New bridges, extra highway lanes and another round of road pavings are on the docket for 2025 in Stamford. An auxiliary lane will be added to both sides of Interstate 95 in Stamford in 2025 if the state’s plans come to fruition before the end of the year. The project involves adding an extra lane on each side of the highway to connect Exit 6 and Exit 7. The $76 million project is 90 percent funded by the federal government. The auxiliary lanes are part of a larger project that aims to improve the stretch of interstate between Exits 6 and 7. Other improvements include the construction of noise walls between the interstate and nearby neighborhoods as well as new lighting and signage. Three of Stamford’s lowest rated bridges will still be under repair at the start of 2025.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/stamford-road-construction-traffic-detours-2025-20009092.php

The Executive Kia dealership at 1164 N. Colony Road is undergoing a major expansion and renovation expected to be completed in 2025. The construction will double the size of the current building, totaling 24,000 square feet. The private school Choate Rosemary Hall is undertaking several projects expected to be completed in 2025. Minnesota-based medical equipment manufacturer Bio-Techne plans to double the size of its laboratory and manufacturing center at 5 Technology Drive with a 54,000-square-foot addition. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved a site plan revision for the addition at its Oct. 16 meeting. With a zone change approved in December, developers are expected to bring forward plans to construct a data center at 1181 Barnes Road alongside the Muddy River. Concrete plans have yet to be presented, but if approved, it will be one of the state’s first data centers constructed on this scale under new legislation intended to attract new technological development to the state.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/recordjournal/article/meriden-wallingford-cheshire-southington-develop-19997696.php

A core tenet of my party is that government can deliver for the American people. We have also generally supported the regulations that protect our safety, the environment, and community input. But those regulations have calcified into a huge obstacle to building anything at all. A few months ago, I realized that over the last three years of providing Congressionally Directing Spending to my district, not a single earmarked transportation or infrastructure project had begun construction. More broadly, as of April 2024, almost 80 percent of IIJA’s available funding nationwide through 2026 had not been spent, a full three years after it was passed by Congress. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is one of our country’s bedrock environmental laws, but it often imposes time-burning burdensome process. Each federal agency, including sub-agencies, has adopted its own NEPA procedures, resulting in duplicative environmental reviews across multiple agencies. The IIJA addressed this issue by implementing the One Federal Decision policy, but this process is still rarely followed. Permitting reform is also gaining bipartisan momentum in Congress, particularly for energy projects and transmission lines.

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As of last January, utility-scale battery power storage made up 46% of applications for new power sources to be connected to the grid, as reported by ISO New England, which oversees the region’s wholesale power market. ISO New England lists about 30 active battery farm projects statewide in Connecticut where developers want to hook up to grid substations operated by Eversource and the United Illuminating subsidiary of Avangrid. This year, feasibility or impact studies for at least 10 more battery farms have been filed as well. A year ago, the Norwich-based Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative issued a request for developers interested in building as many as five battery farms for its customer territories, which include portions of Norwalk, Norwich, Groton, Griswold and Bozrah. Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration has been offering incentives to encourage battery storage systems, with the primary goal reducing electricity prices. Under a 2022 law passed by the Connecticut General Assembly, the state must achieve a carbon-emission-free electric grid by 2040 by phasing out polluting sources of power generation.

https://www-ctpost-com.translate.goog/business/article/ct-battery-farms-eversource-avangrid-electricity-19985515.php?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_hist=true

The final report hasn’t been written, but research so far on a wide-ranging study of the Route 44 corridor in Canton endorses widening the roadway to create left-turn lanes at Dowd Avenue and adding a traffic roundabout on Dowd about a half-mile to the west. Engineers and traffic planners studied the cost, viability and potential benefits of a long series of ideas for improving safety and traffic flow along the a roughly 1.5-mile section of Route 44, the most heavily traveled road in Canton, and a shorter section of Dowd Avenue. Based on state transportation department’s forecast as well as the amount of properties open to potential development, planners projected a nearly 24% increase in traffic volume in the study area by 2050. One of the boldest and most challenging proposals that came up during the study was to convert the center of the Canton Village Shops’ long parking lots between Dowd Avenue and Route 44 into a full-scale road with sidewalks. However, the study fully recommends another large-scale change: installing a roundabout where the Canton Village Shops parking lot connects to Dowd Avenue.

