New London celebrates future community center and $2 million in federal funding

Erica Moser

New London ― New London has secured $2 million in federal funding for its future community center, officials announced on a sunny day at the Fort Trumbull site Tuesday.

Mayor Michael Passero said the $2 million addresses a funding gap for the project. While the City Council approved $30 million in bonding for the project, which Passero initially said would cover the cost of the work, the price tag has increased to to $40 million.

Last month, the project was also awarded $7.2 million from the state’s Community Investment Fund, and the state Department of Economic and Community Development allocated $1.8 million for environmental remediation.

A spokesperson for Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., explained that the $2 million was among the earmarks in the federal budget passed in December. This will cover items for programming for low-income residents, such as fitness, audio/visual, and kitchen equipment.

“This is for my families,” said Reona Dyess, executive director of the Drop-In Learning Center, recalling how she spoke in Hartford a decade ago about the need for a community center. The issue inspired her to run for the Board of Education, and while she lost, she successfully ran for the City Council and is now its president.

“By the end of 2024, there will be a first-class, state-of-the-art community recreation center for the city of New London,” Passero said. He added that this “will be the place where we start to resolve some of our health disparities,” as New London will finally have a pool and high school students can have a swim team again.

“The federal government, we’re making a big bet on New London, and we think it’s a pretty safe bet,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

Also speaking at the press conference Tuesday were Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz; Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London; Rep. Christine Conley, D-Groton; Rep. Anthony Nolan, D-New London; city councilors James Burke and Akil Peck; and Felix Reyes, the city’s director of planning and development.

“Driving into New London and seeing almost a dozen cranes, you know that New London is on the move,” Bysiewicz said. “All kinds of wonderful things are happening.”

Amid a two-week congressional recess, Blumenthal and Murphy took Tuesday to tout other things happening in New London: They both visited the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut’s forthcoming Innovation Center on Eugene O’Neill Drive, and Blumenthal also visited Genesys Diagnostics’ future home in New London.

Carlin Construction Company is working on the Innovation Center building, which chamber President and CEO Tony Sheridan expects to be open in June or July.

“The primary purpose of this is to provide a startup spot,” Sheridan said, and the chamber will move its offices there. Josh Posey, the chamber’s business development and operations manager, said the chamber has a soft list of businesses that are interested in office space.

Meanwhile, Genesys Diagnostics is renovating the office complex it purchased at 224-258 Bank St. for lab and office space, and President and CEO Divakar Ahuja expects the phased move from its Montville facility to start in the next month and a half.

“We’ve grown to a point where we really need to design a space for ourselves,” Ahuja said, adding that Genesys is “very much at capacity” in Montville. The company ― which started COVID-19 testing early in the pandemic but also does testing for other diseases, along with genetic testing ― has about 70 employees but plans to add more

Here's why Stamford's Board of Reps denied BLT — the city's largest developer — a $1M state grant

Jared Weber

STAMFORD — The Stamford Board of Representatives took an unusual action Monday, voting to reject a nearly $1 million state grant for environmental remediation on the South End's old contaminated Blickensderfer typewriter site.

The coalition cited a mix of concerns, including spending, corporate subsidies and animosity toward the city's largest developer, Building and Land Technology.

Of the Board’s 40 members, 19 people voted to reject the grant’s authorization. Sixteen representatives voted in favor of it, three abstained and two were absent.

Though the city was the grant's official recipient, the $950,000 was to be transferred to the city’s largest developer, Building and Land Technology, which has plans to clean up toxic chemicals on the property and build there. 

But before BLT could receive the funds, the Board of Representatives had to approve the disbursement.

It became apparent last week that this would be an uphill battle — eight of nine members on the legislative body's Fiscal Committee recommended rejection of the appropriation at their meeting March 27.

BLT owns the 2.5-acre site where the historic building — where portable typewriters were once built — has been vacant for more than 20 years. Sections of the structure have been demolished in recent years as BLT tries to remove toxic PCBs from the underlying soil and groundwater. Per an agreement with state officials, the developer can only demolish parts of the building deemed necessary to rid the property of toxins.

