CT Construction Digest Wednesday April 26, 2023
Eversource Energy launches $12 million in Waterbury electric grid updates
Eversource Energy has started work on a $12 million upgrade of its distribution network in northern Waterbury, company officials said this week.
The project, which will be rolled out in phases through 2025, got underway earlier this year, according to Mitch Gross, an Eversource spokesman. The first phase of the project will be completed by the end of August, with work being done Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. – weather permitting.
Work is currently being done in a section of Waterbury that includes Bishop, Bronson, Burton, Cooke, Pearl, Ridgewood, Waterville and Wyman streets. Customers may experience short power interruptions at times during the course of the project so crews can safely perform the work. but will be notified in advance by Eversource officials.
The work being done this year includes installing nearly 150 stronger, thicker utility poles, stringing more than three miles of overhead electric lines, that are designed to better withstand extreme weather, Gross said. Other improvements include adding seven high-voltage circuit breakers that detect and limit power interruptions.
"Our engineers are constantly looking at the system and one of the factors they look at is the history of outages in a given area," Gross said. The upgrades for the 2024 and 2025 construction season are still in the planning process, he said.
By doing the upgrades and a reconfiguration of electric circuits, Eversource will be able to retire and eventually remove a 65-year-old substation that will no longer be needed.
Steve Sullivan, president of Eversource's Connecticut electric operations, said the project "will create several ‘automatic zones,' which are areas with equipment that can quickly reroute power if there is a problem."
Eversource has 52,332 customers in Waterbury.
Hartford-based Noble Energy has submitted land-use applications to build a gas station with a convenience store, fast food restaurant, ice cream shop and car wash at the corner of Governor and Prospect streets in East Hartford.
The proposal requires special permit approvals and a site plan from the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, as well as approval from the Inland Wetlands and Environment Commission. The proposal is on the April 25 agenda for the wetlands commission.
A proposed 8,437-square-foot building would host a convenience store, fast food restaurant, ice cream shop, storage, bathrooms and common space. The location would include eight pumping stations and a 3,506-square-foot car wash.
The application was submitted by Noble Energy Real Estate Holdings LLC, which shares a Hartford address with Noble Energy.
The property currently hosts a 14,155-square-foot cinder block and concrete manufacturing building completed in 1955, and a 5,000-square-foot cinder block and concrete storage building dating to 1963. It sits on one edge of a commercial and industrial area just off Interstate 84, on a corner that begins transitioning into a residential area.
The site is currently owned by JAKIRAM LLC, which shares a Plantsville address with storage systems and materials handling equipment vendor A&A Surplus.
New condos coming to edge of Batterson Park
A mix of two- and three-bedroom condominiums are about to be built in New Britain near the southwestern edge of Batterson Park.
The wooded field behind Frisbie’s Dairy Barn along Farmington Avenue will be cleared this summer, and new housing will be built starting later in the year and continuing through late 2024, according to property owner and developer Michael Frisbie.
The 22 new units will be the city’s first new large-scale or moderate-scale condominium project in years. New Britain is in the midst of an unprecedented wave of new apartment construction, but the condo market has been unchanged.
“This is adding to our housing stock, providing a little more of a variety beyond just the (new) apartments being built,” Jack Benjamin, the city’s director of planning and development, said Tuesday at a groundbreaking for the project. “There will be condominiums, town home style, here.”
Called Alexander Place at Batterson Park, the new development should be completed in a year to a year and a half, Frisbie said Tuesday.
Based on the economy this month, the two-bedroom condos will be priced from the mid-$200,000 range to the low $300,000s, while the three-bedroom units will range from the mid-$300,000s to the high $300,000s, Frisbie said.
But as with most developers in this time of construction inflation, economic uncertainty and supply chain disruptions, he acknowledged that could change in the next year. The company will build each unit at 2,300 square feet, he said, and will determine from market reaction how many will be configured with two bedrooms and how many with three.
Nine years ago, Frisbie built the Frisbie Dairy Barn and Noble gas station on the corner of Farmington Avenue and Alexander Road. He and his business partner, Abdul Tammo, have since built nine other Noble service stations around the state, and envision seven more this year.
As part of that small commercial complex, Frisbie is clearing a small parcel between the ice cream shop and gas station; it will become a car wash, he said.
The condo complex will be directly behind the gas station. Noble plans a new road with both ends on Alexander that will curve through the property and serve the driveway of each condo.
The undeveloped condo land is part of the corner parcel that Noble bought at Farmington and Alexander for $1.6 million in 2014.
“We’ve been talking a lot lately about the transformation our city is undergoing and the way we’re purposefully creating opportunities for growth in every single neighborhood,” Mayor Erin Stewart said at the ceremony. “I keep saying we’re rebuilding our city block by block.
“Alexander Place at Batterson Park will give those looking to live here in New Britain a unique opportunity to purchase their own beautiful home in a beautiful area of our city,” she said.
Stewart said she thinks the units will appeal to single, young people as well as young families who want to own but don’t want the maintenance demands of a single-family house. Older residents who want to downsize and get away from yard maintenance could also be buyers, she said.
“With the apartments that we’re adding to our downtown, we need somewhere for people to graduate to, have homeownership. It’s a very common theme I hear, ‘Do you have any more condos?’ There’s going to be more options than Brittany Farms,” Stewart said, referring to the large condo complex about 2 miles to the northeast.