Buildings on the campus of the Torrington Company are coming down piece by piece to preserve historic elements for reuse. As of last Thursday, 21 of the 29 structures on the 14-acre property have been slowly razed. To keep the site contained, crews work inside a shell of walls and roadside edifices. Carbone estimates the demolition, which is slightly ahead of schedule, will be done sometime in July, he said. Next week, area homeowners will be notified as crews will be taking a wall near the edge of the site down and will be easing into a building behind it, so people will have to park on the other side of the street. One of the buildings that will stay is a small brick building housing a soil vapor extractor that pumps air into the soil to remove contaminants that come to the surface. There is not a brownfield there, though, the mitigation effort is a precaution, Carbone said. Behind another building is a unit that pumps groundwater for remediation purposes.

https://www.rep-am.com/localnews/2024/03/17/torrington-co-campus-being-razed/

A 4-mile tunnel carved out of bedrock under Hartford’s South End — the city’s very own Big Dig — is now nearly complete and will be a crucial component for eliminating sewer waste that overflows and pollutes Wethersfield Cove, the Connecticut River and other streams especially when there are heavy rainstorms. The Metropolitan District Commission project would seem to come at the right time: Experts say climate change is bringing on more wild and intense swings in weather. But the $279 million tunnel and its pumping system, designed to serve Hartford’s southside, West Hartford, Newington and Wethersfield, won’t go into service until late 2026. The tunnel is an engineering feat that involved burrowing through rock 200 feet below homes and businesses to create a passageway that is 18 feet in diameter and can store 42 million gallons of combined storm and wastewater. The tunneling contractor hired by the MDC — a joint venture of Kenny Construction Co. of Illinois and Obayashi Corp., one of Japan’s largest construction firms — is seeking between $36 million and $100 million in court to cover the cost of the tunnel construction delays, Stone said.

Massive tunnel under CT city for sewer waste is behind schedule. It could cost tens of millions more

Last September, attorney Bill Sweeney stood in front of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission to praise a development deal that would transform three long-vacant Fort Trumbull parcels into two apartment complexes and a six-story parking garage. RCDA notes on its website that its overarching mission, to work with developers on projects that will “complement and support the ongoing redevelopment and revitalization of the Fort Trumbull” area ― as well as nearby downtown ― is “nearly completed.” Talks with developers interested in Fort Trumbull land have moved in fits and starts in the years after the ruling but only gained real momentum in 2022 with the purchase of 4 acres by the Optimus Construction Management company, which plans to build 104 apartments and a hotel with extended-stay suites on the site. That project has not yet broken ground, though. Davis said the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent supply-chain issues interrupted the construction schedule.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20240316/with-fort-trumbull-development-planned-out-what-happens-to-the-rcda/

Reconstruction of the Sherman Street bridge is expected to be completed by August, and Norwich Public Works has its eye on replacing another key local bridge over the Yantic River on New London Turnpike. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn, recently announced that the Senate passed a funding bill with $106 million for projects across the state including $800,000 for the state Department of Transportation to fund design work for the bridge replacement. The grant requires a 20% local match, and Norwich has placed $200,000 in its current budget for the match. Norwich Public Works Director Patrick McLaughlin said the design work will take about two years, and it is too early to say whether the bridge would have to be closed to traffic during the reconstruction, as has been the case on Sherman Street. Both locations are key connector routes between the Norwichtown area and the East Great Plain area. McLaughlin said the Sherman Street bridge project is on schedule and should be completed by late July or early August of this year, in time for the new school year in late August.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20240316/with-new-sherman-st-bridge-nearly-complete-norwich-plans-nl-turnpike-bridge-replacement/