According to the grant proposal, BLT is planning a “mixed-use, transit-oriented development” with about 1,000 apartments and retail space. In total, the development will cost $10.3 million, with BLT covering $9.35 million in construction costs.

Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons and Gov. Ned Lamont announced the grant in January 2022. The funds came from the Department of Economic and Community Development’s Brownfield Remediation Program. In the same cycle, officials awarded $17.9 million in grants across 13 municipalities in an effort to spur private developers into revitalizing disused properties to “generate back many more times the amount of these grants through private investments.”

Funds for the program are allocated in the state budget and approved by the State Bond Commission, DECD spokesperson Jim Watson said in an email.

"It is not common for grants to be rejected after an award is made, but it does occasionally happen," Watson said. Watson did not immediately respond to a follow-up question Tuesday regarding what happens to rejected grant funds.

4, 2023. The Stamford Board of Representatives rejected a nearly $1 million grant for Building and Land Technology to perform brownfield remediation at the old Blickensderfer typewriter lot.

Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media

Compared with last week's committee vote, opposition to the BLT grant was less dominant when the Board opened discussion Monday night. Some fiscal committee members who previously voted against the measure, including committee co-chair Lindsey Miller, D-7, changed their votes to yes.

If the grant was approved, BLT would have been mandated to make 12 percent of the units on site below market rate, Miller said. The city’s requirements mandate that 10 percent of the units in any new multi-family development have below-market-rate rent, though developers can opt to instead pay a “fee-in-lieu” contribution to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

“To me, this comes down to a question of whether we want to step up to the plate and have below-market-rate housing or we do not. So, I’m going to be in favor of spending $950,000 of the state’s money in order to get us an additional 120 units of below-market-rate housing,” Miller said.

Democratic Majority Leader Nina Sherwood, D-8, emphasized that the Stamford Zoning Board presides over conditions such as BMR units on site. She pushed fellow representatives to view the vote instead as a referendum on taxpayer support for BLT’s work — rolling off a list of controversies involving the South End developer in the process.

“To me, the idea that this board has to approve $950,000 to BLT so we make sure that they don’t renege on their already stated intent of putting affordable housing on the site is really a testament to the fact that we don’t trust this entity,” Sherwood said. “This entity has been a bad actor. We have a reason not to trust them.”

BLT spokesperson Nicholas Kyriacou declined to comment Tuesday.

Other voices echoed Sherwood's sentiments, saying Connecticut taxpayers should not be subsidizing BLT’s work. But advocates for the grant noted that the money is already earmarked for the remediation grant program, while arguing that rejecting it doesn't benefit residents.

"As we all know, many people in Hartford, representatives as well as administration, lump Stamford in with other far wealthier, far less diverse communities in lower Fairfield County, and if we turn down this grant, we are giving them ammunition to believe that Stamford doesn’t really need the state’s support," newly appointed Rep. Carl Weinberg, D-20, said.

"This money has been allocated and distributed based off of applications that meet certain criteria," Rep. Daniel Sandford, D-14, said. "Most developers, whenever they see a brownfield, they’re not going to touch it.”

But it was the opposition to the grant that ultimately won. Rep. Bradley Bewkes, R-1, said he felt the decision sends a message to Hartford about the value of such spending programs. He noted that Gov. Ned Lamont announced in December another round of the grant program, awarding $24.6 million across 16 towns and cities.

“As a municipality, we say to everyone else: ‘Hey, we would rather next time you do this that $25 million stays in the pockets of our taxpayers who are struggling,’” Bewkes said.

Sherwood said that the grant, to her, "really has nothing to do with affordable housing."

"This city bends over backwards and outperforms every city on affordable housing, and every time a bad deal comes across the table to us, somebody resurrects the idea that we have to do it because of affordable housing. And it's just a way to make people swallow deals that are bad," Sherwood said.

Big Y market breaks ground in Middletown: 'Get those registers ringing'

Cassandra Day

MIDDLETOWN — Construction on the new $22 million, 52,000-square-foot Big Y World Class Market in the south end of Middletown \officially kicked off this week with a ceremonial groundbreaking.

