CT Construction Digest Wednesday February 26, 2025
CT hospital tears down old parking garage. $100M replacement being reshaped with numerous services.
Kenneth R. Gosselin
An aging hospital parking garage now is being torn down —making way for a replacement that could triple the number of spaces in the next two years — but the hospital said its plans go well beyond a place to park vehicles.
“It isn’t a parking garage, per se,” Keith Grant, Hartford Hospital’s vice president of operations, said. “We’re looking at it as an arrival center. One of the complaints that patients have — and rightfully so — when you come to the hospital for whatever reason — being stressed, knowing what needs to be done — you really want that experience to be better.”
“Currently we’re unable to provide an optimized experience based on the footprint that we have now,” Grant said.
The new structure — estimated to cost $100 million — also would include restaurants, shops and other services sought by patients and visitors. Those amenities would be open to the public, adding more options that are now few in the surrounding neighborhood. Eventually, there also could be a conference center, Grant said.
The hospital also plans to connect the new structure directly to the hospital’s Jefferson Building by way of a pedestrian bridge, Grant said.
The arrival center is part of a massive, master plan by the hospital’s parent, Hartford HealthCare, to invest $1 billion in the next decade in its flagship campus in Hartford. Although components of the plan are evolving, some could include a cancer care center, emergency department expansion or a new patient tower.
The hospital said it was too “premature” to comment on other potential components of the master plan.
The investment is aimed, Hartford HealthCare has said, to make the hospital a “global destination for health care.”
The 500-plus parking space garage now being demolished, at the corner of Jefferson and Seymour streets, was formerly used by hospital employees.
The new structure will be used by both employees and the public and would be built in two phases. The first phase is expected to break ground soon after the completion of demolition, expected by the end of March. About 1,000 parking spaces would be created by mid-2026 and the potential for a second phase of up to 700 spaces.
Construction of the second phase depends on the hospital acquiring property at the corner of Jefferson and Washington streets where there is now a Mobil gas station. Grant said negotiations are ongoing, but declined further comment.
If the new arrival center were fully constructed — possibly by mid-2027 — it would stretch the full block along the south side of Jefferson Street between Seymour and Washington streets.
Grant said the planning for the demolition of the existing garage has been extensive, minimizing the effects of noise and dust on the surrounding neighborhood.
The work also is near historic buildings on the north side of Jefferson.
One of those is the Levi Felt House at 142 Jefferson St. built circa 1879 for an executive of the Travelers Insurance company. The Queen Anne-style home — singled out as one of the most notable properties when the Jefferson-Seymour National Historic District was formed in 1979 — is owned by the hospital and is being renovated for administrative offices.
Grant said it could be occupied by the end of the year.
Nearby, at the corner of Jefferson and Washington streets, a deteriorating, 1920s apartment building is slated to be incorporated into an $80 million medical office building. The facades of the apartment building and an adjacent structure on Jefferson would be used for the project.
An initial push by the hospital to tear down the apartment met with resistance from the neighborhood, concerned about the loss of another building that helped define the area’s architectural history.
Construction on the project could begin in the summer of 2025 and be completed by early 2027. The new medical building is expected to be used for community-health services such as dialysis, dental and oral surgery, specialty clinics, a food pharmacy and a diabetes life center. There also could be access to social workers and an expansion of the rooftop gardens that exist elsewhere on the hospital campus.
Meanwhile, Connecticut Children’s, which shares a campus with Hartford Hospital, is nearly two years into construction on a $280 million addition to its hospital. The addition, expected to be finished by the end of 2025, will be connected by a skywalk to a $47 million parking garage across Washington Street. The parking garage is now under construction.
Lawmaker in Conn. Proposes Widening I-84 to Reduce Traffic Congestion Between Two Cities
Conn. State Rep. Mitch Bolinsky is no stranger to traffic on Interstate 84 in his state.
He knows the bottlenecks along the route from his home to the State Capitol in Hartford, including places where traffic merges in what he deems a chaotic or unsafe way, leading to frequent accidents. He knows he is not alone in being frustrated at the situation.
"I experience it every day," Bolinsky said. "But the most important thing is, I hear [it] from the constituents every day."
As a result, Bolinsky has proposed a possible solution by submitting a bill calling for the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) to study building an additional traffic lane, both eastbound and westbound, along more than 30 mi. of I-84, from Exit 7 in Danbury through Exit 20 in Waterbury.
"The economic future of Connecticut is tied to our transportation system," he told CT Insider. "If we don't have the capacity to handle the traffic that's flowing through here, it's going to find another way."
Though the bill, which has been referred to the legislature's Transportation Committee, is not likely to pass, Bolinsky said his primary goal is to "start some conversation" around the primary question: Would adding a lane to the highway actually reduce traffic?
