The site of an approved residential and retail project at 280 Main Ave. in Norwalk, once planned to be a BJ’s Wholesale Club, has been listed for sale for $15 million. Despite the listing, Planning and Zoning Director Steve Kleppin said the site still has the Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval for development. That approval allows for the construction of a three two-story structures: a 19,000-square-foot retail space with 10 apartments above it; a 2,240-square-foot coffee shop; and a 2,200-square-foot restaurant, along with an electric vehicle charging station. “The owner can pull a permit to construct that development if they wish, or they can sell and someone else can propose a different project,” Kleppin said in an email Thursday. “If what they propose is a completely different project, they would probably have to start from scratch. If there were minor modifications, that might be a simpler process. Hard to say exactly without seeing what was proposed.”

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/norwalk-280-main-ave-bjs-retail-apartments-20066246.php

From demolition of a portion of the former Founders Plaza office park to the sale of town-owned property for a 400-unit apartment complex, 2025 will be another year to push ahead large-scale economic redevelopment projects in East Hartford. Town staff are setting the stage to invest a portion of a $6.5 million state grant to demolish the former Bank of America office building at 99 Founders Plaza, making way for a 300-unit apartment building facing the Connecticut River, Martin noted. This is the first installment of a multi-year effort to build roughly 1,000 apartments mixed with retail, entertainment and other commercial uses along the riverfront. Martin said the investors behind “Port Eastside” have invested more than $22 million into the acquisition of various parcels for the project.

East Hartford mayor touts progress on large apartment, other developments

A Hartford-based rail advocate who travels frequently, Casey Moran, has pitched an idea to build a rail line that would connect Bradley International Airport to the region’s rail network. The Bradley Airport Rail Link would provide a one-seat train ride to Bradley from throughout much of Connecticut. It would have stops in Hartford, Bloomfield and Windsor Locks. The idea was picked up by Rep. Christopher Rosario (D-Bridgeport) who has introduced a bill that would amend a state statute to require the Department of Transportation to establish a new commuter rail line from Hartford’s Union Station to the airport. Bradley’s rail spur would run off the existing Hartford Line, which is served by CTrail and Amtrak trains, and runs between New Haven and Springfield. Adding frequent and efficient rail service would change people’s perceptions of Bradley and provide a long-term return on state investment, he says.

Proposed rail link to Bradley International Airport gains traction with new bill

A new, undated memo from the DOT directs the department to give grant preferences to “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.” The action comes after the DOT announced that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy — who was confirmed to the position on Wednesday — had authorized a series of actions to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda to “rescind woke policies” and roll back regulations. Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., said she and her colleagues don’t believe they have ever seen a federal government policy tied to marriage and birth rates, and said it’s not clear how it would be enacted. Duffy isn’t the only administration official focused on the country’s birth rate. Vice President JD Vance said in a speech this month that he wants Americans to have more babies.

https://www.constructiondive.com/news/dot-grant-preference-marriage-birth-rate/738942/

Residents on both the east and west sides of the city say they live with intolerable traffic noise caused by highway construction projects and hope state officials can help. Two years ago, the state Department of Transportation embarked on a $500 million highway project to reconfigure the interchange of I-91, I-691 and Route 15 in Meriden to improve traffic flow and make it safer. Before the press conferences to announce the projects, workers cleared trees and brush in the buffers between the highway and the homes, and residents lost their noise barriers. Quinn recently introduced legislation asking the General Assembly to authorize CT DOT to install sound barriers eastbound on I-691 near the Steuben Street neighborhood, on I-91 southbound between the Middletown line and Exit 18, Preston Avenue, for residents on Thurrott Avenue. He estimates the total coverage to be about 1.5 to 2 miles and the cost between $1 million to $2 million per mile, depending on how it’s constructed. Noise barriers in those areas were not included in the state’s project.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/recordjournal/article/meriden-highway-noise-complaints-quinn-bill-20063386.php

The administration of President Donald J. Trump has informed the Connecticut Department of Transportation it would, “to the maximum extent permitted by law,” link federal transportation funding to policies on masks, vaccines, tolls and immigration enforcement. The U.S. Supreme Court has held the federal government can impose conditions on federal funding, but those conditions must be germane to the federal interest in the projects for which the money is used and cannot cross the line from enticement to coercion. Lamont said Thursday that DOT was one of at least three state agencies getting directives establishing new ill-defined conditions for federal funding that arrived after a chaotic 48 hours of vague and ultimately conflicting advise regarding a pause in a broad range of federal funding. Federal grants are one of the two chief ways Connecticut pays for this construction, the other being state borrowing – which is repaid using sales and fuel tax receipts in the budget’s Special Transportation Fund.

Trump ties transportation funding to immigration compliance

A renewable energy company has proposed a 12,000-panel solar farm on Lantern Hill Road. The proposal before the Connecticut Siting Council, by North Haven-based Greenskies Clean Energy, LLC, would transform 28 acres near the border of Ledyard into a 4.99-megawatt solar energy farm. Such a farm would produce enough electricity to power about 700 homes per day, according to data from the Solar Energies Industry Association. According to plans submitted to the Connecticut Siting Council, the project would consist of almost 12,000 solar panels across 458 rows with 26 panels per row surrounded by a seven-foot-high fence. Under state law, the siting council has jurisdiction over siting, construction, and operation of solar farms. The project has received a 20-year power purchase agreement from the state’s Shared Clean Energy Program.

https://theday.com/news/698013/solar-farm-with-12000-panels-proposed-for-stonington-ledyard-border/#

Last week, President Donald Trump told federal agencies to stop disbursing Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act funding, including money that Congress already authorized. The move has thrown climate and infrastructure projects at various stages of development into uncertainty, as his agenda regarding federal government contracts and grants continues to rapidly evolve. Another major announcement this week around funding has led to more confusion. A Monday internal memo from the Office of Management and Budget ordered a pause on all federal grants and loans, starting at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Federal agencies must temporarily halt funding and agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, “including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” according to the memo.

https://www.constructiondive.com/news/trump-funding-freeze-iija-ira-projects/738504/

Principal Brian Scott said despite the subzero temperatures, most things went smoothly during the first day of classes in the new Torrington High School building Jan. 22. The four-story, 310-000-square-foot building will cost about $179.5 million, with the state reimbursing the city 85%. The middle school wing will open for classes in September. Wilson expressed thanks to Mayor Elinor C. Carbone, the Board of Education, the building committee “and everyone who worked really hard for the citizens of this wonderful community to make this happen. I mean, this is an amazing facility.”

https://www.registercitizen.com/news/education/article/torrington-high-school-open-20058065.php

Eight school building projects have made the state’s School Construction Project Priority List for 2025. In total, the state’s Department of Administrative Services is providing $152.4 million in grants to support school building projects in Fairfield, Greenwich, Norwich, Plainville and Woodbridge. The combined cost of the local projects is $262.7 million. The estimated cost depends on the building: Osborn Hills’ work is estimated to cost $597,500, North Stratfield’s is estimated to cost $652,500 and work at the middle school is estimated to cost $769,500.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/education/article/greenwich-fairfield-plainville-woodbridge-norwich-20036288.php