More than a dozen people involved in the project donned hard hats and gathered for photographs around a large mound of dirt, tossing shovel-fulls of earth to mark the occasion.

The 7.31-acre site has been cleared and soon will be graded to fill the large depression on the land at 850 S. Main St., the location of the former Frontier Communications fleet maintenance facility.

The entrance will face north.

Big Y CEO Charles D’Amour explained the important role supermarkets filled during the pandemic. “It rose to the forefront — I think for everyone — how important a grocery store is to a community,” he said. “It wasn’t just about selling groceries.

“I like to call it the place of the familiar,” he added. “There weren’t many places you could go. We are social beings and having that connection to the community is so, so important.

“As my dad would say, ‘we need to get those registers ringing,’” the CEO said. 

“This is a need that is being met that has existed in Middletown for a long time,” Mayor Ben Florsheim said. “We need more fresh grocers, we need more retail in our South Main Street corridor. … It's an expansion of our tax base, which is wonderful.”

Once opened, the business is expected to add $2 million to the list of taxable properties. 

The family-run, Springfield, Mass.-based grocery store came from humble beginnings, D’Amour said.

“His grandfather and my dad started in a really, really small shop in the midst of the Depression,” D’Amour said, referring to his cousin, Vice President of Real Estate and Development Matt D’Amour. “A two-chair barbershop went in there when they moved next door and needed a bigger space.”

Big Y is big on philanthropy, the CEO told those gathered, including the support of hunger relief efforts and Connecticut Foodshare.

The national grocery chain is expected to create about 150 new jobs (50 full-time and 100 part-time), according to the application.

The state Department of Transportation has recommended that Route 17 / South Main Street be widened at the driveway to provide a dedicated left-turn lane going southbound, and a traffic signal installed.

This will be the largest commercial project the city has seen in a number of years, according to Land Use Director Marek Kozikowski. 

The grocery store is expected to open by late next summer, Matt D’Amour said.

Torrington athletes, coaches work together during construction of new schools

Peter Wallace

TORRINGTON – Spring is a little more meaningful for Torrington High School athletes this year, thanks to the $179 million construction party in their back yard.

The decision to build a new combined middle school/high school on the existing high school site meant relatively minor inconvenience during the indoor winter season, with pylons rising out of the ground last fall where the school’s parking lot and tennis courts used to be.

“Some people complained they had to walk a long way inside the school to reach the gym,” said Athletic Director Mike McKenna, whose job’s complexity increased geometrically while coordinating with Building Committee Co-chairmen Ed Arum and Mario Longobucco behind the scenes.

Pylons rose in the front of the existing building; old school and gym entrances were sealed off; a new parking lot replaced the old softball field in the back.

“I told them that was the only entrance we had left,” said McKenna to fans who objected to a long, winding walk through school hallways to reach the gym one floor down.

Consider that the tip of a growing, beautiful iceberg.

“I’m in awe of how cooperative and unselfish my coaches are in dealing with the changes,” McKenna said. “Everybody is doing the best they can with the construction.”

The cooperation begins with constricted practice facilities.

“It’s a day-by-day thing,” says McKenna.

On a given day last week, the golf team practices its chips on one side of the vast field that remains behind the football field as the future site of multiple baseball, softball and soccer fields for middle school/high school athletes.

Further down, track and field javelin throwers spill over onto the field from the runners practicing on the track surrounding the football/soccer turf.

“We’ll have more space once the golfers go to their country club,” Coach Gaitan Rodriguez kids one of his throwers. “Right now, this is our country club.”

For now, Rodriguez, who normally reigns supreme on the turf as track coach in the spring and football coach in the fall, happily joins other Torrington coaches in ceding parts of his … well, turf.

After the old softball field turned into the school’s only parking lot, the city authorized $20,000 for a temporary softball field nestled between the new parking lot and the track.

“We’ll save at least that much money in bus fees for the away games we’d have had to play for the next two years,” McKenna says. “We can’t play on the town’s other softball fields because they don’t meet CIAC specifications.”

For now, the short right field fence will be Torrington’s own Green Monster jutting up against the parking lot boundary.

