A Baltimore-based company that produces wood-frame construction products is planning to build a 450,000-square-foot production facility in Windsor, which it says will help ameliorate the multifamily housing shortage in Connecticut and beyond. Construction on the facility — said to be the largest North American industrial building erected entirely of mass timber — is expected to begin this summer, according to Blueprint CEO Jerome D. Smalley. The new facility will be 2.5 times larger than the existing one, though the company will maintain its headquarters in Baltimore. It will be constructed on a vacant lot at 11 Goodwin Drive, just to the north of a large Amazon warehouse, near Day Hill Road. Smalley said the plan is to open the facility in the third quarter of 2024. Blueprint received zoning approval to subdivide the property in early April.

Baltimore wood-frame producer Blueprint has major CT growth plans with new Windsor facility

The property’s new owner is aiming to break ground in the coming weeks, and, according to City Hall, already received zoning sign-offs from municipal staff with no public hearing required. “This is major construction. Residents are not happy. They’re worried about environmental issues, the air quality, flooding, parking, the amount of people that will be there,” Herron said Monday. The rare zone change Testa obtained in 2013 laid the groundwork. The land at 1775 Madison Ave. had for decades been the site of restaurants and there were tight restrictions on what could be constructed there. Testa was granted an ORG (office, retail, general) designation, which his attorney at the time, Charles Willinger, claimed was necessary for his client to pursue refinancing and was not a prelude to a sale and redevelopment of the site. Jump ahead to late 2021. Bridgeport, following a broad public-engagement effort, had just updated its ten-year master plan of development and the related city-wide changes to zoning regulations were set to take affect Jan. 1, 2022.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/bridgeport-approves-177-unit-apartment-complex-18065518.php

The WestConn students organized the roughly 1.5-mile walk last Wednesday afternoon to study walkability and transit-oriented development in the vicinity of the Metro-North train station on Patriot Drive. More than 40 people participated in the walk, which was organized with support from pro-home advocacy group Desegregate Connecticut. Observations made during her students’ walk audit appear to align with the city’s transit-oriented development plan, which calls for sidewalk improvements and relocating the bus station from Kennedy Avenue to a site adjacent to the train station to create the Danbury Transit Center. The first phase of the city’s streetscape upgrades is complete, but a second phase is planned to improve sidewalks on Main Street, near the train station and other areas. In addition to walkability around Danbury’s train station, the walk audit focused on ways in which the area can be more transit-oriented, and Hegel said a lack of transit-connectedness stood out.

https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/wcsu-walk-audit-danbury-transit-walkability-17919956.php

The Stamford Transportation Center — the second-busiest Metro-North Railroad station after Grand Central Terminal — will soon have a new $81.7 million, 928-spot garage to replace its existing one on Station Place. Looming over Interstate 95’s Exit 7, the gray structure might be the most visible, but it’s just one of multiple projects the transit hub has received funding for in recent years. Other projects that have been announced include elevator and escalator repairs, a master plan to guide future improvements and the eventual demolition of the existing parking garage. Burnham said the entire project will be completed by the end of summer 2024. Previously, officials said it would be done this August; they did not say the cause of delays.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/stamford-train-transportation-center-renovations-17918598.php?src=sthpdesecp

The city recently received approval of the grant from the state Community Investment Fund that will construct 2,700 feet of access road and install utilities running from Route 97 in Occum into the 384-acre Business Park North. The Norwich Community Development Corp. purchased the property in December for $3.55 million. The grant will build a road from the area near the Exit 18 ramp from I-395 into the business park property to Canterbury Turnpike and prepare 12 development pads. Norwich Public Utilities will install natural gas, water and electric lines along the roadway. NCDC President Kevin Brown said the rest of this year will be spent designing and engineering the road and market the development sites, now that construction is imminent. Brown said construction should start next January, with a goal of opening the first development parcels by December 2024.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230501/officials-celebrate-planned-access-road-to-new-norwich-business-park-land/

