CT Construction Digest Wednesday June 15, 2022
Bethel to demolish old police station as town looks for new use for property
BETHEL — After sitting mostly vacant for several years, the old police station on Plumtrees Road is going to be torn down.
“The building in its present state cannot be economically renovated,” First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker said Tuesday, a week after the Board of Selectmen approved the demolition of the old police station.
“If we wanted to reuse the building, the cost of remediating everything and reconstructing would probably be in the $1.5 million to $2 million range, and that’s simply not economical,” Knickerbocker said.
Instead of trying to salvage the building, he said the idea is to tear it down and re-purpose the land.
The old police station has been largely vacant since fall 2018, when officers moved into their new station on Judd Avenue. The construction company that renovated the nearby elementary schools used the old station as its office.
In addition to approving the building’s demolition, the Board of Selectmen voted during the June 7 meeting to authorize the finance department to put out a request for proposal for remediation and demolition of the facility.
Knickerbocker said the building has a host of issues and will need to be remediated before it’s demolished.
“There are all kinds of hazardous materials in there because it was built in an era when there was a lot of asbestos and PCPs being used,” he said.
There is at least one known issue on the property — the old firing range, which has been deemed a hazardous site by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and locked up for several years due to lead dust.
Several ideas for future use of the site have been floated, such as turning it into a skate park, creating additional parking for the nearby soccer fields and dedicating it to affordable senior housing. Knickerbocker said meetings will be held before anything is decided.
If something were to be constructed on the site following the old police station’s demolition, it would have to be built to “very different specifications,” said Knickerbocker, noting that the old police station building sits partially in a flood zone.
“There’s a wetland next to the station and a creek that runs through there, and the high flood area goes right through the middle of the station,” he said.
Once bids are solicited for remediation and demolition of the site, the next step will be to award a contract for the work.
Knickerbocker said the town plans to seek grants to cover the cost for the work, which could be in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, and the request for proposal should be published within the next week or so.
Eddy Martinez
BRIDGEPORT — While material shortages continue to cause problems for area builders and contractors, they are now facing an additional challenge — the materials they do get may cost much more.
While developers have previously blamed delays on shortages, builders say inflation and gas prices, in addition to a labor shortage, are also becoming issues. These added challenges are forcing developers to spend more money on their projects.
Housing advocates, developers and the Bridgeport Regional Business Council say prospective homeowners and renters will bear the brunt of these costs, further compounding rising housing costs in the area.
A.J. Grasso, a developer who currently has several housing developments under construction in Shelton, Trumbull and Monroe, said he’s struggled to obtain components from appliances to building materials. But now he said inflation is a bigger factor. Gas prices also have shot up since February, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Grasso said inflation is making it more costly to build, as many materials essential for construction, such as PVC pipe, are made using petroleum or natural gas. As a result, homeowners will pay more.
“The gasoline is next to nothing. That’s the least impact on my life is the price of gasoline,” he said. “The price of PVC pipe is probably up 400 percent over a two-year period. So, that’s as big of an issue to me as the supply chain issue. It definitely increased the price of every house and every condominium we’re building.”
BRBC President Dan Onofrio said other developers in the area have either struggled to complete their projects or in some cases, have postponed them due to rising costs.
Not only are developers having a tough time buying materials, they’re also struggling to find the labor to perform the work.
So Grasso’s experiences aren’t out of the norm, he said.
“Those costs get passed on to the consumer. Someone’s got to absorb those costs,” Onofrio said.
Still, while some developers have felt uneasy, they’re in the minority, Onofrio said. Trumbull, he pointed out, is still getting a housing development by Westfield Trumbull mall.
The costs are rising but people still need homes, he said.
“The demand is there,” he said. “They’re going to do the projects, and the economics work out. They’re going to pass that cost on to the renter or the person purchasing the home.”
While Grasso’s project is at least under construction, other developers such as Joe Salemme haven’t even started yet due to cost increases. Salemme previously got approval to build a 105-unit development in Derby during February. Salemme at the time said he expected construction to begin in the spring. It’s now June and shovels still haven’t broken ground yet.
He said costs are to blame.
“What I’m doing today is reviewing costs for construction. They’re high, your piping and everywhere from your site work to your lumber to your sheet rock to your materials are higher than they were just a few years ago,” Salemme said.
