State officials recently temporarily halted renovations to the former American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) building downtown over labor law violations. Juliet Manalan, a labor department spokesperson, confirmed that agency’s wage and workplace standards division issued stop work orders to a trio of businesses involved in the project for misclassifying workers and not having workers’ compensation insurance: Odysseus Multi-tech and Pillar Management, both of New York, and a J. Gonzalez, of Connecticut, which had the insurance but not for the correct amount of employees or type of work. Odysseus was also cited for having unlicensed personnel performing plumbing. A pair of construction unions — the Fairfield County Building Trades and Carpenter’s Local 326 — scheduled a 10 a.m. rally Saturday at 430 John St. to protest the violations. Their announcement noted this is the second high profile redevelopment in Bridgeport where stop work orders were issued over workers’ compensation and misclassification issues.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/bridgeport-att-building-renovations-halted-20234001.php

The approximately $4.2 million Railroad Square Revitalization project has been awarded to Yield Industries. Officials are now awaiting approval by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, said City Engineer and Deputy Public Works Director Paul Kundzins. “Construction will begin as soon as we can mobilize,” he said. “The project is required to be completed by the end of this calendar year, so we’re going to be done. Busy, busy summer.” At $4.1 million with $207,355 for contingencies and quantity fluctuations, the Torrington-based Yield Industries’ bid was the lowest, Kundzins said. The project will be funded by a DECD Community Challenge Grant, the City of Torrington Pavement Management Program Bond Fund and the state Department of Transportation Town Aid Road program. The overall project includes the replacement of the railroad platform and construction of a canopy at Railroad Square, the $632,967 contract for which was awarded to Millennium Builders Inc. in January.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/waterbury/article/torrington-railroad-square-yield-industries-20231599.php

An elevated pedestrian bridge will now be able to connect Choate Rosemary Hall’s north and south campus along Christian Street. The proposal was brought before the town council last year when the school sought an air easement to construct the 17-foot-tall wooden bridge, which is planned to be located just south of Rosemary Lane. It was recently approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission. Officials said the project would have limited environmental impact due to the narrow footprint and the porous asphalt that will be used for the overflow parking area. While twice as expensive as normal asphalt, it would allow the water to seep into the soil directly beneath the paved area and wouldn’t require a catch basin, which would likely come at a greater expense for the school to maintain in the long term.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/recordjournal/article/wallingford-chaote-bridge-approval-christian-st-20219633.php

Acting Superintendent of Schools Royce Avery believes the school system must first secure the funding and construct new school buildings before it moves forward with a proposal to shutter several old facilities. A recently completed study found the district’s aging buildings will need $702.5 million in upgrades over the next decade and recommends closing seven aging schools to save money on costly repairs. The report notes many of the schools were originally built more than a century ago and that replacing badly rundown facilities with brand new ones could help the cash-strapped district save millions of dollars in maintenance costs. The district is holding three public forums this spring about the future of the facilities. The first will take place on March 31 at Harding High School, while the second will be on April 1 at Central High School and the third will be on April 2 at Bassick High School.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/education/article/bridgeport-school-closures-new-buildings-20226926.php

Legislation aimed at helping non-college-bound students and workers train for Connecticut’s construction trades won overwhelming approval last week in the legislative Labor Committee to create a group of professionals to look into existing entry-level programs and increase access to various apprenticeship programs. While Ackert’s original proposed bill would have created a new construction pipeline emulating the manufacturing program, the legislative process so far has turned it into a study. As currently written, the study group would examine opportunities in existing public high school curriculums and include pre-apprenticeship programs and avenues to higher education including college degrees in construction management. Some of the state’s unionized worker forces, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 488 of Western Connecticut has a free apprenticeship program.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/politics/article/pipeline-construction-jobs-advances-committee-20186806.php

The preferred developer of a crucial piece in a new neighborhood planned in downtown Hartford is withdrawing from the project, a major setback for the redevelopment of a barren swath of parking lots near The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. The Michaels Organization, of Camden, N.J., — chosen in late 2022 to develop the largest parking lot in the envisioned Bushnell South neighborhood — has reached an agreement with the Capital Region Development Authority to step away from the project aimed at creating apartments and storefront space. CRDA is overseeing the reshaping of the Bushnell South neighborhood. The quasi-public CRDA will now have to decide whether to seek new proposals for the nearly 3-acre site or potentially shift to a different focus that could include a larger share of homeownership options.