A new piece of state funding in the form of a $1.6 million Community Investment Fund award announced this month, which requires final approval by the state Bond Commission, will enable the museum to fully realize Allyn’s wishes by transforming 12 acres of grounds into an “urban art park,” Quigley said. The park will feature a pedestrian path, pollinator meadow, eco-friendly waterfall and filtration pond, along with a restored entrance lawn and new parking area. Quigley said upgrade work is slated to begin in May or June and be finished by next summer. The museum will remain open during construction. Other master plan improvements, including the construction of 250-seat open-air amphitheater, and a refurbished 9/11 memorial garden, will be tackled later.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20240317/lyman-allyn-museum-grounds-ready-for-4-5m-facelift/

The Old Greenwich School renovation project did not get construction funding last year, so the building committee is trying again — with a more expensive project estimated to cost $44.3 million to build. Originally, the OGS renovation project’s construction cost was estimated to be around $42.7 million, but the delay in approvals has resulted in a nearly $1.5 million increase in the project’s construction because materials now cost more. The new recommended estimate is around $44.3 million, which does not include the $2.086 million in architectural and engineering funding the Board of Estimate and Taxation has approved in past years for the project. If the project gets approved by the BET and RTM, construction is scheduled to begin the summer of 2025. If the project does not get approval from the BET and RTM, Waters said “the project will be delayed another year.”

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/education/article/old-greenwich-school-renovation-cost-increase-18967074.php

Plans for the north end school, which has not yet been officially named, got the go-ahead from local zoning officials this week, marking another step forward for the $90 million project. It will be built on 42 acres at the corner of Jarvis Street and Marion Road, replacing Chapman Elementary and Darcey School. Some PZC members had raised concerns over the lack of sidewalks included in the north end school’s original plans, saying their omission would endanger students forced to walk to the building on a busy street. In response, project officials added sidewalks connecting the school to the surrounding community, Gusenburg said. As part of the project’s approval, officials also agreed that the school district would bus those students who live nearby if sidewalks were not installed, the chair said. Meanwhile, the new, roughly $77 million Norton School, which will replace the existing school of the same name at 414 North Brooksvale Road, still needs to be approved by the Planning and Zoning and Inland Wetlands and Watercourses commissions. But Gusenburg said Wednesday he expected those approvals to come soon. The two school projects still are on track to begin construction in December, officials said. The bidding process for both will occur in the fall, according to Gusenburg.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/cheshire-schools-north-end-norton-approval-18971752.php

Excavators made methodical work knocking down the former Subway headquarters on Thursday, a job expected to take about three weeks. The company moved to nearby Shelton last October. As of Thursday, about 10 percent of the main building was down and a maintenance building was gone, said Andy Howard, a project manager from Scinto’s construction company, which began the site work on March 9. The work was going well, said Howard. Like Shimko, he said he was hopeful about the change. “I can see why some people don’t like us coming in here,” Howard said, “But the building is about 50 years old. It needs replacement or a lot of renovation.”

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/demolition-subway-hq-milford-18979455.php

A project to connect the city’s West Side to the Stamford train station through a pedestrian corridor just got a $17 million federal boost. The plan, known as the “West Side Neighborhood Connector Project,” would create a 12-foot-wide path to fill a 3,000-foot missing gap in the city’s Mill River Greenway network, among other improvements. The project funding was announced this week, along with another $4.8 million in federal dollars for transportation projects in Norwalk, Bridgeport, Hartford, Naugatuck and Western Connecticut. Gov. Ned Lamont said the federal funding would help increase safety and mobility throughout the state.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/stamford-17m-greenway-mill-river-19020059.php

Danish wind energy developer Ørsted and the utility Eversource built a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork Wind 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Montauk Point, New York. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul went to Long Island Thursday to announce that the turbines are delivering clean power to the local electric grid, flipping a massive light switch to “turn on the future.” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was also on hand. Offshore wind is central to both national and state plans to transition to a carbon-free electricity system. With South Fork finished, Ørsted and Eversource are turning their attention to the work they will do offshore beginning this spring for a wind farm more than five times its size. Revolution Wind will be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, capable of powering more than 350,000 homes next year. The site where the cable will connect in Rhode Island is already under construction.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/the-united-states-has-its-first-large-offshore-19013687.php