The town is asking residents to vote on spending $16 million to save the original 1928 Farmington High School building. The cost of that project would be offset by $7 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds from the federal government, making the total price tag for the town $9 million. If approved, the town would convert the building into a new town hall, with offices for multiple municipal departments, meeting space and a 3,600 square-foot gym for community use. Town officials have said the time to decide is now because doing the renovations at the same time the old high school is torn down would result in construction savings. The third question on the referendum ballot is whether the town should spend $4 million to improve and reconstruct roads around town.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/connecticut/article/farmington-budget-1928-building-17920043.php

Infrastructure was the buzzword on Wednesday as officials pushed ceremonial shovels into the ground to kick off the I-95 Exit 74 reconstruction project that will realign interchanges, widen lanes and replace the bridge at Route 161. The $150 million project is expected to be completed in Spring 2027. Garrett Eucalitto, state commissioner of transportation, said the project will alleviate bottlenecks in an area with a high rate of crashes due to inadequate design, especially in the on- and off-ramps. The state has also attached a Project Labor Agreement, or PLA, to the project, Eucalitto said, “which means that workforce training will occur right here on this job site.” “PLA’s help ensure the next generation of trades people get the hands-on training they need to help deliver the infrastructure of our future,” he said.

Officials Kick Off 4-Year Construction at I-95 Exit 74, Lamont Talks Faster Rail

A group of local and state officials, from First Selectman Kevin Seery to Gov. Ned Lamont, stood in front of an excavator at the former site of the Starlight Inn Wednesday morning. Construction workers watched in their yellow vests and hard hats from the staging area that will become a northbound on-ramp and commuter parking lot by the end of the more than four-year, $148 million project.
State Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Gary Eucalitto said the project will realign on- and off-ramps to give drivers more time before merging or trying to get off the highway. The goal of the project, which was referred to by multiple officials as “transformational,” is to reduce congestion and improve safety on the highway and Route 161. The state DOT is picking up 20% of the cost while the federal government, through President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal, is responsible for the rest.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230426/officials-say-exit-project-will-bring-transformational-improvements-to-east-lyme-traffic/

Eversource Energy has started work on a $12 million upgrade of its distribution network in northern Waterbury, company officials said this week. The project, which will be rolled out in phases through 2025, got underway earlier this year, according to Mitch Gross, an Eversource spokesman. The first phase of the project will be completed by the end of August, with work being done Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. – weather permitting. “Our engineers are constantly looking at the system and one of the factors they look at is the history of outages in a given area,” Gross said. The upgrades for the 2024 and 2025 construction season are still in the planning process, he said. Eversource has 52,332 customers in Waterbury.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/evesrouce-upgrading-network-in-waterbury-17917473.php?src=sthplocal

A mix of two- and three-bedroom condominiums are about to be built in New Britain near the southwestern edge of Batterson Park. The wooded field behind Frisbie’s Dairy Barn along Farmington Avenue will be cleared this summer, and new housing will be built starting later in the year and continuing through late 2024, according to property owner and developer Michael Frisbie. But as with most developers in this time of construction inflation, economic uncertainty and supply chain disruptions, he acknowledged that could change in the next year. The company will build each unit at 2,300 square feet, he said, and will determine from market reaction how many will be configured with two bedrooms and how many with three. The condo complex will be directly behind the gas station. Noble plans a new road with both ends on Alexander that will curve through the property and serve the driveway of each condo.

New condos coming to edge of Batterson Park in New Britain

City officials gathered Saturday morning to mark the 36th anniversary of the L’Ambiance Plaza collapse. L’Ambiance, a 16-story apartment building, was being built using lift-slab construction, in which the concrete slabs are poured on the ground, then lifted into place using jacks. On April 23, 1987, a slab slipped and the structure collapsed, killing 27 men and one teenager who was working at the site with his father. Lift-slab construction was later banned in Connecticut. Renaissance Plaza, a four-story affordable housing complex now stands on the site, and a statue commemorates the L’Ambiance victims.

https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/bridgeport-lambiance-plaza-collapse-ceremony-17911080.php?src=rdctpdensecp

A plan to add a synthetic field at Stamford High School has received some push back because of environmental and safety concerns. The funding to install the multi-purpose field at the baseball field is not an issue. The State Bond Commission agreed to pay $3 million for the work. A letter from the Children’s Environment Health Center to the Stamford Board of Representatives questioned the safety of artificial playing fields, citing a study done by Mount Sinai and the Toxic Use Reduction Institute that found carcinogens in “all alternative infill materials examined.” FieldTurf has installed synthetic fields in multiple professional sports stadiums and even did the field at West Beach, Dyjak said. The company has also put in turf fields in Greenwich, about seven or eight in Norwalk and six in Westport, as well as all the athletic fields at Yale University. The idea for the new field at Stamford High came from the high school’s governance council, which submitted an application to the state in 2021 looking for funding. The state awarded $3 million to the school in 2022.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/stamford-high-synthetic-field-plan-sparks-17911283.php?src=sthpdesecp

A company that specializes in the design, manufacturing and construction of mid-sized and high-rise buildings in cities is relocating its U.S. headquarters from Brooklyn, N.Y. to Connecticut, state officials announced Monday. FullStack Modular will relocate its headquarters from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to 30 Edmund St. in Hamden, Gov. Ned Lamont and company officials said in an announcement made in New Haven’s Gateway Terminal. He said the company’s primary activity is designing multi-family housing. State officials will work with the company on recruiting and hiring new workers, he said. Modular construction provides an opportunity for workers who need a more reliable income, a set schedule, and safe, non-weather-dependent working conditions than the conventional construction and building industry, according to Krulak.

https://www.nhregister.com/business/article/ny-state-company-relocating-headquarters-in-hamden-17914893.php?src=nhrhpbusiness

Maryland-based Blueprint Robotics wants to put up a high-tech factory in Windsor to produce building materials to serve the New England market. The company is proposing a 462,000-square-foot factory along with a 90,000-square-foot warehouse. If the Planning and Zoning Commission grants its approval, Blueprint would build on about 48 acres of former Culbro shade tobacco fields along Goodwin Drive. The Windsor plant would represent a massive expansion from its roughly 200,000-square-foot plant just south of the O’Donnell Heights section of Baltimore. Adding the new plant would reduce shipping time and costs to builders in the region, where multifamily housing construction has been a hot market for the past two years.

462,000-square-foot Windsor factory proposed by Maryland high-tech building materials manufacturer

Property owner Noble Energy Real Estate Holdings LLC plans to build on a 9-acre vacant site at 751 Russell Road just off the Berlin Turnpike. The site plan was first pitched in September and approved in late October 2022. One last step before the project can break ground is for the Planning and Zoning Commission to approve a Certificate of Location license application, which is a state license required for any sale and distribution of gasoline and vehicle sales, town officials said. Noble Energy said there is a market for the mixed-uses in this project in the Business-Berlin Turnpike Zoning District. “While there are similar uses within the town and along the Berlin Turnpike, there is no existing location which provides all the services proposed in one convenient development program,” the applicant said.

Gas station, electric vehicle showroom project approved in Newington