CT House adopts $51B budget with big middle-class tax cut

Keith M. Phaneuf

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a $51.1 billion biennial budget early Tuesday morning that features a broad-based state income tax cut and dramatically boosts funding to local school districts.

The package, which passed 139-12 with strong bipartisan support following a nearly three-hour debate that began late Monday, now heads to the Senate, which also is expected to approve the budget before the regular 2023 legislative session adjourns at midnight Wednesday.

The two-year plan spends more on higher education and social services. But opinions were mixed about whether that would be sufficient to avert layoffs and service cutbacks in either field or whether it would provide enough to end an ongoing strike at group homes for the disabled.

The budget appropriates $25.1 billion for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and $26 billion in 2024-25, narrowly falling under the spending cap in each year.

It does not move hundreds of millions of dollars in tax receipts outside the cap system — as majority Democrats in the legislature sought to do before they were stymied by Gov. Ned Lamont and Republican lawmakers. But it does carry hundreds of millions of dollars from this fiscal year’s projected $2.95 billion surplus into the first year of the new biennium.

Bottom of Form

Because those surplus dollars technically were appropriated this fiscal year, they won’t count against the spending cap in the coming biennium.

The plan also directs Lamont to find more than $316 million in savings once the budget is in force. Traditionally, governors have met these directives by limiting hiring — a prospect likely to spark opposition from labor unions and from others who contend state agencies already are badly understaffed.

“This budget will deliver the largest personal income tax cut in the state’s history,” said Lamont, whose administration negotiated the two-year plan with legislative leaders. “This is not a temporary tax cut — it is designed to be sustainable for years to come. At the beginning of the legislative session, I promised that this budget would build growth and opportunity for all of Connecticut, and this agreement does just that.”

“We think there’s lot of good things in there,” House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said of the overall budget, which negotiators for the legislature and Lamont administration finished crafting this past weekend.

“Look, do I wish we could spend a couple of hundred million dollars more? Yes, I do. I think that’s where our caucus was,” Ritter said.

But he quickly added that would have forced a much larger effort to work around the spending cap and praised Democrats for compromising on this issue to ensure support from Lamont, other fiscally moderate Democrats and the GOP.

“We’re very lucky to have a caucus that is that mature, responsible about governance, and not willing to just say, ‘if you don’t give me the one thing I want, I’m walking away,’” Ritter said.

A broad-based CT income tax cut for the middle class

Neither the governor nor legislators were willing to walk away from the idea of providing the first income tax rate reduction since the mid-1990s. 

Lawmakers from both parties have been calling for a major rate cut since before the session began in January given the huge surpluses Connecticut has amassed. Last fiscal year closed $4.3 billion in the black, the largest surplus in state history and equal to nearly one-fifth of the entire General Fund. This year’s nearly $3 billion cushion would be the second-largest.

The budget specifically would reduce the two-lowest marginal rates on the income tax. The 3% rate imposed on the first $10,000 earned by singles and the first $20,000 by couples would drop to 2%. The 5% rate imposed on the next $40,000 earned by singles and the next $80,000 by couples would drop to 4.5%.

But that relief is aimed chiefly at Connecticut’s middle class. The budget would begin to phase out the tax cut for singles earning more than $105,000 per year and for couples topping $210,000.

The rate changes are expected to save many middle-class households $300 to $500 per year in the 2024 tax year, for which returns are filed in the spring of 2025.

The new budget also will include Lamont’s proposal to bolster the income tax credit for Connecticut’s working poor from 30.5% of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit to 40%. This is expected to provide, on average, about $210 more annually for more than 200,000 households that generally earn less than $60,000. Unlike other income tax cuts, this EITC enhancement would take effect in the 2023 tax year, meaning eligible filers could benefit with returns filed next spring.

A third form of income tax relief in the package involves expanding an existing exemption for certain pension and annuity earnings.

Currently, those benefits are exempt for single filers whose overall adjusted gross income is less than $75,000 and for couples whose AGI is less than $100,000. The budget gradually reduces those exemptions for singles making between $75,000 and $100,000, and for couples earning between $100,000 and $150,000.

According to the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis, all of the income tax-cutting measures combined will save taxpayers more than $460 million per year.

“This budget returns hundreds of dollars [annually] to individuals, families, retirees, workers throughout the state of Connecticut,” said Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, co-chairwoman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. “It’s an excellent budget.

“It’s a delight to be able to stand and talk about this budget,” said Rep. Holly Cheeseman of East Lyme, ranking House Republican on the finance committee. “This does provide real tax relief for our families.”

And though Republicans believe the legislature should have been more aggressive in offering tax relief, Cheeseman said, both she and Horn said it’s a sustainable proposal that lawmakers likely won’t have to repeal in a year or two if new fiscal challenges arise. 

“We're very pleased that a lot of the tax initiatives that House Republicans wanted … are still in this budget,” House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said during a press conference Monday morning. “It's recognizing the middle class needs relief.”

“This budget is attempting to carry us forward,” Candelora said during the House debate, adding that the plan enjoyed strong bipartisan support because it respected the spending cap and other budgetary controls that have produced big surpluses in recent years.

Forty-one of the House chamber's 53 Republicans joined with all 86 Democrats voting all Tuesday morning to approve the plan.

But not all Republicans supported the budget.

Nonpartisan analysts project the package increases spending 3.8% in the first fiscal year and 3.5% in the second. And that doesn’t include the about $340 million from the current fiscal year’s surplus that would be carried forward into the new biennium, rather than used to pay down state debt.

Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, R-Wolcott, one of 12 Republicans to cast an opposition vote, said the spending increase simply is too large to support, even given the tax cuts.

“At the end of the day, the numbers don’t lie,” she said.

The new budget also freezes the state’s diesel fuel tax for the 2023-24 fiscal year at 49.2 cents per gallon. Currently, the diesel rate is set annually on July 1 based on a formula that relies heavily on diesel fuel prices over the prior year.

Last July, surging inflation and diesel prices led to a 9 cents-per-gallon hike in the tax.

No child tax credit for families or relief for businesses

One tax-cutting proposal that drew strong support from progressives in the legislature and from several policy groups failed to make it into the budget.

This involves a child tax credit aimed specifically at helping low- and middle-income families with kids.

Comptroller Sean Scanlon has spearheaded this effort, pitching a credit against the state income tax equal to $600 per child, up to a maximum of $1,800 per household.

But Lamont, other moderate Democrats and Republicans said Connecticut needed to offer a more broad-based cut to assist more households. The income tax-cutting plan that was adopted is expected to benefit roughly 1 million filers.

“The lack of a state child tax credit in the budget not only negatively impacts Connecticut families who are struggling to make ends meet — it hinders our progress to creating a more equitable, sustainable Connecticut,” wrote the CT Nonprofit Child Tax Credit Coalition. This group of 30 local organizations advocating for the credit includes Connecticut Voices for Children and the Connecticut chapter of the United Way.

Businesses also came up short in the new budget.

Lamont had hoped to reduce a state tax on about 120,000 small and mid-sized businesses that don’t pay the corporation tax, collectively saving them $60 million annually.

Not only was this proposal left out of the budget, but a 10% surcharge on the corporation tax that was supposed to expire this year was retained and continued through 2025.

“The absence of small business tax relief in the budget is absolutely baffling and, given the current uncertainty and challenges that those smaller firms face, extremely disappointing,” said Chris DiPentima, president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, who called the proposed relief for small and mid-sized businesses “critical” to help firms recover from the pandemic.

"That's real money small employers could be using to invest in workforce development and growing their businesses,” he added. “Those small firms are the heart and soul of our economy and deserve better.”

The corporation tax surcharge has been scheduled to be phased out, and then retained, on numerous occasions over the past two decades. And DiPentima said the latest extension “does little to improve perceptions about Connecticut's business climate and the state's economic priorities.”

