DOT now aims to settle on a conceptual design by June 2024, produce construction drawings by November 2025, seek bids a few months later, then start construction in June 2026 — exactly one decade after Malloy’s press conference. The complexities of redesigning a relatively short stretch of highway to the satisfaction of myriad stakeholders around Middletown, a city of 47,000 at the center of the state, has been an instructive, if humbling, undertaking for a short-staffed DOT with far greater ambitions and challenges. Designers shifted to working on a conceptual plan for reconstructing not just I-84 but its riverfront interchange with I-91, a section of I-91 that stands between the downtown and river and, possibly, the clover-leaf exchanges that consume acres of valuable land on the other side of the river in East Hartford. Costing billions and requiring 15 years to complete, it would be the mother of all highway makeovers. The Middletown project is a smaller-scale dress rehearsal for the more ambitious production in Hartford, which most likely would have to be designed, funded and built in stages, given its cost and size.

CT’s long, winding trip to fix a short stretch of Route 9

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, a strong proponent of mixed-use, mixed-income housing redevelopment, said apartment occupancy remains strong coming out of the pandemic, a good sign for the city. But to build momentum back behind revitalization and achieve a 24/7 vibrancy, more housing — perhaps much more — will be needed to offset the loss of office workers, Bronin said. Coming out of the pandemic, further rental conversion of office buildings offer a probable path. But some say those moves have to be done thoughtfully, recognizing that more workers are likely to return to offices in the years ahead. In the past decade, CRDA has taken a leading role in providing low-cost, state taxpayer-backed loans to fill in financing gaps in apartment conversion projects in the city and surrounding suburbs. That role has led the quasi-public agency to take an increasingly larger profile in urban planning. David Griggs, executive director of the MetroHartford Alliance, the region’s chamber of commerce, has an upbeat outlook when it comes to revitalization. Griggs said he believes the city either has regained the revitalization momentum that it had prior to the pandemic “or we’re pretty darn close to having it.”

Here are 7 Hartford development projects to watch this summer. ‘Downtown housing is the thing’

Part of a 10-year agreement involving the city, school district, and the Hartford and New Britain trade unions that allows residents to get apprenticeships in various trades, the fair gives students the chance to explore career opportunities, said Yolanda Rivera of the CT Building Trades Institute. Trades represented at the fair included HVAC, iron workers, brick layers, operating engineers and carpenters. Programs for pipe fitters, plumbers and welders take five years, and consist of full-time work and a week of in-class training every six weeks. Apprentices in HVAC programs take classes two nights a week. All programs include 250 hours of training, Hewins said. Apprentices going into construction require 1,600 work hours per year of on-the-job training, while HVAC has 2,000 hours annually.

https://www.rep-am.com/localnews/2023/05/25/torrington-high-school-students-learn-about-apprenticeships-at-fair/

The Senior Center Building Review Committee, during its meeting Wednesday night, was scheduled to recommend a site for the combined new senior center and health department project. Instead, the committee opted not to select a site, with its members appearing to agree that more information needed to be gathered regarding the two primary locations under consideration: 116 Cook Ave. and the former Westfield Care & Rehab facility on Westfield Road. The cost of studying and designing plans for two sites instead of one is expected to be an additional $40,000. Scarpati said the $2 million grant the city received from the state Department of Economic Community Development to tear down the building at 116 Cook Ave. doesn’t prohibit the city from building a senior center there. However, if the state deems building a senior center on the site is not permitted under the grant, the city would need to pay back the grant through a loan.

https://www.myrecordjournal.com/News/Meriden/Meriden-News/Committee-votes-to-study-two-senior-center-sites.html

Residents pushed back against an affordable housing project to add 40 apartments on Berkeley Road saying the project is too big for the area, which is already busy and full of smaller lots. The proposed 34,000-square-foot building at 277 to 301 Berkeley Road would be about 47 feet tall on one side and about 60 feet tall on the other, given the slope in the property. John Fallon, the attorney for the developer, Berkeley Rd. LLC., said he believed the parking would be sufficient and would remove the cars parked in front of the proposed site because the tenants would park in the designated lots. He said the project is needed and helps address Fairfield’s housing needs, since a third of the town’s households are housing cost burdened, meaning more than a third of their income is spent on housing.

