The Downtown Manchester Improvements Project is billed as a comprehensive redesign of the Main Street corridor that would enhance safety for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians while smoothing out the flow of traffic. As for how to pay for its new Main Street, estimated in February to cost between $10 million and $15 million, Manchester hopes that the state and federal governments will foot much of the bill. The town received $7.5 million from the state Department of Economic Development in January, and has also lined up $875,000 in federal community project funding. On Tuesday night, the Board of Directors unanimously approved an application to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s “Safe Streets and Roads for All” grant program that is expected to cover the remainder if awarded.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/journalinquirer/article/ct-manchester-main-street-streetscape-grant-19448363.php

A planned cannabis cultivation facility in East Hartford has received a big financial boost from a real estate trust that is investing $16 million into the project, the company announced this week. C3 Industries Inc., a Michigan-based multi-state cannabis company building a cultivation facility in East Hartford, recently took on a $16 million investment from real estate capital provider NewLake Capital Partners, which is based in New Canaan. The funding includes $4 million for the acquisition of a 58,500 square-foot industrial property in East Hartford, and a $12 million construction build out to repurpose the former cold-storage facility into a cannabis grower. C3, founded by brothers Ankur and Vishal Rungta in 2018, was awarded a “Section 149” cultivator license in late 2022, which allows large-scale cultivation sites to locate in areas disproportionately affected by the federal “war on drugs.” The allowable zones under Section 149 are clustered in lower income and urban areas, including East Hartford.

Cannabis cultivator gets $16M investment for planned East Hartford grow facility 

Senate Bill 299 would have required ISO New England, the grid manager for five states in New England, to study the potential impact to the grid of the data center, which would receive power directly from Millstone. It passed the state Senate on Saturday, but the House failed to vote on the bill before the end of its legislative session at midnight Wednesday. Cheeseman and Needleman said there was nothing in the bill that would have killed any data center deals currently on the table, including the host fee agreement Waterford signed with New England Edge last year in which the developer promised to pay a fee of $231 million over 30 years instead of property taxes to construct two, two-story data center buildings on the Millstone property. The location would allow it to buy power directly from Dominion, reducing the cost of power consumed by the data centers.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20240509/waterford-east-lyme-residents-frustrated-by-failure-of-data-center-study-bill/

The University of Connecticut’s effort to create a dormitory for its downtown Hartford branch campus would include nearly $28 million in financial support from the Capital Region Development Authority and a private lender. According to CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth, the plan would create a student dormitory at 64 Pratt St. The six-floor building is an annex to 242 Trumbull St., which was acquired last year by Shelbourne Global Solutions. Shelbourne, based in Brooklyn, New York, is the central business district’s largest office landlord. Shelbourne has partnered with Hartford-based real estate developer and investor Lexington Partners and Hartford-based LAZ Parking to develop the project. The development deal would total $27.9 million, Freimuth said, including a first loan of $10.06 million; $10 million in interim financing provided by the CRDA; $3 million in equity; and approximately $4.9 million in city and state grants.

CRDA’s Freimuth: UConn dorm project would be transformative to downtown Hartford

Elected officials have authorized the signing of an agreement to redevelop the so-called “dark side” of the Broad Street Parkade with a mixture of residential and commercial property. The decision is the first major public-facing action taken on the project since July, when the town spent $2 million to settle a lawsuit with a previously selected developer. Under the new contract, Texas-based developer Anthony Properties hopes to raise $100 million from private investors to build around 300 units of market-rate housing, supported by amenities including a fitness center and swimming pool, and two as-of-yet undetermined commercial sites. Town officials anticipate that Anthony Properties will begin construction in 2025, potentially split into two “phases” based on project financing. Each phase would include a minimum of 150 housing units, with the first phase including infrastructure improvements such as development of an East Coast Greenway connection.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/journalinquirer/article/ct-manchester-broad-street-parkade-contract-19441340.php