More aid for local school districts

One of the biggest winners in the new budget are local school districts.

A program enacted in 2017 has the Education Cost Sharing grant gradually increasing annually through 2027, and Lamont had planned to maintain that schedule, adding close to $140 million to local schools over the coming biennium.

But many Democrats argued the 2017 schedule was too modest, that state government could afford to do more and that the coronavirus pandemic and high inflation in 2022 has left many local districts financially hurting. Advocates also claimed many communities are struggling with a shortage of teachers and paraprofessionals.

The new budget includes Lamont’s increase and adds another $160 million for local districts over the biennium. In addition, $25 million is included in each of the next two years to bolster special education.

Subira Gordon, executive director of ConnCAN — a New Haven-based policy group advocating for improvement in public education — said the budget will “move us one step closer to providing Connecticut children with an equitable education. This investment sends a message to families across the state that policymakers are investing in education for future generations.”

And Lucy Nolan, policy director for End Hunger CT!, praised legislators for including $16 million in the new budget to shore up school meal programs for students in need.

But Nolan also expressed concern about language in the budget requiring families to apply for support, saying it would “negatively impact the goal of equal treatment of all kids in the cafeteria, and we will continue to advocate for the least complicated access.”

The budget also includes a $45 million increase in non-education municipal aid and adds $1.8 million to help towns fund early voting.

Public colleges and universities may be headed for a crisis

While education at the K-12 level fares well in the new budget, higher education is in a very different situation.

The legislature has given public colleges and universities hundreds of millions of assistance in recent years from two limited sources: state budget surpluses and emergency federal pandemic grants.

Lamont and Republicans have been pushing hard this year for state colleges and universities to curtail spending, arguing these institutions should have prepared better to live without this emergency aid. They also note that enrollment has been shrinking, particularly at the community colleges and regional state universities.

The new budget would provide state universities and community colleges with about $630 million next fiscal year, coming from a block grant supplemented by more than $200 million in pandemic grants and surplus dollars. That effectively matches the $620 million the system received this fiscal year.

But in 2024-25, the regional universities and community colleges would be expected to get by with about $115 million less than they received in 2023-24.

Similarly, the University of Connecticut and its Farmington-based health center would receive about $20 million to $30 million less than the level needed to maintain current services in the first year of the new biennium. But the funding gap in the second year would exceed $100 million.

Both UConn and the state university system have warned that this extent of cost-cutting likely would force tuition hikes as well as faculty layoffs and larger class sizes.

Rep. Greg Haddad, D-Mansfield, whose district includes UConn’s main campus in Storrs, said public universities and colleges not only have been placed under financial stress by inflation and the pandemic but also by having to cover significant pay hikes Lamont negotiated last year with most state employee unions.

Haddad said state officials also have long known college and university systems needed to use the temporary funds they received from the state in recent years to fund ongoing expenses, like wages and benefits.

And while he supports the overall state budget, no one should be surprised, Haddad said, that higher education will be in fiscal trouble without more, recurring state funding in the near future.

“It’s like we found the potholes in the road and filled them with snow,” he said. “And spring is coming.”

The budget also expands the state’s debt-free community college program to include previously enrolled students returning to college after a break.

Nonprofits get a boost, but much less than they sought

The community-based nonprofits that deliver the bulk of state-sponsored social services also were unhappy with the new budget, despite getting a funding increase.

The package includes $53 million to provide a 2.5% rate increase in the first year of the new biennium for most nonprofits. It then maintains this funding hike in the second year.

The industry, however, was asking for much more — a 9% bump starting July 1 and then a 7% hike on top of that in July 2024.

The CT Community Nonprofit Alliance estimates that minimal or no state funding hikes for the past two decades have forced many agencies to cut staff and shrink programs.

The alliance said the industry has lost about $480 million in annual payments from the state since 2007, once adjustments for inflation are made.

The package also includes another $50 million in each year of the biennium to enhance compensation for group home workers serving Connecticut residents with developmental disabilities.

About 1,700 members of the state’s largest health care workers union, New England Health Care Employees Union SEIU 1199NE, went on strike May 24 at group homes run by six nonprofit agencies for the state — facilities that serve about 1,500 clients.

Most of its group home workers currently earn $17 to $18 per hour, according to the union, which wants “a pathway to $25/hour minimum wage.” 

A union spokesman said SEIU 1199 was analyzing the budget and didn’t say whether the organization believed the funding increases would be sufficient to end the strike.

But union President Rob Baril said members are committed to making significant progress on wages and benefits.

“We’ve started a movement for racial and economic justice for long-term care workers, and expanding services to save lives,” Baril said. “Why are we even here? Why do we have to do this? Why are we fighting for group home workers and nursing home workers and home care workers? We’re fighting to make sure that publicly funded workers with our tax dollars are provided with a wage that keeps people from being evicted, from living in their cars, from carrying thousands of dollars in medical debt.”

House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, challenged legislators to keep perspective.

Recalling the decade of the 2010s, which featured several budget deficits, two major tax hikes and several cuts to core programs, Rojas said the new plan is far removed from that. 

“We really are in a really good, healthy place,” he said.

But while touting the plans new investments in education, social services, health care and housing, Rojas noted the striking health care workers continue to protest daily outside the Capitol and that many believe core programs still need more resources.

“So we know that the need continues,” he added.

Big savings targets could force Lamont to shrink staffing further

Another element of the new budget also has raised concerns with labor, and it stems from legislators’ struggles to live within the spending cap.

This mechanism tries to keep spending growth in line with inflation or the increase in household income.

But what has happened, historically, is that a few cost drivers — employee wages and benefits, as well as required contributions to public sector pensions — grow faster than personal income and inflation. Everything else, like social services, health care and aid to towns, is lucky if it stays flat year over year.

Factor in the recent economic damage caused by the pandemic and by surging inflation, and too many core programs need a dramatic infusion of cash at once.

One way legislators found to move around that cap is to carry forward a significant portion of this year’s surplus into the new budget. In this case, they are moving almost $340 million from this fiscal year’s $2.95 billion surplus into the new biennium.

Another way to get around the cap is to artificially lower the bottom line by building savings targets into the budget plan. The new budget assumes the governor will lower General Fund spending by $134 million next fiscal year and by $183 million in 2024-25 by finding savings along the way.

Lamont’s predecessor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, routinely received aggressive savings targets from legislators during his tenure, which ran from 2011 through 2018. And the state’s Executive Branch workforce dropped by 10% during this time.

The workforce also took a big hit in early 2022 when more than 4,400 veteran workers retired between Jan. 1 and June 30, leaving before new restrictions on retirement benefits took effect.

The net result, union leaders and many legislators say, are state agencies that are dangerously understaffed and overly reliant on overtime.

“Instead of working to address the staffing crisis and passing a moral budget, Gov. Lamont would rather use state service vacancies to ‘balance’ the budget at the expense of Connecticut residents that rely on public services,” said Drew Stoner, spokeswoman for the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, an organization that includes all major state employee unions excluding the state police. “This budgetary tactic is not meant to be used in a time of budget surplus and is just one of the many ways the proposed budget harms working families and fails to meet the needs of today.”

But while some find it hard to live with the spending cap, that mechanism, coupled with other budgetary controls and savings measures enacted in 2017 and renewed unanimously by lawmakers in February, made possible the tax relief and new investments under consideration Monday, said Office of Policy and Management Secretary Jeffrey Beckham, Lamont’s budget director. 

“Gov.r Lamont has been clear about what he wanted to see in this budget — sustainable and broad-based tax cuts, adherence to the fiscal guardrails and sustainability in the out-years,” Beckham said. “This budget accomplishes those goals, providing predictability and stability for essential services in future years.”

More funding for child care, medical debt erasure and other health care initiatives

The new budget also provides additional funding for several child and health care initiatives.