“We’ll see lots of home runs, but who’s going to complain about that?” McKenna laughs.

Meanwhile, as the temporary field dries out, the softball and baseball teams schedule practice time on the football field’s turf before baseball moves to its regular playing spot at Fuessenich Park.

The tennis teams aren’t so lucky.

With their on-site courts long gone, eventually to be replaced by four or six high school courts, (“Depending on the budget,” says Co-Chairman Arum), McKenna scrambled for an alternative practice site, scheduling two Parks and Rec courts up the East Main Street hill on Durand Street.

That’s the “easy” part.

“The biggest thing is scheduling transportation,” McKenna says. “The All-Star Bus Company has been busting their butts trying to accommodate us.”

That means the kids hop on a regular school bus route every day to be dropped off at the Durand Street courts, making their own way home after practice. With no home matches available, McKenna and All-Star must come up with 16 buses for an all-away season.

Meanwhile, the earth continues to rumble with construction.

Completion of the combined school itself is scheduled for February, 2025. Then the old building comes down and new athletic facilities begin, including a new high school gym and all the new playing fields, with completion by January, 2026.

“We can use the new middle school gym until the new high school gym is completed,” says McKenna. “We’re hoping that forces us to miss only a volleyball season in the fall and part of a basketball season.”

“All the other fall sports are okay,” said Co-Chairman Longobucco while trying to ease out of his longtime role as girls soccer coach on the turf field.

“We involve (McKenna) in the decisions all the time,” says Arum.

“There’s a lot of inconvenience, but they’re absolutely the best people we could have in charge. They’re sports guys,” said McKenna. “We’re all learning to live with it.”

Torrington’s Bogue Road bridge to reopen today

SLOAN BREWSTER

TORRINGTON – The $2.37 million Bogue Road bridge replacement project is wrapping up and the span, which has been closed for the past three weeks, is slated to reopen today.

The crew was scheduled to finish final touches this morning before the road reopens later in the day, said Paul Kundzins, city engineer and deputy public works director.

On Tuesday afternoon, a crew from O&G Industries of Torrington completed work on the edges of the road beside the bridge.

The project has involved a complete deck replacement, Kundzins said. The deck had reached the end of its life and was replaced with precast concrete panels. The steel girders were not replaced because they remain “in very good shape,” he noted.

The project was awarded to O&G and funded through the city’s payment management program bond. In 2018, residents approved $38 million in roadwork bonding at a referendum. The projects began the following year.

Torrington paid 85% of the cost and, because the span stretches into Harwinton, that town picked up 15%, Kundzins said.

With no viable long-term detour around the bridge, an accelerated replacement meant the contractor had 24 days to remove and replace the entire deck, the engineer said.

Traffic was detoured through Harwinton via Twenty-Four Bumper and Scoville Hill roads, but due to the steep grade of Bogue Road in Harwinton, truck traffic was temporarily detoured through the Naugatuck River Greenway trail. When the trail was built in 2014, it was purposely built with a gravel base that could handle truck traffic in anticipation of the detour, Kundzins said.

Strong School Sale, Tax Break Proposed

LAURA GLESBY

The Elicker administration has submitted a plan to sell Fair Haven’s long-vacant former Strong School property to a developer for $500,000 — with a 20-year tax break — to create 50 affordable apartments.

Roughly five months after Pennrose, a national affordable housing developer, competed for and won the opportunity to redevelop the historic Fair Haven ex-school building, the city has submitted a Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) to the Board of Alders for approval. 

That proposed DLDA is listed as a communication on the agenda for Monday’s latest full Board of Alders meeting. It now heads to an aldermanic committee for review before returning to the full Board of Alders for a final vote.

The submission marks a step forward in Pennrose’s plans to transform the historic yet dilapidated 69 Grand Ave. school building, which has been unused since 2010, into a 50-unit affordable housing complex that preserves elements of the original architecture.

“We’re very excited about it,” said Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller on Monday. ​“It’s nice to see it moving forward finally.”

The developer plans to designate over 3,000 square feet of first-floor ​“community space” where the building’s gymnasium, auditorium, and cafeteria currently sit. Pennrose has pitched the development as explicitly welcoming to LGBTQIA+ residents and artists, with studio space incorporated into the building. Read more about the developer’s vision here.

