State funding is ready for a streetscape improvement project for downtown Plantsville that’s been in the works for well over a decade. The $4.3 million project will realign the West Main Street and Route 10 intersection slightly to improve site lines in addition to providing other safety and aesthetics upgrades for the area. Funding is coming from the state Department of Transportation. On Monday, the Town Council selected Paramount Construction LLC of Newington to do the work. The total contract amount includes a 10% contingency and 10% earmarked for incidentals. Concrete posts along the road are in the plans for the streetscape project, although they’re designed to prevent street parking rather than stop cars. The project will also make improvements to the Farmington Canal Heritage trail crossing to make it safer for pedestrians.

https://www.myrecordjournal.com/News/Southington/Southington-News/Southington-leaders-pick-contractor-for-Plantsville-improvements

Hamden is seeking $5 million from the state’s Community Investment Fund, a portion of which would help repair the tennis courts. The rest would go toward updating and renovating the neighboring Louis Astorino Ice Arena. The Legislative Council on Tuesday voted to give the town administration permission to submit the CIF application. The tennis courts, which are used by Hamden High School’s tennis team, have large cracks in them. Officials described their state of disrepair as a safety issue. As for the ice rink, Garrett said it has its own safety issue: its cooling system, which uses the chemical ammonia, has come under the scrutiny of the Environmental Protection Agency in recent years. While the rink is town-owned, it is managed by a private company called 595 Mix Management, LLC, which operates under a contract with the town. Donohue is a co-owner of the business, state business records show.

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/hamden-seeks-5-million-for-rink-18166140.php?src=nhrhpdesecp

Lewis Brown, principal of affordable housing developer Honeycomb Real Estate Partners, expects to launch a $26 million transformation of the run-down West Hartford Inn into 44 affordable apartments this fall. Soaring interest rates and construction costs, along with historic levels of state funding, have some of the biggest names in Connecticut’s multifamily development sector moving to add affordable housing to their portfolios. Brown, for example, is in talks with Zelman, Krohn and well-known Hartford developer Martin Kenny, of Lexington Partners, about potential projects. Krohn isn’t exiting the market-rate space. He said he’s advancing a pipeline of about 500 market-rate units. But adding affordable projects to the mix will help him keep busy, and allow his company, Jasko Development, to retain its roughly 20-person construction team.

Facing higher construction costs and interest rates, some developers turn to affordable housing projects

For decades, homes in Hartford’s North End have been plagued by regular flooding, and nobody took responsibility for fixing the problem. But on Monday, state and local officials, led by Gov. Lamont and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, announced a $170 million project to correct decades of environmental injustice. The $85 million to pay the state’s portion will come from the Clean Water Fund, which is administered by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, to implement a pilot program that will address sewage overflows in streets and basements homes and businesses in North Hartford. DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said the funds will be applied to 12 projects proposed by the Metropolitan District Commission to increase protections from sewer and stormwater-related flooding and backups in North Hartford. Five projects are slated to begin in 2023, six projects will begin in 2024, and one project will begin in 2025. Officials expect the first shovels in the ground by the end of summer.

Hartford’s North End flooding woes to be addressed with $170M

The exact amount of stolen wages in Connecticut is unknown, but some insight can be gleaned from complaints filed by workers to the departments of labor at both the state and federal levels, which investigate these complaints and can order employers to pay back wages. Based on investigations of those complaints, the U.S. Department of Labor determined that Connecticut employers owed workers more than $10.3 million from January 2012 to April 2023. From 2019 through 2022, the Connecticut Department of Labor ordered employers to pay almost $17 million in stolen wages after investigations. Any wages ordered to be paid back from judgments by courts or by the National Labor Relations Board fall outside the labor departments’ figures and are hard to quantify due to how cases are recorded. And unreported wage theft could surpass all other categories. Complicating matters, the state Department of Labor says it is dealing with a critical backlog of cases. Legislation to boost staffing levels failed to pass this year.