It includes $67.5 million in total across two years to fund an 11% rate increase for licensed child care providers and a 6% increase for unlicensed providers in the state’s Care4Kids system.

Legislators endorsed Lamont’s proposal to use state funds to help erase medical debt among low-income Connecticut households but scaled the plan back significantly.

The governor’s plan involves working with one of the nonprofit organizations that have been negotiating with hospitals to purchase medical debt at extreme discounts. Those charities then cancel the debt.

Lamont proposed committing $20 million, which he estimated could be leveraged to wipe out as much as $2 billion in medical debt. The budget instead includes $6.5 million, which legislators said still could help eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in medical debt.

About $17 million in grants would be provided in total to two of the state’s most financially distressed hospitals: Day Kimball in Putnam and Bristol Hospital.

Another $32 million would support one-time grants to federally qualified health centers, which are the primary source of health services for many residents in Connecticut’s urban centers.

Medicaid coverage through the HUSKY program would be expanded for undocumented children, raising the age limit from 12 to 15 with an additional $3 million in funding in the 2024-25 fiscal year.

Income eligibility for HUSKY C — which provides Medicaid coverage to people who are age 65 or older, blind or living with a disability — would increase from 143% of the Temporary Family Assistance cash benefit to 105% of the Federal Poverty Level. Currently, 143% of the TFA monthly benefit is $700 for an individual and $946 for a two-person family while 105% of the FPL is $1,276 per month for an individual and $1,725 for a two-person family.

The budget also funds an evaluation of Medicaid rates to focus on barriers to health care access and other inequities. 

And it adds one position in the Department of Public Health to study infant deaths and to recommend ways to improve health disparities involving maternal care.

New investments in housing and transportation

The bulk of Lamont’s major proposals to expand affordable and other housing development statewide will likely be funded with financing through the biennial bond package, which legislators are expected to adopt before they adjourn at midnight Wednesday.

The administration, which has been negotiating the bond package with legislative leaders, says it will include more than $800 million in capital support for housing development and financial assistance.

But to complement that financing, the budget includes $3 million to help find solutions to homelessness and fund other housing support services, $5 million for homeless shelters and more than $12 million for other housing initiatives.

The new budget expands transit services but not by as much as some transportation advocates had hoped. It includes $18.5 million to expand bus service and otherwise support workforce transportation.

Rail commuter ridership has been down significantly since the pandemic, and the budget increases subsidies in anticipation of some additional riders.

The Shoreline East service, which connects New London and New Haven, currently is at 30% of pre-pandemic capacity. The new budget assumes capacity will reach 44% over the next two fiscal years.

And the Metro-North line, which links New Haven and other shoreline communities in south central and southwestern Connecticut with New York City, is at 86% of pre-pandemic capacity. The new budget assumes ridership will rise to 100%.

Other components of the new budget include: 

More than $22 million for various gun violence prevention and reduction programs, including $5 million for housing vouchers for populations at risk of gun violence.

$12 million for juvenile review boards to assess at-risk youth and to connect them to support services, and nearly $26 million in additional funds over the biennial for other youth violence prevention programming.

$1.2 million to continue allowing no-charge inmate calls and messages.

$35 million to support wage increases for and to enhance recruitment of state police troopers.

Yonkers Contracting to Perform Bridge Slide On I-95 in Connecticut

CHUCK MACDONALD

Interstate 95 continues to be one of the most important transportation corridors in the country, extending from south Florida to northern Maine. Transportation planners and contractors in Connecticut are shoring up a section of this vital roadway in Norwalk. The cost of the project is expected to be $104 million. The venture began in the summer of 2022 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.

The goal of the job is to improve safety on this busy thoroughfare. Yonkers Contracting plans to use an innovative procedure that will save time and improve safety by executing a "bridge slide." The contractor and its team will build the I-95 bridge over Saugatuck Avenue in Westport, then slide the enormous structure into place in late summer.

The two major concerns for the project are motorist safety and congestion.

"Our road teams will be reconstructing the center median and right shoulders along with resurfacing the main highway and ramps at interchanges 16 and 17," said Josh Morgan, spokesperson of Connecticut Department of Transportation. "The new median will be consistent with other stretches of I-95 to provide a six-foot wide capped concrete barrier section.

"The project builders will increase shoulder widths where possible, making it safer for disabled vehicles," Morgan added. "The workers will also replace drainage structures and set up new highway illumination. The construction team will install new guide rail and reflective markings for increased visibility of pavement in wet conditions."

In addition to the innovative construction on the I-95 bridge over Saugatuck Avenue, the construction team will carry out repairs on bridges over Franklin Street and the Saugatuck River. For this part of the project, workers will replace expansion joints and install new standpipes on the bridges.

The contractors will be taking on other infrastructure-related tasks.

"The construction team will be expanding Hendricks Avenue Park and Ride commuter lot, will improve the stormwater quality treatment, handle utility relocation and extend the Yankee Doodle Trail," Morgan said.

The trail runs along the Norwalk River and connects pedestrians and cyclists with North and South Norwalk. The trail had been closed for nearly three years during bridge construction.

Work on the trail was just one "green" aspect of the project.

"We wanted to improve the environmental quality of this area," Morgan said. "This included the creation of a wetland, detention basin and sedimentation pond. We will also install hydrodynamic separators to improve the quality of the flow draining into the Norwalk River. The team will remove invasive vegetation species and perform substantial landscaping throughout the I-95 project."

In addition, workers will be planting vegetation on the riverbank to hold the earth in place during heavy rainstorms.

The work on the I-95 project will require large amounts of material, including:

130,000 tons of polymer-modified asphalt,

36,000 cu. yds. of concrete,

2,100 cu. yds. of concrete pavement repairs,

2,500 cu. yds. of rock excavation,

25,000 cu. yds. of earth excavation, and

11,000 cu. yds. of channel excavation.

The project required an American Augers Quick Tran Boring Machine to drill, then to jack a 42-in. pipe under a ramp and bridge adjacent to I-95. In addition, the team leaned heavily on a regular array of equipment including cranes, dozers, excavators and paving equipment. The heavy equipment used was primarily company-owned Caterpillar machines.

One of the highlights of the project promises to be the bridge slide, scheduled for late summer. The newly constructed I-95 bridge over Saugatuck Avenue consists of northbound and southbound bridges. They will be built parallel to I-95 and moved into place after the current bridge is demolished. The slides are planned to take place on separate weekends.

A steel rail system with rollers will slide into place and then jack the bridge into final position.

Fred Cardillo, senior project manager of Yonkers Contracting, described the process as the Accelerate Bridge Construction technique.

"This novel process is quite different from the traditional way of bridge construction," he said. "The traffic is very heavy on I-95. It would cause a lot of congestion to divert traffic and squeeze it down a couple of lanes at a time while we do construction on a new bridge."

The plan calls for traffic to be diverted onto a southbound bridge, then closed for the northbound bridge. The northbound section would then be demolished.

"The existing abutments and piers would be left intact at an elevation below the new bridge," Cardillo said. "The new bridge would then be rolled into place then jacked onto the new abutments. Once the paving is complete, traffic would be returned to the northbound lanes."

The demolition of the remainder of the abutments would be completed after the new bridge is in place.

This monumental effort would have immediate payoff.

"This approach would minimize the impact to I-95," Cardillo said. "Instead of inconvenience for months, the inconvenience would last only two weekends. Of course, motorists would be informed well in advance of the procedure."

Like most major construction projects, the I-95 project in Norwalk and Westport has battled labor shortages and supply chain constraints. Cardillo believes the payoff will be well worth it.

