Construction has begun on a $50 million state project to reconfigure a stop sign on the Route 17 on-ramp that leads to Route 9 northbound in Middletown to remedy a section of highway deemed one of the most dangerous in Connecticut. Aimed at reducing crashes and improving traffic movement, the Department of Transportation plan includes removing stop sign and building a full-length acceleration lane to allow vehicles to merge with other motorists without first being required to come to a complete stop, according to the agency. The contract was awarded to the Middlesex Corp., and the project is expected to be completed in fall 2026. The project will coincide with redevelopment of the city’s portion of the Connecticut Riverfront, which recently received a $12 million infusion from the state.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/ct-dot-begins-work-remove-stop-sign-route-9-17891522.php

The Town Council on Monday voted 5-1 to not enter into a 10-year agreement with the project’s land owner Ox Owner, LLC, a subsidiary of the Massachusetts-based developer Dakota Partners. Dakota Senior Development Director Eric Kuczarski said the failure to reach an agreement will not kill the project and said construction at the 42 Pink Row property, home to the historic Faria Beede Mill, is set to resume in June. He said the now $43 million project is 45% complete and on track to be finished by June 2024. There was one caveat to the timeline. If for some reason the owner would not be able to complete the project by the proposed start date, it would be able to push the start date back until it was complete and could generate revenue from its tenants. Kuczarski said the timeline would motivate Dakota to complete the project as quickly as possible in order to take full advantage of the deal.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230411/montville-housing-project-on-schedule-despite-rejection-of-tax-break/

After environmental testing, the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to recommend moving forward with a project to add the town’s third turf field at Allen’s Meadow. As a result of the vote, the project will be submitted as a referendum for bonding at the annual Town Meeting on May 2. The Board of Selectmen’s vote came after it had learned that results of recent water tests showed no toxins were present that would be attributable to the town’s two existing artificial turf fields. The plans for the third turf field are posted on the town website, explaining the need for the project, the status of the lease and the environmental reviews along with costs. The turf field’s design and construction would cost about $1.82 million, according to the town website. With inflation and a 10 percent cost contingency, the total cost would come to $2.11 million.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/wilton-turf-field-vote-allen-s-meadow-17891225.php

Anthony Properties will start building on the site of the former National Welding plant in Newington later this year, and possibly as early as this spring. State officials have been eager to see construction there for the past decade, and located a CTfastrak station alongside it in 2015 partly as a way to spur transit-oriented development. Just last month, Southington approved Anthony Properties’ plan for a $55 million complex of apartment buildings along Route 229 just a few blocks north of the I-84 ramps. The contractors’ trade magazine Construction Journal reports that the project will cost an estimated $55 million and will include a parking garage, four stories of apartments, a swimming pool, a dog park and other amenities. The company has dubbed the development The Spark.

Texas developer building 232 apartments in Newington, 255 in Southington

Challenges facing the economically diverse, historically blue-collar town of East Hartford were not far from view Tuesday morning as Walsh toured two state representatives and a small clutch of journalists through several sites targeted for ambitious redevelopment projects. The tour began at the Silver Lane Plaza, a 22-acre site where two of three deteriorating retail buildings stand empty amid cracked and pitted parking lots, then wound through several sites where retail, office and residential developments are planned on sites that haven’t seen investment in several decades.
East Hartford is tapping $10 million through the state-funded Capital Region Development Authority for the Silver Lane Plaza project. About $4.5 million went to the prior owner as part of the eminent domain taking completed early this year, Walsh said. The remainder will be used to demolish buildings and resettle about a dozen retail tenants hanging on in one of three buildings on the site.

https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/challenges-and-high-ambitions-on-display-during-tour-of-east-hartford-development-sites

Mark Barnhart, the community and economic development director, said the town has an opportunity to apply for grants from the state to help remediate and redevelop the property at 81 Black Rock Turnpike, noting it is next to Fairfield Metro Station. The fund has $25 million available, with towns allowed to apply for up to $4 million in grants, Barnhart said at a recent meeting, where the Board of Selectmen gave the go ahead to apply for the grant. The estimated cost to remediate contaminants on the site is $3 million, Barnhart said, adding that Post Road Realty is the developer who built The Anchorage on Unquowa Road, a residential apartment building downtown. If the grant funding was approved, he said, the town could help the developer clean up the property before it is turned into something that generates tax revenue.

https://www.ctpost.com/fairfield/article/fairfield-brownfield-development-black-rock-trnpke-17880964.php?src=rdctpdensecp

As one of the nation’s oldest cities — founded in 1638 — New Haven has changed many times and in many ways over the years. Among the areas of the city that have changed significantly over the past few decades are Downtown New Haven, the area around Wooster Square, the Dixwell Avenue commercial district and Long Wharf. New construction also is rising — at long last — on the longtime parking lot that once was the New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum before it was demolished in 2007. Dixwell Avenue — the Main Street of the city’s Dixwell and Newhallville sections, with a storied history as a mid-20th Century jazz mecca and center of African American commerce and culture — is another part of New Haven that has seen some of its major past efforts at revitalization, including the Dixwell Plaza shopping center, run their course and become targets for redevelopment.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/new-haven/article/new-haven-ct-development-then-now-17858698.php

When completed next year, the boat is expected to be the first U.S.-built vessel to service offshore wind farms. Over the past six months, inflation and political pushback have become significant challengers for offshore wind, a sector that the Biden administration sees as a crucial source of power in the push to purge fossil fuels from the electric grid. Rising costs delayed two huge farms off the coast of Massachusetts by at least a year. The first large farms are scheduled to start producing power later this year, and President Joe Biden has set a goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. Orsted and Eversource declined to share how much the Eco Edison will ultimately cost, but the boat employs some 400 local workers and boasts a supply chain crossing 34 states.

https://www.theday.com/state/20230405/a-football-field-sized-boat-will-service-offshore-wind-farms/

The Elicker administration has submitted a plan to sell Fair Haven’s long-vacant former Strong School property to a developer for $500,000 — with a 20-year tax break — to create 50 affordable apartments. Roughly five months after Pennrose, a national affordable housing developer, competed for and won the opportunity to redevelop the historic Fair Haven ex-school building, the city has submitted a Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) to the Board of Alders for approval. City Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre wrote in a March 16 cover letter for this proposal that the estimated total cost of the project is $25 million, and the development should be complete by 2025.

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/strong_school_sale_tax_break_proposed

The decision to build a new combined middle school/high school on the existing high school site meant relatively minor inconvenience during the indoor winter season, with pylons rising out of the ground last fall where the school’s parking lot and tennis courts used to be. Pylons rose in the front of the existing building; old school and gym entrances were sealed off; a new parking lot replaced the old softball field in the back. After the old softball field turned into the school’s only parking lot, the city authorized $20,000 for a temporary softball field nestled between the new parking lot and the track. For now, the short right field fence will be Torrington’s own Green Monster jutting up against the parking lot boundary.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/gametimect/article/torrington-building-new-schools-fields-high-17878459.php