It actually opened to students in 1922, said Frank Tomcak, senior project manager with the Downes Construction Company. “We’re planning for a 2022 reopening to commemorate the centennial of the building.”

The building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was originally a high school, then a junior high, and finally a middle school when it closed at the end of the 2011-12 school year. It’s now being completely updated and transformed into the Memorial Boulevard Intradistrict Arts Magnet School.

SEE VIDEO HERE: http://www.bristolpress.com/image/view/ci_id/971543

The state is paying 60% of the $63 million project, though Deputy Superintendent Michael Dietter, chairman of the project’s building committee, reported back in November that it is $2 million under budget so far.

The building is approximately 106,000 square feet. The main work is being done by the D’Amato+Downes Joint Venture, which includes D’Amato Construction Co. of Bristol and Downes Construction Co. of New Britain.

“Everything’s moving right along for 2022,” Tomcak said. “It’s all on schedule and under budget. We’re planning for late spring to turn the building over, then the school district can start moving in the furniture and getting in all their AV hookups and computer hookups, everything for the fall semester.”

But at the moment, the project is finishing up the interior demolition phase, he said.

“We’ve pretty much stripped everything down. The last few months we’ve had to abate all the plaster on the walls. It was what we call ACM -- Asbestos Containing Material. All the original partitions and brick in the hallways will stay to maintain the original look of the building.”

Issues with concrete cracking and beams spalling, not visible during the forensic stage of construction, became evident during demolition.

“We are painstakingly committed every step of the way to renovating this building with great precision,” said Tomcak, adding that both companies are “passionate about the historical integrity of the building.”

Tomcak said eventually the main entrance will be adapted for ADA compliance, while carefully matching the historic materials and details of the building.

“Right now to get to the ground floor you have to go down steps. We’re going to lower it so someone in a wheelchair can go straight in, and have access to the faculty spaces down at the ground level,” Tomcak said.

The ground floor will mainly house the faculty, administration, and cafeteria. The lower floor, which is about four feet below ground level, formerly housed the gymnasium but will be converted to space for the band and chorus. The lower floor was also the location for a swimming pool, which has long since been filled in. Tomcak said that space will become a dance studio. The second, third, and fourth floors will be mainly academic spaces.

The showpiece of the building is the auditorium, which takes up part of the ground and second floors. It too has been stripped down and is filled with scaffolding right now. Eventually it will be what the City Council has recommended be called the Rockwell Theater.

The name is in honor Albert Rockwell, local inventor, industrialist and philanthropist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to providing the city with the land for what is now known as Rockwell Park, he donated the land for both Memorial Boulevard itself and the school named after it.

Tomcak pointed out a plywood box over the proscenium that currently protects a vintage 1930s clock with the City of Bristol seal.

“The clock has some historical significance,” he said. “We believe it was made locally by the old Sessions Foundry. There was also a light fixture that sat over the center of the auditorium. Eventually we will be putting that back.”

In back of the building, along Willis Street, heavy equipment is busy digging up the area to make way for a single story, 18,000 square foot addition which will house a new 6,000 square foot gymnasium, a kitchen, and theater support spaces-a scene shop, costume shop, dressing rooms and a loading dock. The addition will be scaled and detailed to compliment the main building, to meet the U.S. Department of the Interiors’ historic preservation guidelines.

The section of Willis between South Street and Memorial Boulevard is now part of the school campus, but Tomcak said they won’t do much to Willis Street.

“With the demo and abatement winding down we’re now approaching the next chapter of the project,” Tomcak said. “So all the other trades will begin to ramp up. In the next few weeks we’re going to bring in the guys that will be framing up the new walls, all the new mechanicals will start to show up, and we’ll begin to put this whole building back together.”

There will also be all new plantings once the project is done, Tomcak said.

This is the first joint venture between the two companies and they’re already working on another one, yet to be announced, said Tom D’Amato, D’Amato Construction vice president.

D’Amato calls himself a proud Bristol native and Tomcak is a 20 year Bristol resident. Neither one of them attended Memorial Boulevard School back in the day, although both their wives did.

“My experience stems from working on school projects in the K-12 education market,” Tomcak said. “This project has more meaning for me because I’m doing it in my own community.”

