Waterbury officials are asking the city’s Board of Aldermen to sign off Monday on a contract paying Plainville-based Manafort Brothers up to $3.6 million to demolish a former brass factory in the heart of the city. Waterbury paid $2.3 million for the 138,304-square-foot building on 6 acres at 170 Freight St. in December, planning to demolish it, clean the soil and market it for redevelopment. Manafort was the lowest of three bidders for the demolition work at 170 Freight St. Stamford Wrecking and Bestech also applied. The company will have 154 days to complete the project and will be paid using a portion of the city’s federal American Rescue Plan Act grant funding.

Manafort Bros. up for $3.6M contract to clear massive industrial building from Waterbury center

Flooding during significant rainfall events historically has been an issue in Meriden. But officials say ongoing efforts during the yearslong Harbor Brook flood control project, which is ongoing, have reduced the severity of those such storms. The Meriden Green is a cornerstone of those efforts, as it is capable of storing some 58 acre feet of water during a 100-year storm event, officials said. One acre-foot equals 326,000 gallons. City Engineer Brian Ennis described the Meriden Green as a bowl flood storage facility that is slightly elevated along its perimeter. The Green allows for smaller brooks that feed into Harbor Brook to have places to drain more freely, instead of topping over onto roadways, Ennis explained. Improving those catch basins is a project officials are planning for when the Harbor Brook project is complete.

https://www.myrecordjournal.com/News/Meriden/Meriden-News/Harbor-Brook-banks-topped-off-but-officials-report-no-flooding-after-weekend-storms.html

The town is roughly a year behind on its upgrades to its sewer system, a project that when completed would improve the water quality in the Norwalk River. The project cost has grown 15 percent to $57.1 million due to inflation and supply chain woes, and involves decommissioning the Route 7 treatment plant and upgrading the South Street plant. When the Route 7 plant is decommissioned, the town will go from two wastewater treatment plants to one, Marconi said. A bigger pump station will be constructed at the Route 7 site, and wastewater will be pumped from there to the South Street plant. The sewer project is with the WPCA, which is a separate authority from the town, Marconi said. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection told the town it would need to upgrade the Route 7 treatment plant if it were to remain in operation, Marconi said. Those improvements would cost at least $12 million to $15 million — millions more than the current project, he said.

https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/ridgefield-route-7-sewer-project-delayed-costs-18198484.php?src=nthpdesecp

Demolition of the former Testo’s restaurant, where Bridgeport’s long-time Democratic Party chief for years cooked for patrons and concocted political recipes for the city, could begin this week to make way for a 177-unit market rate apartment complex. The municipal building department on Monday issued the $4,440 worth of necessary permits to tear down the Italian eatery and catering hall on Madison Avenue in the North End, and two neighboring homes. Testo’s, run by Democratic Town Committee Chairman Mario Testo and his nephew, Ralph Giacobbe, shuttered last New Year’s Eve with the sale to out-of-town developer Amit Lakhotia pending. Lakhotia closed on the deal, announced last November, in April. Lakhotia’s contractor, Bridgeport-based John Guedes, in an interview Monday afternoon said he hoped the demolition would begin as soon as Tuesday.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/demolition-permit-issued-closed-testo-s-bridgeport-18204704.php

A developer with a growing roster of apartment developments and renovations in a long-struggling corner of Hartford has proposed a $30.4 million project mixing 78 apartments and 12,000 square feet of commercial and office space on two city-owned properties. Now, Bronin is proposing to grant a 49-year lease – with options to renew – of 88 Magnolia St. and 614 Albany Ave., two blighted properties totaling nearly 1.2 acres to Andaleeb Enterprises LLC. The developer proposes a four-story building of apartments over commercial and office space. The city would also provide an unspecified amount of financial assistance for the project, according to a letter Bronin sent to the City Council. The Magnolia/Albany project would be the most ambitious yet for Andaleeb Enterprises, a vehicle of family investors that got its start in Hartford with an Albany Avenue convenience store. In the past three years, the Andaleeb family has – either independently or with investors – committed more than $6.3 million buying at least a dozen commercial and mixed-use apartment properties in Hartford – eight of them along Albany Avenue.