Research has shown that adding lanes does relieve congestion in the short-term, as one would expect. Within a few years, though, studies show that expanded highways typically attract more cars, which leads to increased traffic once again.
This principle, known as "induced demand," has led some advocates and policymakers to oppose adding lanes to roads as a way of mitigating traffic. As they see it, making highways wider costs enormous sums of money without meaningfully reducing congestion.
"It doesn't work," said Jay Stange, Transport Hartford coordinator of the Center for Latino Progress. "Inevitably, that extra capacity draws additional interest in using [the highway] until eventually that's full and you end up with a 20-lane interstate with 10 lanes going in either direction."
Stange lamented that I-84 cuts through Connecticut's cities and expressed hope the state would move away from its reliance on highways as part of its near- and long-term development plans.
Still, fears over induced demand haven't stopped highway expansion projects nationwide, from Texas to New England, according to CT Insider.
Could More Transit-Related Projects Be the Answer?
Bolinsky noted that in his state, I-84 in western Conn. has been barely upgraded in decades, and it is not sustainable to have just two lanes in each direction. That contrasts with segments of the freeway east of Waterbury that have three lanes or more heading to and from Hartford.
"The backups are pretty monumental," he said of the location.
A spokesperson for CTDOT pointed out that the state recently completed a $223 million project to upgrade the interchange between I-84 and Connecticut Highway 8 in Waterbury — an area of exits and ramps known locally as the "mixmaster" — and is currently exploring options to reduce congestion in the Danbury area.
Stange argues the best way to alleviate traffic on congested highways is to build a society less reliant on cars, by such measures as improving public transit options and building more housing near train stations. This would additionally provide environmental benefits, he said, such as reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
"Everybody is now stuck driving in a car, often by themselves, everywhere they go," Stange said. "And if you try and change the system by adding extra pavement, it's really a zero-sum game. It's impossible."
Bolinsky also has proposed other pieces of transit-related legislation this session, including a bill that would increase the use of automated traffic enforcement on highways and another that would bar GPS devices from detouring drivers toward local roads.
CT Insider also reported that the Connecticut Legislature's Transportation Committee will consider several bills during the current session, including proposals to fully restore service on the Shore Line East rail line, reform laws around towing practices and allow high school students to access public transportation more easily.
Naugatuck Valley officials reject DOT request to delay highway project
WATERBURY — Fed up by years of delay, the board of the 19-town Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments has sent a message to state transportation planners, voting to oppose another postponement of an estimated $35 million project to reconstruct the interchange of Route 63, Route 64 and Interstate 84 on the Waterbury-Middlebury line.
The unanimous vote Feb. 21 adopted an unusual staff recommendation to reject a proposal from the state Department of Transportation to remove the long-planned project from its latest three-year capital plan. Generally, past requests to amend these transportation improvement plans have been accommodated. The frustrations over this project's timeline made this time different.
The DOT proposed to move the interchange reconstruction project from the current fiscal year's construction list to some future year to be determined, pushing it out of a current short-term capital plan. Transportation planners have determined updated traffic volume data is required for the final design.
Construction near Exit 17 of Interstate 84
The Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments rejected a state request to delay a project to reconstruct the interchange of Route 63, Route 64 and Interstate 84 on the Middlebury-Waterbury line.
The vote was more of a delaying action and a protest because it only stops the DOT from immediately pushing back the project, but does not mean the project will be moving forward any time soon. The vote to reject primarily registered the frustrations of the member towns and staff of the Naugatuck Valley Regional Council of Governments, perhaps none more than long-time Middlebury First Selectman Ed St. John.
"I've been dealing with this project since 1976," said St. John, the first selectmen for more than 40 years. "This is one project that I'm sure is going to outlive me. I have outlived some of the others, but this one is going to be just the opposite. I'm so frustrated with this whole thing. It is just kick the can down the road, kick the can down the road, and it just keeps going on and on and on and on, and it goes nowhere."
Rick Dunne and Rich Donovan, the executive director and the transportation planning director for the Naugatuck Valley COG, explained the rejection of the DOT request will provide additional time to get more information from DOT on the project's timeline.
"This project has been going on for a very long time and it has been delayed many times so it may not be a terrible idea to show that we are frustrated about the ongoing delays and would like to see a real commitment to when this project would move forward," Donovan said.
The project involves widening sections of Routes 63 and 64, constructing a new roadway to connect Chase Parkway with Route 63 and a multiuse trail to connect the Middlebury Greenway, widening an I-84 off-ramp to Chase Parkway, and altering and adding traffic lights. There is also a new commuter parking lot planned. Its purpose is to address safety and operational concerns associated with traffic delays and crashes with the interchange zone.
The estimated construction cost is $35 million, but there is no confirmed funding, according to the DOT capital plan.