New London affordable housing complex gets financial boost 

Greg Smith  New London — A planned affordable housing complex on Bayonet Street in New London has received a sizable financial boost from the state.

The State Bond Commission at its Dec. 18 meeting approved a $4 million grant from the state Department of Housing that will help fund the first phase of a 64-unit complex under development by Eastern Connecticut Housing Opportunities, or ECHO.

That grant, combined with funding from a variety of other sources, gets ECHO to the $7 million mark needed to start the project in the spring, ECHO Executive Director Peter Battles said. ECHO is a nonprofit housing development company that has been serving eastern Connecticut since 1989.

“We’ve been working on putting the funding together for this project for close to three years,” Battles said. “This jump-started the process.”

The first phase will include the demolition of two vacant, boarded-up homes at the 433 and 443 Bayonet St. site and construction of the first of two buildings. The building will contain 29 units and community space. Battles said ECHO is in the process of securing funds for the second phase.

The first phase includes six supportive units for individuals with developmental disabilities. Many units will be reserved for low-income tenants, those earning below the area household median income, or AMI, which is $91,400. Nine of the units are reserved for those at 25% of the AMI, 10 units for those at 50% of AMI and three units for those at 60% AMI. There will be six market-rate units.

While there are plenty of market-rate multifamily developments being built in the city, Battles said this development is aimed at a population on a limited income and in need of more affordable options.

ECHO has a number of other ongoing projects, including a partnership with the city on a project known as the Hempstead District Homeowners Program. The program was initially pitched as a continuation of the City Flats initiative started by the owner of Harbour Towers that focused on the rehabilitation and conversion of homes surrounding Harbour Towers into condominiums.

Battles said the new program, using $1.3 million from the state Department of Housing, will instead convert up to 10 dilapidated properties into owner-occupied, two-family homes, providing first-time home buyers with built-in rental income. The Harbour Towers owner sold the first four homes that were to be converted before the projects took off, however, and Battles said ECHO is looking elsewhere in the city for homes to purchase and rehabilitate. The city is providing lead abatement financial aid and general rehabilitation funding from its housing conservation fund for the program.

ECHO is nearing the completion of its Home New London program, in which it used state funds to purchase and rehabilitate 22 single-family homes throughout the city. The homes are made affordable since ECHO offers a second forgivable mortgage covering 20% of the purchase price. The program is helping to boost home ownership in a city dominated by rental properties.

In testimony to the state legislature earlier this year, ECHO Vice President Julie Savin said the project would provide an estimated $1.6 million in local income reinvestment, $225,920 in taxes and other revenue and 34 local jobs. City records show ECHO is a taxpayer on numerous properties in the city, including the two properties where the apartment complex will be located.

ECHO additionally owns and operates a rental portfolio in Norwich, with 155 units in various locations.

Does Connecticut have a future?

Fred Carstensen Connecticut is in deep trouble. Very deep trouble.

From 1997 to 2008, Connecticut arguably had the strongest economy in the nation, growing in real terms 3% compounded annually; on a per capita basis expanding 30% faster than the national rate.

But since 2008, Connecticut has had the worst state economy, shrinking 9.1% before a modest recovery; in Feb. 2020, before the pandemic, the state’s economy was below its 2006 level, and employment 17,000 under its previous peak.

In contrast, New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island enjoyed robust growth, well exceeding previous peaks in output and employment.

Such a sharp contrast in performance has multiple drivers, but most salient has been Connecticut’s disconnect from the data-driven, digitally-dependent modern economy. The clearest evidence was the nearly 25% contraction in the data-intensive finance/insurance sector and the virtual absence of growth in Connecticut in IT-specific occupations.

Neighboring states all enjoyed robust double-digit growth in precisely those occupations, consistent with strong connections with the modern IT economy.

The pandemic hit the nation and Connecticut hard; what now looks like a third wave of infections, hospitalizations and deaths may pull the nation into recession as J.P. Morgan forecasts.

Because of our reliance on tourism and hospitality, Connecticut suffered disproportionately, but recovery has been marginally better than the region and the nation. Even so, full recovery is a long way off.

Looking further ahead, the Office of Fiscal Analysis and Office of Policy and Management forecast aggregate deficits in fiscal years 2021 to 2024 of more than $4 billion after spending the $3 billion rainy-day fund. But these are actually optimistic projections, assuming robust economic growth, minimal growth in state commitments, and a willingness to spend the rainy-day fund down to zero.