"The interstate should have less congestion, of course," he said. "But also, the full shoulders will lessen the impact to traffic of crashes and disabled vehicles." CEG

Milford looks to end boat-grounding problems with $5.6 million harbor dredging project 

Nick Sambides

MILFORD — Milford Harbor will be dredged at a few key points this fall to keep its boats from grounding in shallows as part of a project likely to cost about $5.6 million and funded almost entirely by the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.

The US Army Corps of Engineers is preparing to go out to bid on the project with a goal of dredging the Federal Channel and Federal Anchorage sections of the harbor in October, said Justin Rosen, the city’s chief of staff.

“It has not gone out to bid yet through the Army Corps, so we don't know what the entire project will cost. It's my assumption that the city could be responsible for as much as $600,000 of the project,” Rosen said.

Deeper-draft boats occasionally ground in those two sections, which have not been dredged of the silt and other elements that naturally accrue in the harbor since 1988. The grounding usually occurs when the tides change, Rosen said. 

The federal $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2022, which President Joe Biden signed into law in Nov. 15, 2021, will fund about $5 million of the project, which will likely be the majority of the cost, Rosen said. Then-Mayor Ben Blake announced that the city had been awarded the grant during a press conference at the harbor in February. 

The work will include the removal and replacement of the harbor's mooring tackle, which includes the removal and replacement of 63 Helix anchors and 140 Seaflex downlines to facilitate dredging of the Federal Channel and Federal Anchorage.

The act has among its goals the rebuilding of US roads, bridges and rails; expanded access to clean drinking water and high-speed Internet; and to invest in community projects and communities “that have too often been left behind,” according to a White House Fact Sheet on the act. 

“The legislation will help ease inflationary pressures and strengthen supply chains by making long overdue improvements for our nation’s ports, airports, rail, and roads,” the sheet states. “It will drive the creation of good-paying union jobs and grow the economy sustainably and equitably so that everyone gets ahead for decades to come."

It and the president’s Build Back Framework are expected to add an average 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years, according to the facts sheet.

The harbor is one of the city’s economic motors. It is home to three commercial marinas: Milford Yacht Club; city-owned Lisman Landing; the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service Connecticut Aquaculture Lab; and approximately 100 private docks.
The harbor has among its ships or boats 11 government owned vessels. They include homeland security vessels, two fire boats and two police boats that serve the central Connecticut region; and a city rescue/dive team, Rosen said. 

The harbor features about 250 dry summer storage spaces, 1,313 recreational docks and 19 commercial vessels. The city issues 500 boat-ramp stickers annually, and the regular flow of seasonal transient visitors helps downtown businesses, Rosen said.

The work will cut the harbor’s season short by a week or so.

Construction Jobs Picture Looks Bright, But Where Are the Workers?

LUCY PERRY 

Construction employment is on an upward path and that's both good and bad. By extension, if jobs increase, so does the need for workers. And that's the continued challenge for the industry: contractors are beating the bushes for skilled labor to meet their labor needs.

The AGC reports that as the construction sector was adding 15,000 jobs in April, the industry jobless rate was falling to a record low.

"The number of unfulfilled construction positions is close to a monthly high," said the association.

As a whole the industry likely would have added even more to its rolls if contractors could find more qualified workers.

"Contractors can't find, reach, hire and train workers fast enough to keep pace with demand," said Stephen E. Sandherr, association CEO. "The pool of qualified, available labor is the smallest the industry has ever seen for the month of April."

How Numbers Shake Out

Construction employment rose from April 2022 to April 2023 in 42 states and the District of Columbia. While the numbers declined in seven states, they held their own in Hawaii. This from an AGC's break-down of BLS statistics:

Texas added 28,000 jobs; New York, 13,400; Indiana, 11,200; and Florida 8,600. At 5,500 new jobs, Arkansas marked the largest increase by percentage, 9.8 percent. Rhode Island followed at 7.6 percent. California logged the highest number of jobs lost, at 5,100; Connecticut lost 1,900 jobs; and West Virginia dropped 1,200 jobs, minus 3.7 percent).

West Virginia had the largest percentage loss at 3.7 percent, according to the AGC analysis. Connecticut and Alaska lost 2.5 percent, or 400 jobs.

For the month of April 2023, construction employment increased in 24 states and D.C. Hiring declined in 26 states. Washington added the most jobs over the month, at 4,300; Illinois added 2,700; Wisconsin, 2,600; and California, 2,100.

The largest percentage gain occurred in South Dakota, at 2.7 percent. Wisconsin, Washington and Arkansas saw a 1.8 percent gain, with 1,100 new jobs.

Dropping 8,500 jobs, Texas lost the most in April; New York lost 4,000. Alaska had the largest percentage loss for the month at 4.2 percent and 700 jobs.

AGC tracked two construction labor reports, one of which noted total construction starts in current dollars fell 4 percent from March to April. That number is 7 percent year-to-date, according to Dodge Construction Network.

Nonbuilding starts increased 16 percent year-to-date. Utility/gas plants are up 37 percent; miscellaneous nonbuilding starts, 36 percent.

Environmental public works projects are up 10 percent; and highway and bridge starts, 9 percent.

AGC analyzed a ConstructConnect report, which found that the value of construction starts in current dollars decreased 5.7 percent year-to-date.

Civil starts jumped 27 percent, seeing increases for all segments including roads, at 25 percent; and water/sewage, 23 percent.

Power and miscellaneous civil projects increased by 40 percent; bridges, 1.3 percent; dams/marine, 102 percent; and airports, 89 percent.

Picture Looks Bright and Bleak

In tracking the construction jobless rate over the past year, the AGC found a decline from 4.6 percent in April 2022 to 4.1 percent in 2023. Interesting in itself, that represents the lowest April rate in the 23-year history of the data.

At the end of March, the association noted, openings totaled 355,000, just shy of the all-time high for March of 359,000.

The construction sector shed 9,000 jobs that month, the first decrease since January 2022. This happened even as the sector's unemployment rate fell and total number of job openings in the sector hit a near-record high, according to AGC.

Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees in construction jumped by 6.7 percent over the year to $33.94 per hour.

"Despite a small dip in headcount, construction firms continued to post a high level of job openings and raised pay more than other industries," said Ken Simonson, AGC's chief economist.

Those are two signs contractors still want to hire more workers, he said. "But the pool of unemployed, experienced jobseekers keeps shrinking."

Construction employment in March totaled 7,888,000, a dip of 9,000 or 0.1 percent from the record high in February. It was the first decrease in 14 months.

Nonresidential firms shed 1,800 employees in March. Employment at residential building and specialty trade contractors slipped by 7,000 or 0.2 percent.

The AGC reported the unemployment rate among jobseekers with construction experienced declined from 6.0 percent in March 2022 to 5.6 percent. That figure represents the second-lowest March rate in the 23-year history of the data.

"Exposing students and other future workers to construction will signal that it should be among the career paths worth considering," said Sandherr.

Construction firms in April provided a wage "premium" of nearly 19 percent compared with all private-sector production employees.

The industry is struggling to recruit workers while the federal government spends money to encourage students to go to college. These grads are encouraged to work in service sector professions for every dollar the government invests in career and technical education.

The AGC urged public officials to boost funding for construction education and training, and to explore short-term measures to address severe labor shortages.

"Federal officials are making massive investments in infrastructure while their funding policies discourage future workers from considering construction," Sandherr said. "They don't seem to want our citizens to work in construction even while they block people from other countries from lawfully entering the profession."

In March, AGC reported that many member firms need more workers but struggle to find enough qualified hires. The association called on the feds to boost investments in construction training and education programs to close the five-to-one gap.

"One of the biggest obstacles to hiring is the federal government's enormous campaign to urge students to pursue office-based service sector jobs," Sandherr said.

Those types of professions, in particular, require expensive four-year college degrees, he said.

"If the feds spent half as much encouraging students to pursue high-paying careers in fields like construction, our industry would have more workers and young adults would have less college debt."