Donovan reported construction was scheduled to start in the current 2025 fiscal year, but the DOT has determined that updated traffic volume and turning movement data is required before the project can move to final design. As a result, the department is proposing to push the project out of the current three-year capital plan to be included in some future one.
Donovan explained this would be the third time that the interchange project has been shuffled in and out of a short-term capital plan. He said while there is no objection to the DOT getting updated traffic volume and pattern data, the concern is that there is no commitment for when the project will move forward.
The motion to reject the DOT proposal requested further collaboration with DOT regarding the project timeline and scope.
"Hopefully, we'll get a response," Dunne said.
Some federal funds are still frozen. Here’s what builders can do
Uncertainty continues to plague infrastructure and climate projects as federal agencies defy court orders telling them to disburse funding. Federal contractors are navigating the fallout — including paused and terminated work — as Trump’s directive to halt federal money continues to be challenged in court.
President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 “Unleashing American Energy” order told federal agencies to stop paying out Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act funds. Although courts halted the directive, federal agencies have continued to implement the freeze while they review projects for compliance with the new administration’s agenda.
For example, the Washington DOT has seen money halted for bridge work and court-mandated culvert replacement efforts, among other programs, the Washington State Standard reported.
In a high-profile case, newly appointed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ordered a review of the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s compliance with the terms of some of its federal agreements, Mass Transit reported, imperiling $4 billion in federal funding for the project.
A federal judge heard arguments on Feb. 21 about whether to further block the Trump administration from freezing trillions of dollars in federal grants and other spending, in a lawsuit brought by 22 attorneys general, NPR reported.
Agencies defy orders to dole out funds
Two lawsuits blocked an Office of Management and Budget memo implementing Trump’s order via temporary restraining order on Jan. 29. However, federal agencies have continued to implement the freeze, arguing the temporary restraining order rulings have a limited scope, said Jackie Unger, partner and Government Contracts Group lead at Washington, D.C.-based law firm PilieroMazza, during a Feb. 12 webinar.
“Agencies continue to freeze funds, they’ve refused to resume disbursement of appropriated funds and they’ve continued to issue stop work orders and terminate contracts,” Unger said.
The judge in the Feb. 21 case subsequently said that the agencies’ actions violated his temporary restraining order and clarified the scope, NBC reported, explaining that it prohibits all freezes in obligated funding based on OMB’s memo and Trump’s executive order.
“The clarification may give contractors the ability to challenge agency actions in response to the executive orders, if they’re seeing impacts from those,” Unger said.
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The government has appealed the temporary restraining orders up to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, per Unger, but the courts have so far rejected requests for an immediate stay, which would have allowed the funding freeze to go back into effect. As the issue works its way through the legal system, the precise implications of Trump’s order may not be fully understood for months.
In the meantime, here are some steps that civil contractors can take if they are facing orders to stop work.
Dealing with stop work orders
A federal contracting officer can tell contractors via written order to stop work at any time, typically under the Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.242-15 clause, for a 90-day window, said Lauren Brier, partner at PilieroMazza, in the webinar. The officer can extend that period, but they must have reasonable justification and it has to be agreed upon by both parties, so contractors can push back.
Contractors are entitled to standby costs, which are overhead or costs that directly result from the stop work order, but they must also mitigate the situation by furloughing employees, communicating on lease costs and demobilization on jobsites, for example.
“Once a stop work order is issued, the contractor has an immediate duty to mitigate costs,” Brier said. “You can’t just have people sitting on your payroll for the 90-day period and expect the government to make that payment.”
The contracting officer is required to make an equitable adjustment in the delivery schedule and contract price, Brier said. Requests for equitable adjustment are typically due within 30 days of the lift of the stoppage and may include items such as attorney’s fees, administrative costs and internal costs.
However, “there’s no regulatory requirement for the
government to respond, so they can sit on that,” Brier said.
In light of that potential delay, she offered some best practices for dealing
with stop work orders:
Immediately inform your contracting officer of your intention to file a request for equitable adjustment.
Begin working to mitigate costs and record proof of mitigation.
Document efforts to implement stop work.
Consider filing a claim in lieu of a request for equitable adjustment to ensure timely processing of the cost request.
“Another thing that we are suggesting clients do is when they receive a stop work notice, that they reserve their right to challenge the high-level directive to stop work,” Brier said. “Because a lot of these courts are starting to determine these funding freezes as illegal or unlawful, potentially these stop works that are flowing from these executive orders are similarly unlawful.”
CT's Great Wolf Lodge at Mashantucket to open ahead of schedule, offering special deal
Great Wolf Lodge at Mashantucket is opening a few weeks ahead of schedule on May 9 and is offering a deep discount off a multiple night visit in 2025 in order to celebrate.
“We are excited to open our doors ahead of schedule and give families an opportunity to experience the dynamic and immersive experience offered at our next-generation resort even sooner,” said Henry Tessman, General Manager of Great Wolf Lodge Mashantucket.
