Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has put its Hartford campus up for sale, CBRE announced Wednesday. The school plans to look for a new campus location with smaller space that provides both remote and in-person classroom opportunities, the source said. The 12.7-acre site also includes a four-story parking garage and surface parking lot, totaling more than 860 spaces. CBRE said it has been retained as the exclusive adviser in the sale. The property is being marketed as “mixed-use redevelopment opportunity in Hartford’s Downtown North neighborhood,” the company said. CBRE has listed the property without a formal asking price. John McCormick and Anna Kocsondy of CBRE’s Hartford office are in charge of the listing.

Rensselaer to sell downtown Hartford campus; property marketed for redevelopment

The City Council Monday approved applying again for a $25 million grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation. The grant would allow the garage to add 250 parking spaces to the existing 910 spaces as well as add a transit hub and a cultural and tourism center. Parking Authority Director Carey Redd said the need for more parking is driven by the construction of the National Coast Guard Museum which is already underway. The museum is estimated to bring hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. This would be the fifth time the city is applying for a grant to fund this project. Redd said the New London Parking Authority first applied in 2017, then in 2018, 2020, and 2021. The expansion is part of an infrastructure project in downtown New London that will also see the construction of new pedestrian bridge above Water Street, a new high speed ferry terminal and the restoration of the Union Train Station.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230208/new-london-attempts-to-get-federal-funding-again-for-garage-expansion/#

Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposed $50.5 billion two-year state budget includes money for a Danbury charter school if that is what stakeholders decide is best for the city, a spokesman said Wednesday. That means a new public charter school proposed for Main Street in downtown Danbury appears to be a definite maybe under Lamont’s budget plan. State Sen. Julie Kushner, a Democrat and a critic of the charter school who believes it would drain money from the city’s underfunded public schools, said the governor clearly means that she and members of the city’s delegation to Hartford should decide what’s best for the city. Although questions remain about what process the charter school would follow to open on Main Street in August as the organizers plan, Esposito said the next step was clear.

https://www.newstimes.com/news/education/article/money-for-danbury-charter-school-in-lamont-budget-17772429.php?src=nthpdesecp

The trial between East Haven and plaintiff John Patton, who owned Farm River Rock quarry, began last week, with tens of millions of dollars in damages hanging in the balance. Patton previously filed a $30 million lawsuit against former East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. and other town officials, alleging they illegally closed his 1 Barberry Road quarry business for political reasons. But former town Zoning Enforcement Officer Chris Soto, who also is being sued by Patton, said during Tuesday’s proceedings that the decision to close the quarry stemmed from it violating East Haven’s zoning regulations, which prohibited quarrying. Soto issued Farm River Rock a cease and desist order in 2017, a decision he testified Tuesday was solely his own. Soto said he consulted with Town Attorneys Alfred and Joseph Zullo prior to issuing the order, but not with Maturo. The quarry since has reopened under the name East Haven Trap Rock Quarry, with new partners from New York in control and Patton now having a minority stake. Patton had offered to settle with the town for $3 million, but the two sides were unable to reach an agreement.

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/farm-river-rock-quarry-trial-east-haven-17769269.php?src=nhrhpdesecp

Crews have now removed more than 52,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and waste left across town by the defunct Raymark Industries, according to Jim DiLorenzo, an environmental engineer with the Environmental Protection Agency. The cleanup is aimed at removing contaminated soil that was polluted with cancer-causing agents such as asbestos, lead and polychlorinated biphenyls – commonly known as PCBs – by Raymark Industries, an automotive parts manufacturer that dumped waste across the town. DiLorenzo said the EPA is now preparing to begin removing about 12,000 cubic yards from the channel and banks of Ferry Creek, a badly polluted watercourse that runs behind Ferry Boulevard. The labor-intensive effort is scheduled to begin in April and is expected take at least nine months to complete. By the time the project is expected to end in late 2024, somewhere between 100,000 to 125,000 cubic yards of toxic soil will have been extracted and consolidated at the former Raybestos Memorial Field on Frog Pond Lane.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/50k-cubic-yards-raymark-waste-removed-stratford-17767294.php