Absent aggressive initiatives, deficits will likely be higher, leading to massive program cuts and layoffs in fiscal years 2023 and 2024. The Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis’ long-term forecast points to that possible outcome: absent significant federal support and/or effective state policy initiatives, state recovery may take a full decade, to 2030.

Connecticut has one clear advantage: a robust rainy-day fund that can cover deficits for at least two years. Avoiding immediate cuts will help sustain employment and thus state tax revenues. If the state immediately implements aggressive economic-growth policies it could significantly mitigate if not eliminate projected fiscal year 2024 deficits.

There are obvious initiatives that would quickly impact Connecticut’s economy and state revenues. Legalizing recreational marijuana could generate 17,000 new jobs and nearly $1 billion in state revenue in six years; permitting online sports betting would generate new revenues; adopting tax incentives to incentivize development of hyperscale cloud data centers might attract billions in investments; redeveloping Sikorsky Memorial Airport would be a powerful regional economic driver.

One critical deficiency the state should address: our dismal balance of payments with Washington, D.C. Connecticut has the worst record of any state, getting a pathetic 82 cents of federal money back for every dollar it sends. This translates into a per capita deficit over $2,000; no other state suffers a deficit above $1,000 per capita.

A focused, multi-agency initiative to secure more federal funding could deliver hundreds of millions in federal money in the near term.

Connecticut faces daunting challenges, but it also has the resources and locational advantages to shape its own future. Do we have the will?

Fred Carstensen is the director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis and a professor of finance and economics at UConn’s School of Business.

Connecticut's Largest IMAX Theater to Be Demoed for New Railroad Bridge

The cinema at Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Conn., which features a six-story IMAX screen -- the largest in the state -- will close on Jan. 18 and be demolished to make way for a project to replace a 124-year-old railroad bridge, the aquarium has announced.

Another cinema, with a two-story 4D screen and 169 seats, is being built on the other side of the aquarium and will open soon after the IMAX theater closes, aquarium spokesperson Dave Sigworth said.

The aquarium and theater buildings are owned by the city of Norwalk. Sigworth said the IMAX theater hugs the bridge so closely that it would be impossible to build a new bridge with the theater still there. The 564-ft. Walk Bridge, which spans the Norwalk River, was constructed in 1896.

"It's a swivel bridge," he explained. "When a barge or sailboat goes through it, rather than going up, it turns on its axis in the middle of the river to allow boat traffic to go through. It's gotten stuck open a few times in the last three or four years. When that happens, it shuts down Metro North's New Haven line and Amtrak's northeast corridor to Boston. It's time for the bridge to be rebuilt."

The bridge construction project will take more than five years, he said. It is designed by the architectural firm Beyer Blinder Belle; and the owner's representative is CSG Construction Solutions Group, with construction managed in a joint venture of AP Construction and O&G Industries.

A fully enclosed seal habitat also will be built as part of the $40 million aquarium project, paid for with state and federal funds, according to Sigworth. The current seal habitat is half indoors, half outdoors, and near the bridge. Enclosing the habitat will protect seals and people from the bridge construction project.

"[With] vibrations and noise from pile drivers, and any sort of industrial things happening like things dropping off cranes, we couldn't have guests out in that atmosphere," he added.

The seal habitat – which will be 150,000 gallons, seven times bigger than the original habitat – is expected to open in April. The bridge project will start after that.

Sigworth said the aquarium was told in October 2016 that the theater would get in the way of a bridge project.

"A long period of negotiations followed to keep us whole," he said.

Groundbreaking was in November 2019.

The aquarium was built in 1988, inside a former 1860s iron works, as part of a SoNo revitalization project. The theater, which was new construction, was connected to the aquarium by an interior walkway under the bridge. The aquarium, a nonprofit, pays a nominal rent every year for the use of both buildings.

Rebuild of Pleasant Valley Elementary on schedule, schematic designs released

Olivia Regen  SOUTH WINDSOR — Schematic designs for the new Pleasant Valley Elementary School have been released, illustrating how the 102,000-square-foot building will look equipped with two entrances, a larger space for collaboration, and a wing specifically designed to serve preschool students with special needs.