Great Wolf Lodge at Mashantucket was initially slated to open on May 23, but will now open a few weeks earlier as construction was ahead of schedule.
To mark the early opening of the 92,000 square-foot water park early, Great Wolf Lodge is offering customers up to 40% off a multiple-night stay at Mashantucket for those who use the promotion code “OPENMAY9” when booking their accommodations. The code will only be valid for the next week until March 2, and the trip must be taken between May 9 and Dec. 31, 2025.
In preparation for Connecticut’s first Great Wolf Lodge opening, the company is hosting hiring events for the 500 jobs created by the new resort and amusement park. Great Wolf is holding a job fair between March 13-26 at the Westgate Plaza, 425 W. Main St., in Norwich.
“As we prepare for our grand opening, we’re eager to build an outstanding team of Pack Members who share our passion for hospitality and creating unforgettable family experiences,” Tessman said.
Located next to Foxwoods Resort Casino, Great Wolf Lodge aims to provide a family-friendly experience in an area known mostly for its adult amusements. The $300 million development includes more than 500 hotel rooms and is expected to generate 500,000 visitors a year.
The water in the park pools is kept at 84 degrees year-round and will feature 13 slides, including one that is unique to Connecticut: the Peacock Plunge. There is also a lazy river and wave pool for those who enjoy getting wet. Several dry activities are being offered, as well, in the Adventure Park. Those include a high ropes course, zip line, and the Great Wolf Lodge’s brand-exclusive Magi Quest game.
There will be several Great Wolf-branded restaurants available along with outside vendors, including Dunkin'. Build-a-Bear will also have a location in the resort with Great Wolf Lodge character animals to build.
BROOKFIELD — Whenever it rains, students can't play softball or baseball on the Brookfield High School fields for several days after because of excessive flooding, officials say. 0:06
That could change, however, with help from a state grant the town has just applied for, which, if approved, would go towards a multi-million dollar project to improve field drainage.
The project, which is estimated to cost between $4.2 to $4.5 million, will involve installing new grass as well as artificial turf on both the baseball and softball fields.
At the Feb. 3 Board of Selectmen meeting, when the project was first presented, Greg Dembowski, Brookfield's community development specialist, said while presenting the project that whenever it rains, water "just puddles and sits there ... and the town cancels the games."
The project would also resolve the "critical shortage" of field availability in town, Dembowski wrote in the grant application to the state, portions of which he shared with Hearst Connecticut Media.
The town now has one 90-foot baseball field, he said, which does not have lights.
"This three-phased project will increase this 90-foot field's availability across the board and allow the town to increase usage by a very large margin for playing baseball and softball, and will add an entirely new field for soccer, lacrosse, (and) flag football," he wrote.
The project would also involve adding lighting, turf, grass, fencing, dugouts, irrigation, drainage, benches and bleachers.
Brookfield High won the 2023 Class L state baseball championship, its first title in the sport. The Brookfield High softball team won the 2000 Class M state championship.
The town applied for the grant through the state’s Small Town Economic Assistance Program, for $775,00, which would pay for the first phase of the project.
If the state approves the grant, the town offered to fund 30 percent, or $230,000, and the state would pay for the remaining $545,000.
The grant award will be announced April 3 on the state Office of Policy and Management website. If the town is awarded the grant, the first phase would involve putting up poles and lights, and would be completed in September. The entire project would be complete in 2027.
'Immediate' impact
“The STEAP grant is a very competitive grant. (116) towns are eligible to apply for up to $1 million. The STEAP grant process encourages but does not require matching funds from the towns,” Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn told Hearst Connecticut Media.
"The town has a good track record being awarded STEAP grants," Dembowski said. "We have received six of them over the past eight years.
"Staff, leaders of various municipal boards, youth group presidents and the high school athletic director put in a lot of effort to get us to the point where we have developed a vision for the Brookfield High School sports complex," he said.
The only time play would be disrupted during the project's construction is during phase 2, when the turf field is put in. During the time, the town may have to play on fields in other towns, Dembowski said.
The impact of the project would be “immediate” by extending playing time into the evening hours since 56 light fixtures would be installed, Dembowski said on the application.
He said lighting would allow hundreds of additional hours of field usage, increase security and safety for athletes and spectators, as well as help reduce players' injury.
He said the community would benefit by generating revenue from additional field rentals and attracting players and their families from the region to tournaments.
Dunn said the town has funding for the project from the Candlewood Lake Elementary School project and its Capital Projects Fund that was included in the town's budget for fields.
"We lost two fields when we did the CLES project and as part of that project, $820,000 was set aside in the CLES budget to take the portables down at Whisconier School and address the needs for playing fields," he said.
Dunn said if the town doesn’t get awarded the STEAP grant, it would look at other options and choose those that make the most sense for meeting the needs of its players and residents.