One in every four people hired to work on Bloomfield’s two library construction projects will reside in town thanks to a project labor agreement. Council approved the resolution last year in conjunction with Connecticut State Building Trades, which represents construction workers across the state and is committed to hiring 25 percent Bloomfield residents. The union is actively recruiting labor for the project. The idea is to put local people to work while keeping money in Bloomfield, according to Councilor Kenneth McClary, who along with Mayor Danielle Wong, spearheaded the agreement. The library projects will contract 13 different trades. Joe Toner, executive director at Connecticut State Building Trades, said the union already has about 250 families associated with the union in town. The existing connection to Bloomfield inspired the eventual partnership. Under the project labor agreement, the Connecticut State Building Trades Training Institute will actively recruit Bloomfield residents with expertise in trades ranging from plumbing to elevator technicians to electricians to help complete the Prosser and P. Faith McMahon Wintonbury Library. Construction is expected to start in a few months and last about a year.

https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/bloomfield-library-project-jobs-for-residents-17766594.php

Sitting U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh will be formally installed as the next Executive Director of the NHL Players’ Association in the coming days following Tuesday night’s State of the Union address by President Joe Biden, sources tell Daily Faceoff. Walsh was unable to leave his government post until after attending the president’s annual joint-session speech in Congress. Walsh, 55, was presented as the NHLPA search committee’s top choice for the job during an executive board meeting held in Miami last Friday. A formal executive board vote will follow in the coming days, requiring at least 18 ‘yes’ votes among the 32-team player representatives, but that is a formality as Walsh is expected to be unanimously approved. An official announcement of Walsh’s appointment could come before the end of the week. Walsh will become the first Executive Director of the NHLPA without a legal background. The Dorchester, Mass., native dropped out of college and completed his Bachelor of Arts in social science from Boston College in 2009 at the age of 42 by taking night classes. He joined the Laborers’ Union in Boston at age 21, served as the union’s president, was elected the Massachusetts state legislature while also being head of the Boston Building Construction and Trades Council.

https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/sources-marty-walsh-will-be-installed-as-next-executive-director-of-nhl-players-association

The city’s much-anticipated campus for 1,400 middle and high school students will be delayed by one year and won’t open for the 2024-25 school year as planned, but at a groundbreaking ceremony at the site educators said they will implement the district’s comprehensive career academy curriculum on time. The ceremony Monday was held at the former headquarters of Cartus Corp. – a 24-acre property overlooking the Danbury Fair mall that was acquired by the city late last year. It plans to renovate the 270,000-square-foot building into badly needed classrooms to ease crowding at Danbury High School. As hard as leaders pushed to meet an opening deadline of August 2024, the city lost valuable time while acquiring the land because it took months for the seller to remove a restrictive clause on part of the property that would not have allowed any use other than a parking lot. At Monday’s ceremony, Walston stressed that the groundbreaking was about more than just marking the start of the $164 million renovation of the office park that voters approved in the summer.

https://www.newstimes.com/news/education/article/danbury-career-academy-curriculum-starts-in-2024-17767392.php

“The bottom line is we’re short $6.5 million,” said Ken Carney, a remodeling company owner who has volunteered to lead the city’s efforts on numerous city building projects. On Monday, the school board voted unanimously to approve the demolition. Carney said the signed contract following that vote constitutes the official start of the project in the state’s eyes. Although the district would be allowed to accept bids for demolition, Carney said the district would not begin demolition until after June 30 as it awaits additional funding from the state. The board’s approval of the demolition design constitutes a complete demolition, which Antinozzi Associates architect Lisa Yates said would cost $1.37 million as a pre-bid estimate.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/west-haven-6-5-million-short-washington-school-17768949.php

With just more than three months remaining until a planned mid-June opening, the $7.8 million Veterans Memorial Pool rebuild will transform the circa-1958 facility into a state-of-the-art swimming complex to rival that of other similarly sized municipalities. Preliminary plans were announced in October 2020. Costs associated with updating the facility rose about 200 percent since the original estimate — from $2.6 million to nearly $8 million. Officials have said the increase was due partly to pandemic-related issues as well as the project’s shift from renovations to a nearly full rebuild. It originally was scheduled to open in time for the 2022 summer season. There were a number of restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic that delayed the pool project, she added, acknowledging that both the city and community may have experienced frustration.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/8m-middletown-pool-complex-splash-pad-free-17762728.php