Growing Hartford-focused developer lines up 78-unit development on city land

Construction is about to commence on the Southington Library site, following nearly two years of planning by the Library Building Committee. Contractors at Whiting-Turner planned to move their trailer on site Friday, and erecting a fence around the construction area on either Monday or Tuesday early next week. Having met with all the different contractors, Eversource, and the Planning and Zoning Commission, the first steps for the team will be ripping up the larger parking lot adjacent to the library and laying the piping and power infrastructure before laying out the building’s foundations. The board plans to make a list of all the sub-contractors brought on to work on the library available to the public in the coming days as they finalize all the work contracts ahead of work commencing next week.

https://www.myrecordjournal.com/News/Southington/Southington-News/Southington-library-to-break-ground

Elected officials plan to discuss government incentives for Port Eastside LLC, a company looking to revitalize an area bordering the Connecticut River with mixed-use development. Mayor Mike Walsh announced earlier this month that he will leave his position in November to help organize the plan, named Port Eastside, without payment from any parties involved. Nicholas Michnevitz III, president of West Hartford-based MBH Architecture and a principal of Port Eastside LLC, said Tuesday night that he expects the project will see “hundreds of millions of dollars” of investments put into the area from a number of partners over five to eight years of work. Walsh said the Town Council has a number of potential incentives it could provide to Port Eastside LLC, but the best option would likely be an “improvement district” that would fund amenities using a portion of tax revenue generated by the new development.

https://www.ctpost.com/journalinquirer/article/east-hartford-riverside-founders-plaza-development-18193219.php?src=rdctprealestate

The future of Hartford-Brainard Airport was the subject of intense debate Thursday night — with Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin speaking up to make the case for transforming the site into something more valuable to the city. Experts hired by consultant BJF Planning outlined the economic and environmental factors affecting the marketability of the airport property, perched on dozens of feet of sand, gravy and silt deposited by the river and glaciers over the years and bordered by a water-treatment plant and a shuttered trash-burning plant. Presented were three scenarios: Keeping the airport open, closing one runway and redeveloping part of the site, or closing the airport down for a complete revamp of the property. The study under discussion Thursday night was commissioned by the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) after the state legislature passed a measure last year seeking “to assess the benefits and opportunity costs to Hartford and the state of the current and alternative uses of the Hartford Brainard Airport property.” DECD plans to submit the study’s findings by Oct. 15, 2023, to the legislature’s finance, revenue and bonding committee.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/hartford-brainard-airport-alternatives-debated-18196942.php

The Offshore Marine Service Association says it strongly supports the offshore wind industry. Many of its member companies are already working in it. Smith said this effort is about securing their future — decades of jobs and investments. The U.S. could need roughly 2,000 of the most powerful turbines to meet its goals to ramp up offshore wind to dramatically cut its use of fossil fuels to protect the atmosphere and reduce climate change. The Enforcer made several trips to where Danish energy company Ørsted is developing the South Fork Wind project with the utility Eversource. This will likely be the first U.S. commercial-scale wind farm to open. Ørsted responded that 75% of the vessels supporting South Fork Wind’s offshore construction are U.S.-flagged, including barges, tugs, crew transport vessels and fishing vessels that monitor for safety and marine mammals. But the larger U.S.-flagged offshore wind vessels aren’t built yet.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/american-boat-patrols-waters-around-new-offshore-18202239.php

Mayor Laura Hoydick’s proposed replacement for the old American Shakespeare Theater would feature about 500 to 550 seats, according to the architect who helped design the venue. The yet-to-be-approved concept for a black box theater, which Hoydick unveiled last month alongside a larger $11.5 million redevelopment of the riverside site off Elm Street, would be a much smaller venue than the historic 1,500-seat playhouse arsonists destroyed four years ago. In addition to the small theater, Hoydick is proposing to construct an open-air food court with food trucks and a music pavilion on the site. In a letter to council members, she said the project would be built in three stages, beginning with about $3 million in infrastructure improvements. The state has already set aside funds to help redevelop the property. The State Bond Commission voted last spring to award the town $3 million in grant money to kickstart the effort.

https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/stratford-details-plans-500-seat-theater-old-18196617.php?src=rdctpdensecp