The City Council on Tuesday agreed to terms of a $1 million federal grant to study upgrades to the East Ditch’s 100-year-old infrastructure and stop the flooding that damages properties, closes roads and traps people in buildings. The East Ditch upgrade, which could cost as much as $80 million, is not to be confused with another federally funded flood control study of the city’s so-called upper Still River corridor – from Rose Street to Lake Kenosia on the west side. That upper Still River corridor study, funded by the Army Corps of Engineers, will look at ways to align snarls in the Still River to improve its hydraulics, because impediments in the river’s flow causes water to flood over its banks. In the downtown’s East Ditch, a drainage area from south Main Street to South Street, and from Main Street to Town Hill Avenue, including Keeler Street, Center Street, State Street and Park Place, the hope is to document a concrete plan to upgrade a drainage system that Iadarola called “substantially undersized.”

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/danbury-undersized-drain-system-flood-1m-19446920.php

Beginning next month, work will begin to remove the remains of the former Waterbury Button factory, moving one step closer to remediating the brownfield site at 835 South Main St. that was destroyed in a fire last year. The Board of Aldermen on Monday unanimously approved a contract with Manafort Bros. for $4.7 million to remove the debris. This includes the approval of a transfer from the Capital Improvement Fund for $1.3 million to cover a shortfall in the contract with the cost of the project increasing after the fire at the abandoned site. Officials had estimated the cost of the project at $3.6 million before the fire occurred on May 27, 2023. Hyde said the project is funded from $3.1 million from the state Department of Economic and Community Development, roughly $210,000 from the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments and $1.3 million from the city’s Capital Improvement Fund.

https://www.rep-am.com/localnews/2024/05/08/cleanup-to-begin-at-former-waterbury-button-factory/

Efforts to revitalize Hartford’s XL Center are set to receive another potential boost after the state legislature’s passage late Tuesday night of a $370 million budget stabilization plan. The bill, which has been greenlit by the House and Senate, increases the maximum amount of funding from $80 million to $125 million that the state and Capital Region Development Authority can contribute to an XL Center renovation. That potential $45 million increase in funding comes just weeks after bids for a $107 million XL Center renovation plan came in nearly $40 million over budget. Gov. Ned Lamont and state lawmakers last year agreed to pump $80 million into an XL Center renovation project, provided venue operator and promoter Oak View Group invest an additional $20 million. Planned renovations include upgrades needed to pull off shows, such as rigging, increased power capacity, new lighting, a new sound system and staging improvements.

Budget stabilization plan boosts state’s potential XL Center renovation investment to $125M

Connecticut lawmakers passed a measure in the final hours of the 2024 legislative session that would roll back a reform that Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration pushed for after the state’s school construction program became the subject of a federal criminal investigation. A single sentence change in a 254-page bond bill will, if signed by the governor, allow construction managers — the companies that oversee most state building projects — to also bid on the subcontracts for school construction. That type of contracting, which is frequently referred to as “self-performance,” was advocated for by Kosta Diamantis, the former director of the state’s school construction office who resigned in the wake of the federal grand jury investigation. The vast majority of school building projects in Connecticut are managed by a small group of construction companies. State lawmakers passed the contracting changes that DAS requested in 2022 as part of an annual budget bill.

https://ctmirror.org/2024/05/08/ct-school-construction-manager-contracts/

One month after the Town Council approved the construction of 322 housing units at one half of the former University of Connecticut campus, developers have restarted the approval process that would allow them to build over 200 more homes across the street. Over the winter, the development group of West Hartford 1 LLC withdrew its plans to redevelop the western portion of the parcel, allowing West Hartford’s various boards, commissions, and Town Council to just focus on the eastern side of the property at 1700 Asylum Ave., which was formerly used as the school’s parking lot. This week, the developers refiled those plans with West Hartford’s Planning and Zoning Commission, where it will first seek a wetlands approval after a future public hearing. Should the project get its wetlands approval, the development would then need to be approved by the Town Council, which would have to vote to rezone the area from single-family to multifamily, while also approving of the commercial aspect of the proposal.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/westhartford/article/west-hartford-ct-uconn-campus-housing-retail-homes-19443596.php