The proposed DLDA, which can be read in full here, would sell the city-owned Strong School building at 69 Grand Ave. to Pennrose for $500,000, along with the adjacent publicly owned lots at 19 Clinton Ave. and an unnumbered address on Perkins Street.

The agreement would reduce property taxes on the building to $450 per affordable housing unit in the first year after the project is completed; that per-unit tax rate will increase by 3 percent annually until the tax agreement expires after 20 years.

Also in the DLDA is a commitment on Pennrose’s part to rent all of the apartments at below-market rates for 30 years.

Specifically, the DLDA requires Pennrose to reserve:

• 19 percent of the units for tenants earning up to 80 percent of the county’s Area Median Income (AMI). Currently, a one-person household making $63,120 in New Haven County would qualify.

• 25 percent of the units for tenants making up to 60 percent AMI, or $47,340 for a one-person household. 

• 43 percent for tenants earning up to 50 percent AMI, or $39,450 for a one-person household.

• And 13 percent for tenants making to up to 30 percent AMI, $23,670 for a one-person household.

No apartment sizes are specified in the agreement, although previous community presentations by Pennrose have suggested that the units will be a mix of studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms. And the agreement doesn’t require a certain number of parking spaces, although Pennrose has previously proposed 12 onsite parking spaces.

The DLDA specifies that the former Strong School building cannot be used for certain retail operations, including ​“a discount department store, ​‘dollar’ store, firearms and/or ammunition store establishment, charity thrift shop or the like, adult book store or adult entertainment establishment, or massage parlor (provided that therapeutic massage establishments shall be permitted) or any liquor store which sells single beers or hard liquor in containers holding less than one pint.”

Update: The city’s new director of sustainability, Steve Winter, championed several commitments in the DLDA to minimize the environmental impact of the building.

Winter said he’s especially excited about a commitment in the DLDA for the building to meet the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home standards, which could enable the complex to be sustained by renewable energy sources in the future.

The building will operate entirely on electricity, meaning that it won’t necessarily be dependent on fossil fuels. ​“Having buildings that are 100 percent electric is priority number one,” Winter said. ​“As the grids get cleaner, the emissions associated with those buildings will continue to go down.”

The energy efficiency of the building will additionally help cut down on electricity bills, Winter said — especially as Fair Haven becomes an increasingly heat-vulnerable area of the city. ​“Fair Haven is going to be seeing much hotter summers. It’s one of our urban heat island areas, so having a highly efficient building is going to mean a lot,” Winter said.

Pennrose has also agreed to install solar panels on all vacant areas of the roof; implement electric vehicle charging stations at 20 percent of parking spaces on the property; and fund electric vehicle chargers at the nearby New Haven Parking Authority lot at 84 Grand Ave. The agreement also commits to an enclosed bicycle storage area that can fit at least 10 bikes.

City Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre wrote in a March 16 cover letter for this proposal that the estimated total cost of the project is $25 million, and the development should be complete by 2025.

“The Strong School is a truly special building and site and the City is excited to begin this redevelopment and renovation project with Pennrose to deliver more affordable housing to the Fair Haven community,” Eyzaguirre wrote. ​“The project’s added focus on creating community arts spaces will also help highlight the artistic contributions of residents and the cultural vibrancy that truly defines Fair Haven and the City as a whole. Furthermore, engaging Fair Haven residents in a robust public process helps ensure this is a high-quality project responsive to the community’s values, needs and concerns.

The DLDA will next be assigned to an aldermanic committee for review. Meanwhile, Pennrose has also submitted an application to rezone the adjacent Clinton Avenue and Perkins Street lots from a residential RM‑1 zone to a mixed-use BA‑1 zone, to match the regulations governing 69 Grand Ave.

The historic three-story building was constructed in 1916 and has been vacant for more than a decade. Previous attempts to revive the building imploded as the city, and at one point Fair Haven community members, rejected developers’ proposals. This latest submission marks the biggest step forward in years for the potential revival of the Grand Avenue property.