The town’s Conservation Commission has until May 23 to make its final decision on a controversial wetlands application for the construction of a large distribution center. On Monday, the commission met at the Shepardson Community Center to begin deliberations on the application after closing the hearing last month, a hearing that spanned five meetings and nearly three months. It did so before a packed house full of residents opposed to the plan by Drubner Equities, LLC of Waterbury to build a 750,000 square foot distribution facility on the campus of what is currently the Timex Corp. world headquarters off Christian Road. Residents fear that the massive distribution center, with trucks rolling in 24-7, will destroy their community’s small-town feel. They are appealing to the commission’s “conservation consciousness” and to reject the application.

https://www.rep-am.com/localnews/2023/05/01/middlebury-neighbors-fighting-proposed-distribution-center-at-timex-corp/

Encompass Health Corporation, whose plans to build a $36 million 100,000-square-foot facility on Danbury’s west side were approved by zoning officials in May 2021, has been waiting for state approval of the Certificate of Need application it filed in August 2020. With its certificate granted last week, construction on Encompass Health’s new rehabilitation hospital near the intersection of Reserve Road and Winding Ridge Way can at last commence. The 40-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital will serve people who have suffered strokes, heart attacks, and neurological ailments by providing physical rehabilitation, occupational therapy and speech therapy. The facility will become part of Encompass Health’s national network of rehabilitation hospitals and be the company’s first rehab hospital in the state of Connecticut.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/danbury-rehab-hospital-certificate-of-need-approve-17920363.php

If the city had not earlier this month begun tearing down parts of the blighted Remington Arms plant along Barnum Avenue, the crumbling East Side edifice, ruined by neglect, vandals, multiple fires and the elements, would have soon fallen in on its own, possibly injuring passersby. As head of the city’s building department, Kica, following an inspection of the long-abandoned property’s interconnected structures last winter, issued a Jan. 9 emergency demolition order to the economic development department for a large section of the former factory complex. Kica cited significant degradation of the roofs, walls, masonry and flooring of the handful of linked buildings at Barnum Avenue and Helen Street. By mid-February, other building department documents show, Manafort Brothers Inc. of New Britain had been hired for the job, with an estimated start of early to mid-March.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/bridgeport-s-building-chief-remington-imminent-17920099.php

Earlier this week, the Department of Energy released its newest roadmap toward developing a temporary solution for storing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel — a process the agency now says will take between 10 and 15 years to complete. Without any purpose-built facilities to handle spent nuclear waste, operators of U.S. nuclear power plants have been forced to store their spent fuel rods on site in giant pools or in dry concrete casks. Over the next two or three years, the agency said it plans to embark on a campaign to inform communities about what hosting a nuclear storage facility would entail, as well as what federal funding would be available, before soliciting a call for volunteers. Officials will then take several more years to assess those bids, before negotiating and signing agreements with the selected locations. Permitting and construction would then take another three to four years, according to the DOE timeline, before the facilities are ready to begin operation.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/department-of-energy-spent-nuclear-fuel-storage-ct-17924070.php

The High Line, a 1.5-mile elevated park full of lush greenery in New York City, could influence the city’s vision of creating a pedestrian walkway that would “float” above Route 9 in Middletown, reconnecting people to Middletown’s portion of the Connecticut riverfront. In 2021, Cooper Robertson of New York drew up the master plan that is expected to become a private-public partnership with the city. The project, which cost some $187 million to build, has humble origins. The Middletown group also visited Little Island, a man-made public space over the Hudson River with a base of concrete, funnel-looking support structures upon which sits a park on various levels. There are hills, lush grass, and other plantings mixed with pieces of art, as well as seating areas. Florsheim also talked about the casual nature of the High Line and his vision for what Middletown’s version could be. “The goal is that we want it to be a place that you just end up, maybe without intending to.”

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/middletowners-visits-high-line-nyc-route-9-17922838.php