The project was originally expected to cost $15 million when Salemme originally asked for an expansion in 2021. But now he said it’s going to cost 20 percent more than when the project was approved.
Salemme said development projects not only factor in costs, but the ability of residents in particular municipalities to shoulder those costs. Residents in municipalities such as Derby, which are working class, are less likely to afford higher rents or prices.
Because of that, Salemme said he’s reconsidering where he can build to recoup those costs.
“If you’re in another part of the state, where you’re going to be taking a risk and cutting in a road and building a home and not going to make the margin, it’s probably not going to be worth it to invest and take that risk,” he said.
But while many prospective home buyers and renters are able to shoulder those added costs, in the short term, the delays and added costs are worsening an already serious housing affordability crisis, according to Desegregate CT, a coalition that advocates for racial, economic, and climate justice in land-use policies.
According to the group’s director, Pete Harrison, homes are already in short supply due to several factors, from local zoning laws restricting the types of homes allowed, to the lingering impacts of the Great Recession, which led to a slowdown in home construction.
“Anecdotally, these supply chain shortages do put pauses on developments, particularly for developments that have affordable housing components to them,” he said. “It’s a really complicated financing apparatus to get those things together. And sometimes they have deadlines and sunsets that could really jeopardize those kinds of developments.”
He said he recently took a walk around the Derby downtown with local officials over the planned apartments in the area. It’s walkable and near the Derby-Shelton Metro North train station. But he said the delays will lead to higher costs.
Harrison speaks from experience.
“I can put myself in that category, because I am looking for housing right now with my wife and baby. And anything that gets delayed, shoots up the price everywhere, and that’s really hard when it’s already very difficult to find housing in certain parts of the state,” he said.
Cromwell residents vote today on construction of new middle school
Emily DiSalvo
CROMWELL — The future of a $58.6 million project to build a new middle school lies in the hands of town residents, who will vote Tuesday in a referendum.
Residents can visit the high school on Donald Harris Drive to cast their votes between noon and 8 p.m.
“It’s older, there’s been some repairs and things,” Town Clerk JoAnn Doyle said. “It’s just time. They want to update it with new classrooms and open hallways and just a more modern school for learning.”
The proposed project contracts Hartford’s Tecton Architects to construct an updated middle school at the same location as the existing building. The project will fix issues with the existing building, which was built in the 1950s, officials said.
A 2016 study of the middle school identified bathrooms that are non-compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, undersized classrooms, asbestos and plumbing and electrical deficiencies.
Students in wheelchairs are unable to access the locker rooms and the auditorium, according to the study. There are no gender-inclusive bathrooms and natural lighting is limited, the study found. Many teachers do not have their own classrooms and instead use carts to move from shared classrooms, the study showed. The building also lacks air conditioning.
The Cromwell Middle School Building Committee assembled multiple presentations about the blueprint and funding of the new school. The committee formed in early 2022 and invested $100,000 to study the possibility of construction.
At a May committee meeting, Cromwell Middle School teacher Jane Sarnowski spoke about the need for a new school.
“We have a building that is literally falling apart,” Sarnowski said.
Sarnowkski said the middle school is a stark contrast to Woodside Intermediate School, which she described as a great learning environment filled with natural light.
“When you walk in here there is some natural light in this hallway here, but be careful of the second to last light fixture because it leaks on rainy days,” Sarnowski said.
The cost to taxpayers will be offset by a series of state grants. The building committee estimates the state will be able to reimburse $22 million of the $58 million total cost. Taxpayers will cover the rest.
Members of the committee declined to comment due to the pending referendum vote.
If approved, the new structure will include an outdoor amphitheater, outdoor reading and lecture area and parking improvements in addition to a modernized building.
The committee hopes to break ground on the new school in the summer or fall of 2023.
Doyle looked back to the last time Cromwell built a new school — the construction of a new high school in 1999. At that time, 2,600 voters turned out for the referendum.
To learn more about the project ahead of the vote, visit the building commission website.
Architects: Overhauling Norwich schools would cost $378 million
Norwich — The proposal to build four new elementary schools on existing school properties plus the former Greeneville School site would cost $378.9 million, with the city’s cost at $149 million after state reimbursement, project architects revealed Tuesday.