A state-by-state analysis of BLS data released the ABC found that in March of this year, 31 states had lower construction jobless rates than March 2019 (pre-pandemic).

Over the same four-year period, 18 states had higher rates and Utah's rate was the same.

"High interest rates are creating headwinds for nonresidential construction projects," said Bernard Markstein, Markstein Advisors.

President and chief economist of the firm, Markstein conducted the analysis for the association.

"Until recently, construction employment continued to grow as builders worked on their backlog of projects," he said. "The March construction employment numbers were the first indication that employment growth in construction may be turning negative."

The increase of funds flowing from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to states and localities will partially offset the downward pressure in the residential sector. That, in turn, will provide opportunities for some unemployed workers and companies, said Markstein. The challenge remains in connecting the two groups.

 

ABC tracking models indicate that in 2023 about 546,000 more workers will be needed, beyond the "normal" pace of hiring, to meet the demand for labor.

"The construction industry must recruit hundreds of thousands of qualified, skilled professionals each year," said Michael Bellaman, association president. "Filling these roles with skilled craft professionals is vital to America's economy and infrastructure rebuilding initiatives."

This increased demand adds to the current level of above-average job openings. The association's model notes projected retirements, shifts to other industries and other anticipated separations are part of the computations.

The construction industry averaged more than 390,000 job openings per month in 2022. That's the highest level on record, and the industry unemployment rate of 4.6 percent in 2022 was the second lowest on record, according to ABC data.

That figure is higher than only the 4.5 percent unemployment rate observed in 2019.

National payroll construction employment was 231,000 higher in December 2022 than in December 2021.

"Despite sharp increases in interest rates over the past year, the shortage will not disappear in the near future," said Anirban Basu, ABC chief economist. "Contractors continue to experience substantial demand from a growing number of mega-projects associated with chip manufacturing plants, clean energy facilities and infrastructure."

Basu said too few younger workers are entering the skilled trades, which makes it not only a construction labor shortage but also a skills shortage.

"With nearly one in four construction workers older than 55, retirements will continue to whittle away at the construction workforce," he added. "Many of these older construction workers are also the most productive, refining their skills over time."

The number of construction laborers, the most entry-level occupational title, has accounted for nearly four out of every 10 new construction workers since 2012. Meanwhile, said Basu, the number of skilled workers has grown at a much slower pace or, in the case of certain occupations like carpenter, declined.

Next year, the association said, the industry will need to bring in more than 342,000 new workers on top of normal hiring to meet industry demand. That's presuming that construction spending growth slows significantly next year, according to AGC.

"To fill these important roles, ABC is working hard to recruit, educate and upskill the construction workforce," said Bellaman. CEG

Two workers injured in New Haven building collapse still in hospital, mayor says

Josh LaBella

NEW HAVEN — Two of the eight workers injured when a building under construction partially collapsed are still in the hospital, officials say.

On Monday, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said both of the men still in the hospital are in stable condition. He said the site of the Lafayette Street building is fenced off and secured after it collapsed on Friday.

Elicker said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the incident, in which workers were pouring 4 million pounds of concrete when the building collapsed. He said the city has also reviewed its own processes in the building department to ensure that the appropriate permits and inspections were done. 

"There are our own inspections, but also in this type of project, we require the developer to hire a third party inspection company to conduct inspections as well," he said. "We're reviewing that to make sure that all inspections were done properly."

Elicker said the city has not uncovered anything in that review that is out of the ordinary, nor do they know the cause of the accident yet. 

"We're very much hoping for the full recovery of everyone who was injured," he said. 

Previously, city officials have said the workers had poured about three-quarters of 4.2 million pounds of concrete on a second-floor slab when the floor collapsed into the first floor and basement, trapping several workers. They said the amount of work they completed had an accumulated weight of about 3.2 million pounds.

Officials said it took about 45 minutes for the fire department to rescue six workers trapped and injured from the collapsed concrete and reinforcement metal bars. A Connecticut State Police K-9 followed up with a search of the debris to make sure no one had been left behind, they said.

In addition to the OSHA investigation, officials said the police department is conducting its own probe. 

RMS Companies owns the building and is developing the project, while Yale University owns the land, city officials said. Company founder and CEO Randy Salvatore said in a statement issued Saturday that the safety of his construction crews was their "top priority."

"Our thoughts are focused on a full recovery for those who were injured, and we greatly appreciate the heroic work of the first responders," Salvatore said. "We will continue to work with our safety team and all of the appropriate government agencies to fully investigate the incident.” 

The building is one of several that RMS is working on or has completed in the New Haven area, according to the company's website. Billed as 112 luxury apartments at City Crossing, the building at 188 Lafayette St. that collapsed was to be seven stories high with a two-story underground garage area and a one-story above-ground garage, city officials said.

Step By Step, Rescuers Dodged Danger To Save A Life In Partial Building Collapse

PAUL BASS

Capt. Ryan Almeida looked down into a 30-foot hole where a concrete deck had collapsed and a construction worker was now buried in rubble. He and his crew had to figure out a way to pull the man out. Fast.

It wasn’t going to be simple.

Almeida and the New Haven Fire Department rescue company he oversees faced that challenge on Friday afternoon after an apartment building under construction on Lafayette Street partially collapsed.

They moved fast, but carefully, amid danger to themselves to save the life of a laborer for an Orange-based company called Seven Concrete while helping to build the sixth new apartment complex rising on a former Urban Renewal-leveled asphalt stretch of the Hill neighborhood. (Eight workers in all were hospitalized. As of Monday morning, six of the eight workers had been released, according to Yale New Haven spokesperson Mark D’Antonio. Two workers remained hospitalized and listed in fair condition. One of them, who sustained the most severe injuries, is a 24-year-old worker named Juan Solano; it could not be confirmed at the time of publication of this article that he was the same worker whom the NHFD rescued from the rubble.)

“It was the most impressive rescue I’ve ever seen on my 21 years on this job,” said Assistant Fire Chief Daniel Coughlin.

“Think about what they did: The person fell 30 feet in the wet concrete. They dug him out by hand with hand shovels. They set up a rigging system to haul him out of that hole. They attached it to Truck 1, the aerial ladder, and set up a hauling system. The hauling system pulled him up. Then the Truck 1 driver painstakingly moved that aerial ladder without jerking it” and brought the construction worker, unconscious but alive, out to Lafayette Street and into an ambulance to the hospital, where his condition has improved from critical to fair.

Three days later, Almeida on Monday walked the Independent through each step of that rescue in an interview.

Almeida was riding in the front of the department’s rescue truck and firefighter Jason Rivera was behind the wheel when the call came in Friday at 12:38 p.m. about a partial building collapse. They were headed back to the Whitney Avenue station from the Ella Grasso Boulevard fire training facility, where Almeida, who oversees the rescue company, had conducted a practice rescue of a firefighter stuck up on a high ladder.

They didn’t know much about the call they were responding to as Rivera steered toward the partial collapse at 188 Lafayette St., in the heart of the ​“Hill-to-Downtown” redevelopment area where builder Randy Salvatore has been erecting a mini-city of medical district-marketed apartment complexes under the banner of ​“City Crossing.” This latest building is slated to rise seven-stories with 112 apartments.

Almeida’s crew arrived within minutes. They grabbed metal cutting saws and hand lights.

“We didn’t know what we were going into,” but they knew it would be dark.

Seven Concrete workers directed Almeida to a portable ladder rising to an upper deck they were pouring.

Almeida began climbing that ladder when other workers yelled, ​“It’s not up there! It’s not up there!”

He did a glimpse of the giant hole that formed from the collapse in the interior of the building, with rebar overhanging into it. 

Another construction worker directed Almeida’s crew to an entrance to the below-ground deck where people were trapped. 