Plans for crucial piece of new CT neighborhood suffers major setback. ‘More questions than answers.’

State officials have stopped work on the Ponemah Mills site in Taftville as they investigate whether excavated material there is contaminated. McCormack wrote that he and DEEP officials met Tuesday with a representative of One Key LLC, the New Jersey developer in charge of renovating the historical cotton mill complex into a combination of market-rate and affordable apartments and amenities. The larger mill building on the site, which contains 237 apartments plus 77 more in a rear wing, has already been renovated and is currently housing tenants. The second half of the renovation is still underway at the south mill, where One Key is working on a $40 million project to create 146 apartments along with a restaurant in a smaller building to the west. He said any request to reuse polluted soil on the site would need to be authorized by the Remediation Division, which has not received such a request. One Key officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.

https://theday.com/news/719944/state-halts-work-at-ponemah-mills-site/#

Attorney General William Tong filed an enforcement action against Salvatore R. Carabetta and his LLCs for illegally encroaching on Lamentation Mountain State Park property, according to a lawsuit filed in Hartford Superior Court. The action alleges that since owning the property, Carabetta has illegally clearcut acres of state forest, and has unlawfully built numerous fixtures on state property, including guest a guest house, a basketball court, two sheds, an animal shed, an asphalt driveway and a drainage system with runoff into the state park. The lawsuit also claims Carabetta took additional measures to prevent public access to the state park lands, including padlocking the access road with large “Private No Trespassing” signs affixed to state park trees, according to the lawsuit.

https://www.ctinsider.com/recordjournal/article/carabetta-encroaching-deep-lawsuit-berlin-meriden-20231969.php

A project to repave sections of Route 7 and the Merritt Parkway in the city will begin Friday, officials say. On its wesbite, the DOT said the work will also be taking place in Trumbull, Stratford and Milford. It said the contract was awarded to Waters Construction Co. at a cost of $11,349,172. Officials said Route 7 north and south will have lane closures from Friday until Oct. 21 from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., with ramp closures during that same span of months from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. They said Route 15 will also have lane closures from Friday until late Oct. from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., as well as ramp closures from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Likely starting in 2027, it calls for five traffic signals to regulate the flow of vehicles entering and exiting the highways; four new bridges; a replacement bridge; and new roadways on Norwalk’s Main Avenue and Creeping Hemlock Drive; and new ramps that make Route 7, the Merritt Parkway and Main Avenue more accessible to each other, according to DOT’s documentation from 2023.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/norwalk-rt-7-rt-15-merritt-construction-closures-20232777.php

he 232-unit housing complex, owned and managed by the Real Estate Asset Development Co., will include studio and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. READCO, based in Old Lyme, has owned the plaza since 1995, and built the theater as well as a Stop & Shop supermarket, McDonald’s, Berkshire Bank and Stonington Medical Center offices there. The theater closed in September 2022 when Regal went bankrupt. READCO President Michael Lech said his firm sold its other movie theater locations but held on to the Pawcatuck location. The facilities will include private and public garages and a clubhouse, featuring a swimming pool, barbecue pit, golf simulator and dog-washing station, as well as extensive outdoor walking trails, according to READCO. The company has also acquired an adjacent property that contains a house for future expansion.

https://theday.com/news/719634/former-pawcatuck-movie-theater-being-torn-down-to-make-way-for-80m-project/#