The City Council on Monday started a process to discontinue a portion of Lawler Lane in a move that could help attract the first development project to the new Occum Industrial Center. The council considered a resolution to discontinue 1,500 feet of Lawler Lane where land for the Occum Industrial Center lies on both sides of the road. The entire stretch of road proposed for closure is abutted by the Occum Industrial Center, owned by the Norwich Community Development Corp. Abutting properties on either end of the closed portion would have nearby outlets ― Canterbury Turnpike to the south and Scotland Road to the north. Development on the industrial park land would not use Lawler Lane at all, Salomone said, but would exclusively use the new industrial park access road that will run from Route 97 near Interstate 395, Exit 18. The industrial park road, funded by $11.4 million in state grants, is planned to end at the Lawler Lane industrial park property.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20240805/proposed-road-closure-could-lead-to-first-development-in-new-norwich-industrial-center/

The fourth floor of Danbury High School’s C Wing was an active construction zone late Thursday morning. They are more than a month into a multimillion-dollar project that represents the first effort to overhaul some of the school’s science laboratories in more than 60 years. The project calls for the overhaul of 18 science labs, 12 prep rooms and two offices, as well as four workrooms and storage rooms — nearly 29,000 square feet of space. The work will be completed over two summers. The first stage, in the the chemistry labs on the fourth floor, will be completed later this month. Next summer, the second phase, on the fifth floor, will be tackled. The first phase, a more than $5 million undertaking, is now underway, Iadarola said.

https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/danbury-high-school-science-lab-renovation-19604966.php

Kimberly Glassman, director of the Foundation for Fair Contracting of Connecticut, which monitors public works projects to ensure compliance with state laws, said that worker misclassification — for example, classifying a worker as an independent contractor instead of as a salaried employee who would earn benefits — along with lack of workers’ compensation and not paying fringe benefits are ways that employers try to increase their profits. “They are very stealth at this. They have companies and lawyers and insurance companies that are showing them how to circumvent these laws. Some of these loopholes are legal, some of them aren’t, but they are very astute at it,” said Glassman, who said that they are monitoring 60 to 70 construction projects at a given time. While her organization can’t conduct audits, they do a lot of their investigations by combing through documents they receive via Freedom of Information Act requests. In addition to advocating for more wage investigators, she also said that protecting and expanding standards for prevailing wages, licensing, apprenticeships and the bidding process is a focus of the organization at the legislative level. “By and large, we’re talking about low-wage workers or middle-class workers who are just trying to get by and take care of themselves and their families,” said Glassman.

Wage theft complaint backlog grows, but Dept. of Labor lacks staff

One of the last dominos needed to kick off a $145 million renovation of downtown Hartford’s XL Center is expected to fall Aug. 8, as the state Bond Commission takes up a request to borrow $118 million to fund the project. With this added to $27 million previously approved by the bond commission, the Capital Region Development Authority expects to have enough to complete a large program of repairs and renovations at the roughly 50-year-old, 16,000-seat arena in downtown Hartford. The commission will be asked to sign off on more than $1 billion in bonds on Aug. 8, including funding for transportation projects, environmental cleanups, housing development and various other initiatives. The CRDA, which manages the arena, has negotiated an agreement that would have venue operator Oak View Group pay $20 million toward the renovation. In return, OVG gets a 20-year contract to manage the facility and will keep the first $4 million in annual profits.

Bond Commission to take up $118M funding request for XL Center renovation and more

The latest investment in West Hartford’s New Park Avenue corridor will create nearly 200 new homes between two housing developments. Both the Elmwood Lofts — a 117 unit mixed-use development at the former Puritan Furniture site — and The Jayden — a 70 unit mixed-use development at 579 New Park Ave. — have been given administrative approval to move forward, said Todd Dumais, West Hartford’s town planner. The Elmwood Lofts development was first announced in January of 2022 when the state awarded the project a nearly $1 million Brownfield Remediation grant to help clean the site. Dumais said the Elmwood Lofts received a second approval in June after developers, led by Sami Abunasra, refined their plans as they prepared construction-ready documents. Dumais said they decreased their total unit count from 150 to 117. The project will likely include 20 percent of its units as affordable housing.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/westhartford/article/west-hartford-ct-elmwood-lofts-new-park-housing-19609866.php