Almeida and Rivera climbed another construction ladder down followed by fellow firefighters Nathaniel Peragallo, James Kiley, and Jason Lyman. On the first subterranean level, they learned they needed to descend another tier to reach the trapped workers.

Watching every step, they wove their way past wood shoring and screw jacks, adjustable temporary columns for extra support while concrete hardens.

“I looked down into the collapse and saw seven, eight, nine workers working with a metal cutting saw and shovels attempting to dig out someone that was trapped in the wet concrete,” Almeida said.

The firefighters would need to take the risk of entering themselves: ​“This is wet concrete. You had a worker buried faced down. We obviously know you can’t survive face down in concrete.”

But they couldn’t safely climb the ten feet into the collapse area: ​“There was no possible way for us to climb down without pulling rebar on top of us.”

So the firefighters went down a different ladder to the lower level. Wading through knee-high wet concrete, they climbed over wood shorting and chunks of concrete to reach the trapped worker.

Adrenaline helped: ​“Everybody was extremely calm, cool under pressure.”

The firefighters took over from the construction workers in removing the trapped man. Kiley and Peragallo used hand shovels, then, when they got closer to man’s face, their bare hands to remove him from the rubble.

Meanwhile, Almeida scanned the area. He kept in communication with colleagues to determine what else might collapse, and who else might be missing. ​“We didn’t want somebody else to get trapped. We didn’t want more things to fall down. We had concrete that was in the hardening process.”

Other workers were injured, but none others trapped. Almeida sent firefighter Lyman back up to assess the conditions of injured workers on the upper level and report back to Battalion Chief Joseph Hilbert, who had assumed command of the full operation.

Which Way Out?

The next challenge: How will everyone else get out of the bottom level?

“I’m taking a quick look around. I can see that there’s other shoring that is compromised. I can see that there are screw jacks on the other floors that are racked to the side or missing. We probably have 25 feet of rebar that went down with the collapse that’s still hanging over us. My main concern was if that rebar wasn’t properly tied together, it could come down on us at any time. I’m looking for ties on the rebar to see if it’s tied together. I can see some loose pieces.”

Almeida realized it would take too long and be too precarious to try to carry the man back out over the ladders on which the firefighters had climbed down. They would need an aerial rope rescue.

The department’s assistant drillmaster, Eric Riggot, was on scene and oversaw preparations for the rope rescue: It involved setting up a ​“three-to-one mechanical advantage” twin-tension rope system high up into the air on a truck ladder, then down into the hole.

Back two stories below ground, Kiley and Peragallo finished digging out the construction worker, who was unconscious. They checked his breathing, looked for signs of bleeding. They gave him supplemental oxygen.

Keith Kerr, a firefighter paramedic, came to the scene with a monitor and medical bags. Other firefighters brought a Stokes basket, a hardened backed with attachments for ropes.

Almeida moved the construction workers and the firefighters up an incline to a point with no overhead obstructions or precarious rebar.

The ropes came down into the hole. The crew placed and secured worker in the basket and attached it to the ropes. Then Peragallo was attached to the rope system alongside the basket to ride up as well.

Almeida sent the signal, and the haul began, lifting worker and Peragallo high into the air above the changing New Haven skyline and back down onto the street, where an ambulance crew was ready to take over. 

The firefighters still in the sub-basement gathered their equipment, did a last check for any remaining victims, then climbed back up wooden ladders to the street.

The rescue was over: Dozens of firefighters had succeeded in rescuing eight people in all.

The work was just beginning. They would remain on scene until 7 p.m. Almeida’s crew, Hilbert, and the city’s building inspector returned with state police cadaver dogs and then a structural engineer to search again and secure the area from further collapse.

The biggest job had concluded: Saving a life.

Almeida was asked how they feels.

“We’re doing our job. This is why train hard every day,” he responded. ​“I ask a lot from the members that work for me. They perform strongly for me every single day.”

Middletown homeowners turn up in droves to oppose truck terminal in densely populated area

Cassandra Day

MIDDLETOWN — Amid strong opposition from the public, members of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission continued a public hearing regarding a special exception request to construct an 8,100-square-foot trucking terminal with 10 loading docks in a densely populated, residential area near Interstate 91.

The applicant, Manjit Sandhu, who owns HHA Trucking in Wallingford, according to attorney Diane Lord, representing Sandhu, is seeking a code variance for six acres in the Timber Ridge Road interstate transit zone. The building would be 25 feet tall.

Some 30 Middletown residents and those who live near the area, located near the eastern portion of Berlin, either spoke against or expressed concerns about the proposal during the May 24 hearing that lasted more than two-and-a-half hours. Five others emailed their opposition to the Land Use Department. 

The plan calls for eight small, and two large, overhead bays and a 42-space parking lot to accommodate tractor-trailers and employees, Land Use Director Marek Kozikowski said Thursday. It would be built on wooded land, a portion of which would need to be cleared, 

Neither the commission nor Kozikowski know what products the business hauls and ships, he said. However, members don’t necessarily need to know or regulate that aspect when it comes to the zoning amendment request. “It would make no difference if it were golf balls or computer monitors,”  Kozikowski said. 

The facility would take in large amounts of freight, according to those involved in the project, then load it onto tractor-trailers for disbursement.

The plan is to move the HHA Trucking Wallingford office and Meriden terminal to the site, Lord, who works for Willinger, Willinger and Bucci of Shelton, said during her presentation. 

The company owns 15 trucks and employs 13 drivers, she told commissioners. The plan is to have 13 drivers arrive in the morning, load up their trucks and leave the site, then return in the evening, park their trucks and go home, she said.

The project received approval at the May 3 Inland Wetlands & Watercourses Agency meeting.

Bryan Panico, an engineer and surveyor with Harry E. Cole & Son of Plantsville, presented the site plans, explaining that HHA Trucking would maximize parking spaces so vehicles would not be scattered around the property.

He said the building, parking, trucking and circulation fits within the zoning requirements, and the company would maintain the 60-foot buffer to the residential zone. There are other businesses on Timber Ridge and nearby Middle Street that use tractor-trailers, he added.

Loading and unloading would take place inside the building, Panico added. 

Lord said drivers would arrive between 7 and 8 a.m. and load their trucks, leave, and return between 5 and 6 p.m. They would not be permitted to go through the neighborhood, she added.

Panico told commissioners there would be a required 60-foot buffer between the business and homes, and the building would be an additional 60 feet from the buffer zone. The trucks would be standard 53-foot vehicles.

Former mayor Domenique Thornton, who has lived on Timber Ridge for 30 years, read a letter to commissioners strongly opposing the terminal. Her home is a half-mile from the proposed site.

“I do not believe the applicant has made their case,” she said Thursday.  

Thornton was concerned about safety, particularly for walkers, elderly people, those who work nearby, schoolchildren, buses, cyclists and parents with children. In addition, she said, 15 babies have been born on the street in the last year, and are often carried in strollers.

“Everyone is against it,” she said of residents, who have been meeting regularly to discuss the issue.

The site has a stream and woods, Thornton said, and the property abuts power lines. In addition, there is a business on Ken Dooley Drive that uses tractor-trailers to transport items. Already, they have some trouble navigating the sharp turn onto Timber Ridge, she added. 

Thornton believes the terminal is a clear violation of Middletown’s zoning codes, which recognizes certain uses and features that, “because of the unique characteristics, cannot be distinctly classified or regulated in a particular zone or zones without consideration in each case of the impact of such uses and features will have upon neighboring uses and the surrounding area compared with the public need for them in particular locations,” she told commissioners.

“I was always pro-business as mayor,” she said Thursday. “You can’t be pro-jobs unless you’re pro-business.”

Many residents showed up to the PZC meeting to express their opposition to the plan, talking about how the environment, wildlife and air quality may be affected, as well as property values.

There is no information to back up residents' opinions who say values will depreciate, Lord said.

