The state Port Authority is planning to request an additional $30 million in bonding to complete the state pier project, pushing the total cost to $300 million. The goal of the state pier project is to upgrade the facility to accommodate a wind power hub servicing offshore wind farms that would bring power to Connecticut and the region. Of that $255.5 million, $77.5 million has been borne by Eversource and Ørsted, the power companies that will run the windfarms and pier once they are built. That $77.5 million contribution will increase by $23.75 million, a bit more than half of the additional $47 million cost of the project. The Port Authority will request the other half, $23.5 million, plus a $6 million contingency from the state. The first wind project, which had been expected to be operational this year, will consist of 12 turbines supplying energy to 70,000 homes on Long Island’s south fork. Two years later, another 65 turbines are expected to provide energy to 350,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Another 84 turbines should go operational that year, providing energy to 600,000 homes in New York state. The state pier would act as a staging ground for all those projects during both construction and operation.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/connecticut/article/ct-state-pier-project-18125732.php?src=sthppromostrip

The water company will be installing about six-tenths of a mile, or 3,300 feet, of water main on Church Street between Rubber Avenue and Division Street, Rubber Avenue between Water Street and Church Street, Barnum Court and Park Place. The price tag for the project is $2.4 million, which will be funded through the Water Infrastructure and Conservation Adjustment on customers’ bills, according to a press release on May 18. Work hours for the construction project will be from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. during the weekdays, and the project is expected to be finished by August, according to the release. In February 2022 the Board of Mayor and Burgesses approved to contract with Kleinfelder Engineering, of San Diego, California to design storm water and sanitary sewer systems, offer construction oversight of the design, and to oversee a plan to repair, replace and improve those systems.

https://www.rep-am.com/localnews/2023/05/29/water-main-installation-set-to-begin-in-downtown-naugatuck/

Amid significant growth in the region and a major housing shortage, the town is looking at how to decide the fate of more than 50 unused town-owned properties that have been vacant for years, while involving community members more. They have created a Property Re-Use Committee and stopped issuing requests for proposals for the properties, even as developers show strong interest. Electric Boat, planning to hire thousands of new employees over the next two to three years, is a major driver of the demand, along with decades of slow housing construction. Some residents have pushed back against what they see as over-development of the town and want to be more involved as the properties are redeveloped. The committee found that the town owns nearly 190 acres of unused property housed in 54 land parcels, from .03 acres to 36.7 acres, across Groton, according to a presentation to the Town Council in March. However, the majority of the land — 89% — is in 12 parcels. Paige Bronk, the town’s economic and community development manager, said once the council adopts a policy and gives the green light to advance Requests for Proposals, the private sector is definitely interested in jumping in.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230527/a-look-at-grotons-unused-town-owned-properties/

Add another month to the nearly three decades it has taken to replace the demolished Congress Street bridge linking downtown and the East Side. Bids for the estimated $24 million infrastructure project were initially due this past Tuesday. But Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration has extended the deadline to June 20. City Engineer Jon Urquidi provided a statement saying the decision was made because interested contractors needed more time to obtain accurate prices from material suppliers, subcontractors and vendors. The rusty hulk was demolished in 2010 under then-Mayor Bill Finch, who called it “the city’s most visible reminder of infrastructure neglect.” City officials over the years pivoted away from building another drawbridge, estimated in 2010 to cost $60 million, to the cheaper but more convoluted process of seeking the necessary federal and state approvals to instead install the $24 million fixed span. That effort has taken so long that the replacement of the Congress Street bridge has become a recurring campaign headache for some of those involved.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/congress-street-bridge-bridgeport-delay-bids-18120696.php

A volunteer committee will take a closer look at the school district’s $750,000 plan to build an office for administrators after Town Council called for more oversight. The council has required the project to be reviewed by the Municipal Building Committee, with some members calling into question the school board’s capability to manage its own facilities. The school board had requested to use $750,000 in capital reserves to fund the construction of a permanent Central Office at Sarah Noble Intermediate School. Town Attorney Randy DiBella emphasized the school board’s request called for using capital reserves for “the construction of a permanent Central Office.” Construction projects, he said, are required to go before the Municipal Building Committee. The costs of relocating the Central Office to Sarah Noble at 25 Sunny Valley Road was originally estimated at around $4 million, according to a 2019 relocation study conducted by the architectural company Silver/Petrucelli & Associates. The school board has since worked with the town to design a less costly relocation plan.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/newmilford/article/new-milford-schools-central-office-council-review-18117252.php

In a history spanning just several years, Fullstack Modular has developed a portfolio of successful and planned projects that range from a sleek, six-unit apartment building sandwiched in-between stately rowhouses, to a 32-story high rise with dozens of affordable units towering over a basketball arena and one of the nation’s busiest subway stations. In the company’s soon-to-be home of Connecticut, however, such projects are at the center of one of the state’s most-heated political battles. Just 2.2 percent of residential land in Connecticut is zoned to allow houses with four or more units as a right, according to an atlas developed by Desegregate CT, an advocacy group that favors denser and more affordable development. Fullstack’s decision to invest up to $12 million in developing its new headquarters in Hamden — as well as a connection to New Haven’s Gateway Terminal — was seen as a coup for Gov. Ned Lamont’s economic development efforts, which have focused on bringing new companies and taxpayers into Connecticut.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/ct-fullstack-modular-housing-restrictive-zoning-18000012.php

While construction was projected to be completed in 2023, the new building is now not set to open until the 2025-26 school year, and in the interim, students say they are suffering. The construction is entering its seventh phase this week which involves site work, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, concrete and interior finishes, according to a spokesperson for the city. Once phase seven is complete, the facilities will be ready for furniture. At a May 15 School Building Committee meeting, the committee approved partial phase seven trade contracts for $108,168,404. The construction is part of a district-wide effort to upgrade schools with state-of-the-art facilities, according to district spokesperson Jesse Sugarman. The decision to split into two campuses was based on availability, according to Sugarman. The two buildings are both former Hartford Schools buildings that were vacated.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/capitalregion/article/where-ongoing-renovations-hartford-s-bulkeley-18121008.php

The town obtained favorable rates in its recent $13.1 million bond sale that will primarily provide financing for the new police headquarters project, according to town CFO Dawn Norton. The town received 11 bids from various underwriting firms with the winning bid of 3.19 percent from Robert Baird Inc., she said. The town is preparing to break ground this spring on the $16.4 million project to build a new police headquarters, officials said. Construction expected to take about 20 months, officials said. In the 2022 annual town meeting, voters approved the construction of a new 19,000-square-foot headquarters with 77 percent of the vote. It will be nearly twice the size of the town’s current police station. The new police facility, which will be built on an 11.17-acre site at 238-240 Danbury Road, was approved, with conditions, on Feb. 27 by Wilton’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/wilton-bond-sale-finances-police-headquarters-18120982.php

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’