Dominion Energy is exploring the possibility of connecting a data center directly to a nuclear plant in Connecticut, as the tech sector hunts for carbon-free electricity to power artificial intelligence applications. The Millstone Power Station in Waterford, Connecticut, provides more than 90% of the Nutmeg State’s carbon-free power and generates enough electricity for nearly two million homes annually, according to Dominion. Power demand from data centers is surging as tech companies build larger and larger facilities to support increased use of artificial intelligence. The demand from individual data centers has soared from 30 megawatts historically to as much as several gigawatts today, Blue said on Dominion’s first-quarter earnings call in May. A gigawatt of power is equivalent to the capacity of an average nuclear reactor in the U.S.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/01/dominion-looking-to-connect-data-center-to-connecticut-nuclear-plant.html#:~:text=Dominion%20Energy%20looking%20at%20connecting%20data%20center%20directly%20to%20Connecticut%20nuclear%20plant,-Published%20Thu%2C%20Aug&text=Dominion%20Energy%20would%20consider%20co,of%20Connecticut’s%20carbon%2Dfree%20power.

Spinnaker Real Estate Partners of South Norwalk plans to develop parking lots that surround the former state offices in downtown Hartford into two apartment buildings, adding another 239 apartments and storefront retail space just south of Bushnell Park. The conversion of 55 Elm St. and an annex — now in its final stages — is adding 160 rentals, contributing to a boom of apartment construction long-envisioned for around the park. Spinnaker is seeking a total of $16 million in state taxpayer-backed, low-cost loans from the Capital Region Development Authority. Of the total, $6.5 million would come from a repayment to CRDA from financing on 55 Elm, recently renamed “The 55 Elm Club.” The projects still must clear approvals from CRDA and the city. Construction could get underway in the second half of 2025.

Developer completing one large CT apartment project ready to move on to next even bigger phase

The Zoning Board unanimously approved the construction of 26 townhomes in the Glenbrook area on Hope Street on land currently the site of a single-family home and the former Haitian American Community Center. To make way for the new units, the home, detached garage, large driveway and a former church used as the community center will be demolished. The Planning Board in June 2023 approved a change to the city’s master plan — which guides the city’s approach to development for 10 years — to allow the project to move forward. Ravi Ahuja, architect for the project, argued the buildings were technically two-and-a-half stories tall because the garage was considered a basement and didn’t count toward the building’s height, in part because the back yards, creating by filling in the space between the backsides of the units, were higher than the roads among the townhomes and came close to the garage’s ceiling. Stamford Land Use Bureau Chief Ralph Blessing disagreed at the time, saying the filling couldn’t be used to determine how tall a building was. He instead said he wanted Zoning Enforcement officials to take a look at the proposed development and make a determination.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/stamford-hope-street-townhomes-haitian-19609814.php

The $100 million redevelopment to turn the vacant former Red Lion Hotel at 100 Berlin Road into a multi-use complex called the Lord Cromwell featuring commercial businesses, living spaces, a high-end restaurant and more continues despite no apparent activity at the site. The goal is to replace the dilapidated building with at least 274 housing units, related amenities and some 30,000 square feet of retail space, Chris Reilly, the president of Lexington Partners in Hartford, told town officials in December. Attorney Peter Alter of Alter & Pearson in Glastonbury represents the developer. He told Town Council members at a meeting in October that demolition of the building and environmental cleanup of the site is expected to take a year. That portion is estimated to cost more than $4 million, he said. In December, Alter told officials that the anticipated completion date will be some time in 2027.

https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/cromwell-hotel-redevelopment-route-372-19607148.php

More than 60% of likely Connecticut voters would modify the state’s savings programs to spend more on human services, health care and education while still paying down state pension debt faster than the required pace, according to a new poll released Wednesday from private, nonprofit social service agencies. The survey, conducted by San Francisco-based Change Research, also found 68% of likely voters support scaling back state savings programs to boost funding for the community-based nonprofits that deliver the bulk of state-sponsored social services for people with disabilities and patients struggling with addiction or mental illness. The chief engine of those surpluses is a program that allows lawmakers to spend only a portion of quarterly income and business tax receipts on the assumption those revenues fluctuate too much year-by-year. But critics say this “volatility adjustment” is calibrated too poorly and takes a huge chunk of funding out of the budget every year.

Poll: 63% of voters want CT to save less, spend more on services