plaza on Bridge Street before it moved to 3 Enterprise Drive in Shelton.

The two-story brick and masonry-style 8,040 square foot building with an open porch was constructed in 1930. Berlin RE Development took ownership of the land and building in September 2022 for $800,000 according to the assessor’s property card.

Elite Excavation & Construction of Fairfield is doing the demolition while Greython Construction, of Mystic, will construct the shell of the building while another company, yet to be identified, will finish the remaining construction of the new structure, according to the building department.

The plan also calls for 45 parking spaces, including two handicap spaces, a pick-up lane or area for customers who ordered and paid online and electric vehicle charging stations in the parking lot.

The development is expected to cost about $2 million and the construction time is projected to take about a year. The finished development looks to have 20 employees, the site permit application states.

Although a piece of history is torn down with the former Eastern Co. building, there are still quite a few other buildings in the borough that are nearly as old or older.

Assessor Shelby Jackson said there are more than a dozen buildings nearing a century of years in age if not older in the borough.

Some examples include Salem Elementary School at 124 Meadow St. that was built in 1893 and the Tuttle House, or the Naugatuck Historical Society, at 380 Church St., which was constructed in 1880.