The plan is only slightly more costly than renovating the existing aging, cramped elementary schools, but with more equitable, usable education space, officials from the city’s architectural firm told the Board of Education on Tuesday in the Kelly STEAM Magnet School auditorium. Renovations needed at the Teachers’ Memorial Global Studies Middle School would be the costliest, estimated at $99 million, with the city’s cost at $32.1 million.
The School Building Committee in May endorsed the concept for the four new elementary schools, each with about 525 students in preschool through fifth grade. The grounds of the Moriarty Environmental Sciences Magnet School, the John B. Stanton School and Uncas School and property where the Greeneville School had stood were selected as the best sites. The district now has seven elementary schools and one preschool center.
The plan would close the school central office building, moving those offices and adult education into the Huntington School. Wequonnoc School in Taftville would become a virtual learning center. The Thomas Mahan, Veterans’ Memorial, Bishop Early Learning Center and central offices in the former John Mason School all would be discontinued.
The city’s two middle schools — the recently renovated Kelly STEAM Middle School and the extensively renovated Teachers Memorial school — and the post-high school vocational Norwich Transition Academy in the recently renovated Case Street School will remain unchanged.
Officials from the architectural firm Drummey Rosane Anderson Inc., or DRA, which has an office in South Windsor, on Tuesday presented details of their work thus far and a conceptual plan for the restructuring project. Mark Jeffko, project executive for partner firm O&G Industries, provided the cost estimates for each school.
The school board was not asked to endorse the conceptual plan Tuesday. A public informational session is tentatively scheduled for June 28, though a location has not yet been set. The School Building Committee hopes to finalize plans in time to place a referendum question on the ballot at the Nov. 8 election.
Gregory Smolley DRA senior project manager, said the proposed school buildings would be divided internally with “upper elementary” and “lower elementary” wings, with certified staff in those specialty areas. Each would have more playground and athletic field space, he said.
At the 14-acre Moriarty property on Lawler Lane, the proposal would build a new $62.9 million two-story school on the baseball field and nearby property, with the city’s share of the cost at $25.3 million. The existing school would remain open during construction. The design would allow for a bus drop-off loop, improved parking and a better geographical orientation for a new baseball field, Smolley said.
The 24-acre Stanton School site is hampered by wetlands and a piped stream beneath the front of the existing building. Architects proposed a $66 million two-story school built into an existing slope, reserving flat ground for athletic fields and playgrounds. The city’s share of the cost would be $26 million.
Uncas School has 11 acres, smaller than desired, Smolley said, but workable. DRA proposed a $65.4 million new school on the upper flat area behind the current school, straightening and extending Elizabeth Street Extension for better traffic flow. The city’s share would be $26.2 million.
The former Greeneville School site on Golden Street plus city-owned property that extends to Boswell Avenue proved the best new site for the fourth school, with a new road from Golden Street to Boswell Avenue. The new school was estimated at $60.3 million, with the city’s cost at $23.7 million.
The Huntington renovation would cost $25 million, with the city’s share at $15.5 million.
Smolley said without restructuring, projections show population growth trends in the city would lead to more disparities among schools with large enrollments, including Moriarty and Stanton, and those with projected declining enrollments, such as Veterans’ Memorial School.
The proposed new plan would place the city’s schools closer to projected population centers, reducing bus transportation.
Developer proposes mixed-use development in West Hartford Center
Adeveloper is proposing a mixed-use development in West Hartford Center that would include 64 condominiums and up to 20 apartments in newly constructed buildings at the corner of LaSalle and Arapahoe roads.
The project would be constructed on a parking lot behind the Webster Bank building on Lasalle Road, extending to Arapahoe Road.
The developer, Lexham LaSalle Development LLC, hasn’t submitted an application yet, but has presented the concept to the Design Review Advisory Committee, which has offered input.
The plan includes a parking garage and improvements to the streetscape on LaSalle Road, along with demolition of an office at 8 Arapahoe Road. A landscaped pedestrian alleyway with scaled lighting would be built between the Webster Bank building and Union Kitchen.
The developer told the design committee the project will bring a “desirable alternative to the single-family homes that dominate the area,” including four affordable rental units.
Members of the Design and Review Advisory Committee raised concerns that the project was out-of-scale with West Hartford Center, but the developer made changes, including eliminating a ramp to the parking area and adding enhancements to the pedestrian alleyway.
The apartments at 75 LaSalle Road include one-, two- and three-bedroom units spanning three floors, along with street-level retail space.
The developer plans to request incentives through the town’s Special Development District.