Resident Kevin Smith said he was worried about an increase in noise levels, exhaust fumes, as well as oil and diesel drippings; while Anthony Elder was concerned about light pollution. 

There is a day care facility nearby on Bradley Street, Sandra Renkiewicz pointed out, and the surrounding roads are not built for tractor-trailers.

Sarah Meister, who told commissioners that trash already is strewn along the sides of Timber Ridge Road, said she believes the brook would become contaminated. 

Joseph Reikowicz said that he believed diesel fuel fumes would contribute to respiratory illnesses in children. 

The issue will be taken up during the next Planning and Zoning Commission meeting scheduled for June 21. For information, visit middletownct.gov.

Plainfield Amazon distribution center still not open - here's when it might open

John Penney

The long-awaited Amazon distribution center in Plainfield won’t open this year, but town officials said they’ve been assured it will start operations at some point, perhaps in 2024. 

The so-called “last mile” facility on Lathrop Road was initially set to begin receiving and delivering packages in May 2022, but a series of delays attributed to a sluggish economy exacerbated by the global pandemic has kept the 202,000-square-foot building unoccupied. 

Town Planner Mary Ann Chinetti on Monday said she spoke with Amazon economic development principals on Friday on where the opening process sits. 

“I was told they are not coming in 2023, but are looking at a 2024 opening,” she said. “They said they were still fully committed to coming into Plainfield.” 

Next update expected in August

Chinetti said she expects to get another opening update in August after a summer meeting during which Amazon officials are scheduled to conduct an overview discussion of the company’s various distribution and warehouse projects. 

Chinetti noted exterior work at the Plainfield site is complete, but the interior - or “guts” - build-out tasks, such as the addition of conveyer belts and other equipment installation, still need to happen.  

She said lingering supply chain issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic challenges are largely to blame for the delays. 

18 months behind schedule:Why the Plainfield Amazon distribution center isn't open

Once the Plainfield fulfillment center goes live, workers will sort received packages dropped off from tractor-trailers before sending them out to customers via a fleet of third-party contractors trained by Amazon. 

Company representatives previously said roughly 300 to 400 drivers are expected to work at the Plainfield site and arrive in waves of 160 vehicles during the morning hours and depart in vans. During a typical 10-hour shift, the drivers will deliver within a 45-minute delivery area. Another 100 Amazon associates are expected to work inside the warehouse.  

The facility site on Monday was unoccupied, though green lights periodically blinked near large metal roll-up doors flanking cavernous blue-trimmed receiving and delivery ports not far from hundreds of freshly painted parking spaces.

The facility project, led by the Exeter Property Group, a Pennsylvania-based real estate investment and development firm, received a certificate of occupancy in September and has paid between $350,000 and $400,000 in building permit fees.

Town of Plainfield still collecting taxes on empty building

First Selectman Kevin Cunningham said the anticipated hiring figures haven’t changed and the town expects to continue getting regular tax payments even as facility sits empty. 

“We will get twice-yearly tax payments of about $205,000 a year as we wait for an opening,” he said. “And if for some reason Amazon does decide not to move in, that property can still be leased to another business willing to come in.” 

Cunningham said he’s aware of rumors floating throughout town that Amazon might simply pull out of the project. 

“Those kinds of conversations happen anytime you have a big building sitting in town unused,” he said.  

Amazon last month hosted a ceremony attended with state officials marking the opening of a multi-story, 3.8 million-square-foot “fulfillment center” in Windsor touted as the largest such facility in New England. 

History of the site

The Lathrop Road location was once home to the Connecticut Yankee Greyhound, a dog-racing park that opened in 1976, rapidly becoming one of the most profitable tracks in the nation by attracting gamblers from across the state and beyond. Competition from the region’s two Native American-owned casinos in the 1990s, however, proved too much for the park.  

The racetrack shuttered in May 2005 and the property was bought the next year for $7.5 million by the BVS company, a subsidiary of the Fairfield-based Starwood Ceruzzi firm. Winstanley Enterprises, a Concord, Massachusetts, investment and development company that serves as landlord for several office spaces and warehouses in New England, bought the track in November 2017 from BVS Plainfield Investors LLC for $3.37 million.  

The Exeter group paid $7 million for the property in July 2021.

EPA announces $8.8M for CT brownfield cleanup efforts

Michael Puffer

Local, state and federal officials gathered in Waterbury Monday morning to celebrate $8.8 million in brownfield cleanup funds for Connecticut.

Between the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress has authorized EPA to distribute more than $100 billion to “make our air clean, our water clean and to provide the economic development catalyst that’s so important in these kinds of cities and towns all across the country,” Region 1 EPA Administrator David W. Cash said Monday morning.

Cash spoke at a podium on the grounds of the long-shuttered and decaying Waterbury Companies brass-working site. A wing of this site caught fire and partially collapsed into the Mad River about a week prior, highlighting one of the dangers posed by Waterbury’s abundant brownfields. During Monday’s press conference, an excavator pulled fallen bricks and other debris from the river.

Waterbury is pushing hard to cross properties off its list of brownfields. The 12-year-administration of Mayor Neil O’Leary has succeeded in pulling in tens-of-millions of dollars in state and federal cleanup grants.

“Never would I have imagined I would be in the midst of a beehive of activity in the South End,” said State Rep. Geraldo Reyes, D-75th District. Reyes grew up in Waterbury’s South End and still lives in the area. O’Leary and others have said the South End has been long neglected, but several large-scale cleanups are underway there at present.

Waterbury was one of the big winners Monday, receiving a big novelty check made out for $1 million. Paired with $2 million granted by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development earlier this year, the EPA funding is expected to be enough to finish cleanup on nearby sites surrounding the Brass City Harvest Food Hub, according to city officials.

That nonprofit provides food to low-income families. Its recently completed food hub acts as a sanitization center for area farmers, a market and a distribution center. Waterbury plans to help build out a retail market building and greenhouses on currently contaminated properties around the food hub. The cleanup is a necessary first step.

Speakers emphasized the need for continued investment in communities burdened by brownfields, in order to create opportunities. Several also focused on the magnitude of brownfields investment being pushed by lawmakers and President Biden.

“To quote President Biden on occasion: ‘This is a big frigging deal,’” quipped U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

Other recipients include:

The Connecticut Metropolitan Council of Governments received $500,000 for brownfields assessment in Bridgeport and surrounding communities.

East Hampton received $500,000 for brownfields assessment, focused on its village center.

Killingly received $800,000 for brownfields assessment and cleanup in its “enterprise corridor zone.”

New London received $1 million for a brownfields revolving loan fund.

The Norwalk Redevelopment Agency received $2 million for brownfields cleanup, focused on a Webster Street lot.

The Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments -- which represents 19 municipalities, including Waterbury, Bristol and others – received $3 million for its brownfield revolving loan fund.

 East Hartford seeks to demolish aging 156,790-square-foot retail plaza

Michael Puffer

East Hartford’s administration is seeking to demolish the long-languishing Silver Lane shopping plaza in order to create a blank slate that will appeal to developers.

The Town Council agreed May 15 to allow demolition of a dingy 107,148-square-foot retail building at the 22-acre Silver Lane Plaza.

Now, East Hartford Director of Development Eileen Buckheit is asking the council to sign off on demolition of the two other buildings on the site — a 31,080-square-foot retail building erected in 1965 and an 18,562-square-foot retail building completed in 1963. This request is on the agenda for the council’s meeting on Tuesday.

Essentially, the buildings are functionally obsolete and would prove more costly to maintain than they are worth, according to documents shared with the council. Officials would prefer to create a blank slate for redevelopment that would better complement nearby developments in a bid to revive the long-declining Silver Lane retail corridor.