Wage theft in CT: Millions stolen from workers since 2019

The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded New London $17 million for planned transit-related infrastructure improvements downtown, the largest portion going toward expansion of the city’s Water Street parking garage, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd, announced on Thursday. The city has for years sought federal funds for the garage expansion and improvements that would alleviate pedestrian safety and congestion concerns in the area, especially in anticipation of the completion of the National Coast Guard Museum on the city’s waterfront. Initial plans for the garage expansion would add 400 spaces ― it currently has 910 ― to the top three floors of the five-floor garage and expand the garage over the existing surface lot adjacent to Water Street. The $150 million museum project, now under construction and expected to be completed in 2025, is expected to draw an estimated 300,000 people a year to the city in an area that is already home to the parking garage, train station, busing hub and waterfront ferry service. A portion of the grant is also earmarked for support of the $20 million state-funded pedestrian bridge that links the museum and the parking garage and will carry visitors over Water Street and the railroad tracks.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230623/new-london-to-get-17-million-for-transit-hub-improvements/

A dying mall near the junction of two interstates and within hailing distance of a transportation hub might be ripe for what planners call “repurposing.” If that mall is in a growing, well-populated area that’s short on housing, particularly affordable housing, that repurposing might involve a “highest and best use” that includes a mix of commercial and residential components. A deed filed Thursday with the town clerk’s office revealed Namdar Realty Group, a Great Neck, N.Y., real estate investment firm with a penchant for acquiring struggling properties, had landed Crystal Mall at auction last month, submitting a winning bid of more than $9.5 million. If Waterford has a plan of development for Crystal Mall, the town eventually may have to buy the property itself to pursue the plan, Clapp said, as the City of East Hartford did in acquiring an abandoned Showcase Cinemas on Interstate 84, once pitched as a casino site.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230624/crystal-mall-seen-as-suitable-for-mix-of-commercial-residential-development/

After a nearly yearlong moratorium on data center applications, proposed data center regulations will go to a public hearing on Tuesday. The proposed regulations conditionally would allow data centers, which could be no larger than 12,500 square feet, in industrial zones only. Any proposed data center must comply with the state’s noise standards. A data center also cannot use fossil fuels for power generation, except due to an unforeseen power loss, and cannot use water evaporation techniques for cooling purposes. Proposals must include a fire suppression plan and an agreement with water and electrical utilities to show that the data center’s utility demands can be met, among other requirements. The public hearing will be at the Planning and Zoning Commission’s meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Town Hall Annex and via Zoom.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230625/grotons-proposed-data-center-regs-to-go-to-public-hearing/

The City Council voted Tuesday to apply for a $1.4 million state grant to help build a new Meriden Soccer Athletic Complex Project at Columbus Park. The new fields in Columbus Park will ensure residents still have a place to play soccer, since the fields currently located next to MidState Medical Center on Lewis Avenue are slated to close. The city has a 99-year lease agreement with the hospital but MidState has stated it needs the property to build a new medical office building for cancer treatments. The new medical building will be taxable. MidState has committed $1.5 million to the city’s soccer fields relocation. The project has been discussed with the council for several years, but was delayed by the pandemic, Coon said. Officials worked with MidState and field users to search for a replacement site.

https://www.myrecordjournal.com/News/Meriden/Meriden-News/Meriden-applies-for-grant-to-move-soccer-fields-to-Columbus-Park.html

State lawmakers recently approved over $100 million in upgrades ($20 million of which would come from private funding), but that will only fix critical issues that are desperately needed, Freimuth said. Then there’s Gov. Ned Lamont’s public interest in bringing an NHL team — potentially the arena-challenged Arizona Coyotes — to Hartford, which would mean even more needed renovations and perhaps a complete revamp of the XL Center, which the Hartford Whalers once called home. The building will undergo a renovation that Freimuth says will take about two years, with most of the work done in the summer when there are fewer events at the arena. Officials had been trying to push through more funding for the XL Center for years but finally got it fully included in the budget that recently passed the state legislature. The deal paved the way for Oak View Group — which runs day-to-day operations of the XL Center — to invest $20 million in exchange for a long-term agreement to keep operating the arena.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/capitalregion/article/xl-center-hartford-ct-renovations-nhl-18154374.php