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

The vacant property fronting the Bedford Street parking garage has become a rare pocket of inactivity in Downtown Stamford as developers fill in the remaining gaps like puzzle pieces. Stamford-based F.D. Rich Company is seeking Zoning Board approval to build a 198-unit luxury apartment complex on the parcel, which includes an adjacent lot across Gay Street. The proposed 13-story building would include 22 studios, 100 one-bedroom units, 67 two-bedroom units and nine three-bedroom units. In accordance with the city’s Below Market Rate program requirement, the developer plans to build 18 affordable apartments on site. If approved, the developer plans to start construction in September 2023 and complete it by spring 2025, Cacace said. The city’s tax revenue from the site would increase from $40,000 annually to $1.3 million, he estimated.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/stamford-developer-replace-dress-barn-broad-st-17902254.php?src=sthpdesecp

Concrete has been poured and hard-hatted construction workers are busy on site, but the final downtown stretch of New Haven’s Farmington Canal Heritage Trail won’t be done until the fall — thanks to a mandatory break to accommodate summer camps in an adjacent park. That’s the latest with the ongoing construction of Phase IV of the canal trail, which will see the below-grade section of the rail trail paved, landscaped, and opened to the public from its current terminus on Temple Street down to Grove Street. Farmington Canal advocate Aaron Goode then wrote in via the Zoom chat with a more detailed update about the latest with Phase IV from his understanding. He wrote that Phase IV construction is now scheduled to be complete in the fall. In response to a request for comment for this article, City Plan Director Laura Brown confirmed the expected fall finish date — and laid out more details on the work that has already taken place, and what’s still to come. “Phase IV of the Farmington Canal from Temple Street to the terminus at Canal Dock continues this spring with an anticipated completion date early fall,” Brown wrote.

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

Danbury needs to borrow $115 million to pay for upgrades to its drinking water treatment plants and its distribution system, and to comply with current clean water standards — including one new rule passed by the government in 2021 because of the health emergency in Flint. “Overall this administration is working with (the) water department to stay ahead of these things,” Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito said. “The priority for us is some of the equipment out there has gone 40 years without an upgrade.” An April 25 referendum is planned that will ask a majority of voters to approve $115 million for “the planning, study, design, engineering and construction of improvements, upgrades, and rehabilitation of existing water system assets, facilities and infrastructure.” In addition to modernizing the drinking water supply facilities at Lake Kenosia well field, and the West Lake and Margerie water treatment plants, the $115 million in borrowing covers the cost of complying with a new federal rule passed as a result of the lead contamination disaster in Flint.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/danbury-drinking-water-115-million-referendum-17905847.php

A few months ago, the middle-high school project on Besse Drive was filled with piles of steel beams, trucks and ditches. However, the $179 million building project, which will have a new high school, middle school and central offices for the Torrington School District, is now taking shape. A recent tour with members of the SLAM Collaborative, the architectural firm chosen to design the new Torrington middle-high school, also included members of the American Institute of Architects’ Connecticut chapter and Louis Grasso from Urban Mining, a Beacon Falls-based company. Facing the middle school site is the five-story high school building — now a steel beam structure with a completed concrete foundation. The group walked in on what will be the ground floor. The school project originally was approved by voters in November 2020 for $159 million. In January 2022, voters approved adding $20 million to the project. School building committee Co-Chairmen Mario Longobucco and Ed Arum came to the City Council in December 2021 asking for approval to add the $20 million, citing increased enrollment and rising costs for construction and materials.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/ths-project-architects-lead-tour-construction-17911223.php

Kiewit Infrastructure Co., the construction manager for State Pier, is leasing the 15-acre former Thames River Apartments parcel from the city as a storage site for building materials. Deliveries of wind turbine components are due to start this month. Waste management removal improvements, tug repair, refurbishment of the public boat launch under the Gold Star and work on the bridge itself are all underway with federal, state and/or private funding. Compared to larger ports such as Providence and Bridgeport, the footprint may be compact but the industrial infrastructure is designed for interconnected commerce and intermodal freight up to 21st-century standards. The cumulative effect is an industrial harbor that has shaken the rust off. It is poised to revive its place among Northeastern ports.

https://www.theday.com/columnists/20230423/nl-harbor-shakes-the-rust-off/

An audit of Connecticut’s hazardous materials cleanup program disclosed that more than a year’s worth of documentation was unavailable to auditors. The audit was part of Gov. Ned Lamont’s response to news that a federal grand jury was probing the state’s hazmat contracts, Connecticut’s school construction program and several other state projects that were overseen by Konstantinos Diamantis, a deputy secretary at the state Office of Policy and Management. “The HazMat Program subsequently returned to DAS following Kosta Diamantis’s resignation from state service in October 2021, and continued to be managed by Michael Sanders until his untimely death in December 2021, when the Program was returned to the DAS Construction Services unit,” the auditors added.

Audit of CT’s hazmat program shows missing documentation