Massachusetts-based National Development is building two logistics buildings, totaling 2.5 million square feet, for use by Lowes Home Improvement and Wayfair at Rentschler Field. Developers Avner Krohn and Brian Zelman are moving to secure a development of at least 300, and as many as 402, apartments on a 25-acre, town-owned property off Silver Lane.

“It is in the best interests of the town to provide a clean and empty site to attract new development and capitalize on the momentum of the area,” Buckheit wrote in a memo to Mayor Michael Walsh, which was shared with the council.

The presentation shared with the council estimates a roughly $10 million demolition cost for all buildings on the site, a figure that includes the $4.53 million acquisition cost, as well as legal and other administrative costs.

Town officials anticipate issuing bid documents for the demolition job before the end of July. 

Development near Hartford ballpark thrown major curve. Will lengthy delay hurt project’s momentum?

KENNETH R. GOSSELIN 

HARTFORD — An isolated corner of downtown Hartford that struggled for decades to be known for more than its dusty parking lots appeared finally to have something going for it: a popular minor league ballpark and brisk leasing of the first of as many as 1,000 apartments.

But a court ruling last week dealt the city a major blow for the North Crossing project, setting back more redevelopment around Dunkin’ Park for at least a year — and probably longer.

The city and the original developer, who was fired from the project on city-owned land, must first battle in court over the termination and who has the right to develop the rest of the land around the ballpark. A trial is expected in April, 2024.

“This litigation from the original developer threatens to throw a giant wrench into the process,” said Andrew Walsh, a former lecturer in urban history at Trinity College, specializing in Hartford’s economic development.

Hartford has struggled with large projects before and skepticism whether big plans would even turn into reality.

The city’s Front Street restaurant and entertainment district near the convention center suffered through a decade of delays, three developers, lawsuits and sitting empty for two years before it started to gain traction.

 

Walsh said it is not uncommon for large redevelopments to unfold with twists and turns. But North Crossing, the former Downtown North, or DoNo, as many still call it, appeared to be hitting its stride early on. Crowds were drawn to Dunkin’ Park to cheer on the Yard Goats, and tenants were eager to lease rentals in the amenity-rich apartments next door, The Pennant.

“People read something like this, and they say, ‘oh no,’ ” Walsh said. “That’s the soul-killing part of this.”

Some argue the setback for North Crossing is only temporary — and should not be overblown or interpreted that all development is coming to a halt in Hartford.

“It’s great when these things happen without a hiccup, but there is often a hiccup,” David Griggs, chief executive of the MetroHartford Alliance, the region’s chamber of commerce, said. “So I don’t want us to look at this as a systemic problem with either the way the city is operating or the way our development of our city and region is moving forward.”

Griggs said, “The question isn’t if the development will get going again, but when.”

The $200 million-plus North Crossing project does represent a new phase in redevelopment in the downtown area and the push to regain energy behind revitalization that suffered a setback in the pandemic.

Building entirely new blocks, like North Crossing, is a move beyond housing conversions in vacant or struggling office buildings in the last decade.

The apartments planned for around the ballpark — built from the ground up — had the potential to be the most potent validation yet that there was sustained demand for more housing in the center of the city.

Griggs points out that the fact there is a court fight over the land — and who has the right to develop it — “in some regard tells us how valuable this land is.”

‘A little bit harder to restart’

The construction delay also is coming at a time when conversion of existing office buildings for housing and other uses may again come to the forefront, in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Major employers in downtown Hartford have plans to downsize office leases as more of their workers have moved to home offices for some or all of the work week. That is raising concerns about what to do with the excess space.

Michael W. Freimuth, executive director of the quasi-public Capital Region Development Authority, said the current high construction costs and borrowing rates following Covid might have delayed construction a bit anyway.

“But, you have on the other side of the ledger that says, yeah but the attention was focused on new construction a year ago,” Freimuth said. “It’s increasing being focused on conversion of existing stock and that’s going to suck up some energy.”

Over the past decade, CRDA has invested tens of millions of dollars in state taxpayer-backed loans in redevelopment projects, many of them for housing. The public funds sought to attract more private investments.

The second phase of North Crossing “was already at the launching gate, so it was going to get out of it,” Freimuth said. “And now, it’s going to be a little bit harder to restart it because we’re going to have to take our resources and focus on the buildings that are empty right now, thanks to Covid.”

A constellation of projects

While a major project, North Crossing is just one of a constellation of more than two dozen notable developments throughout the city.

One, the Arrowhead Gateway redevelopment is just a five minute walk to the north from Main and Trumbull streets where the next phase of North Crossing is planned. The $18 million project includes the conversion of three historic buildings and the construction of a new one. The apartments will be mixed-income and could be completed in 2024.

Between North Crossing and Arrowhead is the Semilla Cafe + Studio coffee shop where co-owner Elijah Hilliman said the delay is clearly disappointing.

Hilliman had seen a bit of a bump in customers from the first phase of apartments and he was hoping for more as North Crossing unfolded in the coming years.

“It’s definitely a step back,” Hilliman said. “But do we just not do anything now? Do businesses just say, ‘I’m not going to open because this one thing?’  We still have to keep on going.”

Hilliman said he hopes entrepreneurs like himself elsewhere in the city, such as the Pratt Street corridor, continue to invest and open their businesses.

“Their space and ideas and visions matter to the overall thread of Hartford,” Hilliman said.

Years of litigation

The North Crossing area was once a vibrant section of Main Street until it was torn apart from downtown by the construction of I-84 in the 1960s. The stretch suffered a slow, gradual decline.

The rise of the suburban office park in the 1970s led the city to designate the land as a kind of urban office park. Two data processing centers also were built, and the 13-acre campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s graduate center opened. But the effort didn’t spark the sought-after economic development that was originally envisioned.

Not until decades later, when ground was broken in 2015 for what would become Dunkin’ Park, did a viable redevelopment appear to be in the making.

North Crossing and Arrowhead Gateway are seen as critical to reconnecting downtown to the city’s neighborhoods to north, repairing some of the damage done by the interstate highway construction.

The original developers — Centerplan Construction Co. and DoNo Hartford LLC — were hired by former Hartford Mayor Pedro E. Segarra. But the project turned controversial under his successor, current Mayor Luke Bronin, whose administration alleged missed deadlines, cost overruns and shoddy workmanship. The developer was fired and the 6,100-seat stadium was completed by another contractor, and the Yard Goats played their first season on the road.

Centerplan and DoNo Hartford were later fired from the mixed-use redevelopment around the ballpark before it started.

The developers filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. In 2019, a Superior Court jury in Hartford sided with the city. Soon after, the city successfully argued that restrictions on the land around the stadium be lifted, allowing the city to bring in a new developer.

Randy Salvatore, of Stamford-based RMS Cos., was hired and completed the first 270 apartments in 2022. The rentals are now 95% leased.

Another twist

But in another twist, Centerplan and DoNo Hartford appealed the jury verdict and, last year, the State Supreme Court ordered a new trial. The justices said one key issue in the dispute — who had control over the stadium designs — needed to be fully explored by a jury.

Centerplan and DoNo Hartford also sought to regain control over the land around the ballpark. That was the argument that led to last week’s ruling that any decision would have to wait until after the second trial.

Salvatore said last week he is committed to Hartford for the “long haul” and is embarking on other projects in the city. Those include the conversion of the top floors of the Hilton Hartford hotel into apartments. There also is speculation that he might be interested in acquiring and developing former Rensselaer campus near North Crossing, which is for sale. Salvatore has declined to comment.

Louis R. Pepe, an attorney for Centerplan and DoNo Hartford, said last week the city was well aware of the risks of moving ahead while there was an appeal pending. His clients competed for the right to develop the ballpark and the land around it “and they are just as willing, ready and able to develop them today as they were then,” Pepe said.

Bronin, who is not running for reelection in November, said he believes the city will emerge victorious in the second trial.