In central CT town, Route 44 study predicts more traffic, high-density development

The Connecticut State Pier in New London is already serving as a new launching point for offshore wind turbines, but two sections of the newly renovated port facility will need to be fixed due to flaws in parts of the $311 million construction project. Correcting those problems is expected to cost, at a minimum, several million dollars, Whitescarver told legislators, and the work might not be completed until 2027, due to the ongoing use of the pier as a staging ground for offshore wind projects. Officials with the Port Authority believe Kiewit, the construction manager on the project, should be responsible for fixing the mistakes, since the company oversaw the construction effort and won several bids to build large portions of the pier. But Whitescarver acknowledged that Kiewit, one of the largest construction firms in North America, is unlikely to accept that outcome willingly. Kiewit told The Connecticut Mirror on Thursday that it stood behind its work on the project, and the company said it was not to blame for the issues it encountered with construction.

New London State Pier construction fixes likely to cost millions

The state Bond Commission is poised to authorize tens of millions in borrowing Friday to help fund multifamily developments throughout the state. Housing development is a big chunk of the $423.1 million borrowing package going before the bond commission on Friday. The agenda includes $50 million for the state Department of Housing’s Build for CT program, which helps developers finance affordable and middle-income rental housing projects. The state Department of Housing is up for another $20 million, which will pass to the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority to fund construction or rehabilitation of 186 housing units. The Bond Commission will vote on a proposed $6.5 million for CRDA, which the quasi-public agency would lend to Simon Konover to help the company finance an approximately 150-unit apartment complex in East Hartford. The development would be located on a 35-acre site at 341 East River Drive, near the Connecticut River.

https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/state-poised-to-borrow-tens-of-millions-to-incentivize-multifamily-development

Town officials are moving forward with a $16.7 million plan to protect the sewage treatment plant from powerful storms and rising sea levels by building a floodwall around the riverside facility. The town council voted unanimously this week to issue bonds and appropriate funds to pay for the construction project, which is now expected to start as soon as May and take about two years to complete. The treatment plant, which has the capacity to process up to 11.5 million gallons of sewage a day, sits in a flood zone on the banks of the Housatonic River, making it especially vulnerable to rising sea levels. At a Water Pollution Control Authority meeting last month, David Barstow of GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc., an engineering firm hired to help lead the project, said the floodwall would be 18 feet high at its tallest point. Barstow said he hopes to get authorization to move forward with the project from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection by March and start construction in May. He noted the work is expected to take two years to complete.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/stratford-approves-16-7m-floodwall-protect-19978328.php

The proposed, block-size Village at Riverside mixed-use development, planned for property bordered by Court and Main streets and deKoven and Dingwall drives, is anticipated to help the city finally reconnect to its riverfront via a walking bridge over Route 9. The Village is expected to include “affordable, luxury” housing units, with some 19 townhomes, 258 apartments consisting of studios and one- and two-bedroom units, and about 56 new on-street parking spaces, Wonder Works Construction of New York has said. The city is applying for a $250,000 Community Investment Fund planning grant from the state, according to Economic and Community Development Director Christine Marques, who provided project updates during the Dec. 10 meeting. Work on the former Mattabesett Canoe Club at 80 Harbor Drive, occupied by Tate’s restaurant since early May, is nearly done, Community Development Specialist Brian Gartner reported.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/middletown-ct-river-redevelopment-parking-housing-19984206.php

The first 11 tenants have moved into The Anthem at Square 10, the first building to be nearly completed in a sweeping remake of the downtown commercial site where the New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum once stood. An outdoor pool, gym and some co-working spaces also are ready, along with the second and third residential floors. Developer LWLP New Haven LLC is working to get the fourth through seventh floors of the $76 million “Phase 1A” building ready to be lived in this winter. The nearly complete building, development of which was aided by a $999,000 state remediation grant, is the first of several high-rise commercial buildings going up off South Orange Street as part of the project. The five-acre site, which has been a parking lot since the coliseum was imploded on Jan. 20, 2007, is at the city’s front door, where vehicles exiting Interstate 95 and Interstate 91 on Route 34 first enter downtown.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/square-10-former-new-haven-coliseum-19983459.php