https://www.ctpost.com/fairfield/article/berkeley-road-affordable-housing-fairfield-18117008.php?src=rdctpdensecp

Developers looking to build thousands of wind turbines off the Mid-Atlantic and New England coast are coming up against a force even more relentless than the Atlantic winds: the Iron Law of Megaprojects, offering a warning of the trouble ahead for green-energy projects. The Iron Law, coined by Oxford Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, says that “megaprojects” — which cost billions of dollars, take years to complete, and are socially transformative — reliably come in over budget, over time, over and over. Offshore wind projects are not immune to the Iron Law, regularly experiencing vast cost overruns before a single watt is generated. A similar situation is playing out in New London, Connecticut, where a state-funded pier facility being built to support that state’s offshore wind buildout has more than doubled in price from an original estimate of $95 million to $250 million.

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Clean-Energy-Megaprojects-Face-Iron-Law.html

Eversource Energy took its first steps Thursday to getting out of the wind farm development business, selling its 50 percent ownership stake in a 175,000 acre site located 25 miles off the southern coast of Massachusetts. The company sold its ownership stake for $625 million to its joint venture partner, the wind farm developer Orsted, Eversoujrce officials said. The two companies are currently equal partners in that project, which is under construction 35 miles east of Montauk Point on Long Island and is scheduled to begin operating this fall, producing enough electricity to power 70,000 average homes. Revolution Wind will be located 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast and 32 miles southeast of the Connecticut coast when it begins operating in 2025. Of the 704 megawatts of electricity that Revolution Wind will produce when it begins operating, 304 megawatts will be used to power Connecticut homes and businesses, with the remainder going to Rhode Island. Eversource expects to announce the buyer of its ownership stake in all three projects by the end of June, company officials said.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/eversource-sells-wind-farm-site-to-partner-18119839.php

In a move that could have significant impacts on residents and some private property owners, the Department of Transportation has expressed its intention to replace rather than repair the 83-year-old Alpha Avenue viaduct at a cost of $25.5 million. During the year-long project, slated to begin in the spring 2026, traffic would flow along one side of the 625-foot-long span, while crews replace the other side. Once that work is complete, drivers would move to the new section so the remaining half of the bridge can be replaced. In the two documents, the DOT said the 83-year-old bridge is in poor condition, and that it is developing plans to replace it. The letter also said the DOT does not anticipate holding a public hearing on the plan, but that a public information meeting will be held after the preliminary designs are completed toward the end of this year. The press release states the federal government will pay for 80% of the project, the state 5% and the town 15%, or $3.8 million.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230525/dot-proposes-25-5-million-plan-to-replace-stonington-borough-viaduct/

The Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved the proposed apartment complex named “Waterford Central” at its meeting Tuesday night after a presentation from the project’s engineer Brandon Handfield, architect John Wicko and traffic engineer Joseph Balskus. The project proposal calls for a mix of 144 one-bedroom and 72 two-bedroom units, with 36 units in each three-story tall building. Eighteen of the units are deemed affordable. Developer Kevin Daley, the manager of Sig Con Associates, LLC, submitted the proposal, which would be built adjacent to one of his other developments, “Waterford Woods,” at 394 Willetts Ave. The proposal says the buildings will blend with the previously approved architecture of Waterford Woods, with varying roof lines, finishes, textures and colors that will blend into the surrounding area along Willetts Avenue.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230523/waterford-approves-216-unit-housing-development/

Wilson and Ricciardi were referring to a request by New Jersey developer Sterling Properties to rezone 70 of the 100 acres in question on Hawleyville Road from light industrial to residential, in order to build a 14-building complex of one- and two-bedroom apartments with rents ranging from $2,300 to $2,900. Wayne Zuckerman, speaking for the development company his father founded 60 years ago which now owns and manages 7,000 rental units in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, told the Planning and Zoning Commission, “We feel this is an excellent site for multi-family in the town of Newtown.” The latest proposal to rezone the 70 of the 100 acres from light industrial to residential to allow the developer to build 300 apartments, which was supported by two speakers during last week’s public hearing, was panned by most residents. The commission continued the public hearing to its June 1 meeting.

https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/newtown-apartments-i-84-exit-9-land-18114104.php?src=nthpdesecp