[Connecticut203]

Originally Posted by Stylo

I wonder if that will take as long as the nonexistent Union Station renovations

I hope it doesn’t take long either. With the public input, Approving of the design shouldn’t be long. That train station needs an HUGE facelift.

How long were the union station renovations supposed to take?

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by Connecticut203

I hope it doesn’t take long either. With the public input, Approving of the design shouldn’t be long. That train station needs an HUGE facelift.

How long were the union station renovations supposed to take?

The Union Station Expansion and Renovation has been talked about for a long time. The problem has been the City of New Haven doesn’t agree with some of the State’s plan. If I remember correctly, the state wants to expand parking at the station but the city balked at that. It appears though that they have come up with a new plan and it’s currently in design. That means it’s a couple years from construction and completion. Below is a link to the new Master Plan. It’s pretty impressive. I hope it is fully completed. Jay

https://unionstationnewhaven.com/development-plan/

[allanny13]

Originally Posted by allanny13

Sweetgreen, Van Leeuwen's and Warby Parker also recently opened in the Commons; Gregory's coffee, Naya and Chip city opening soon. Granola bar opening today I think in the Corbin district; also announced Millie's (of Nantucket) will be opening a location there. The painful construction limbo of the last few years is finally starting to produce some nice new amenities, which everyone seems pretty excited about despite the years of construction still ahead of us.

Seamore's (NYC seafood restaurant) just opened up in the Commons. Haven't been yet but hearing good things. Naya (middle eastern fast-casual) opening next week- hoping it's similar to Cava.

With the Corbin district phase 1 done downtown Bank of America, Barrett's Bookstore, Sail to Sable, Weemondine, Darien Cleaners have all opened up in their new locations. Everything looks great, my only gripe is I was hoping some more of the power lines along the Post Rd would have been buried underground as they have done in other areas.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by JayCT

The Union Station Expansion and Renovation has been talked about for a long time. The problem has been the City of New Haven doesn’t agree with some of the State’s plan. If I remember correctly, the state wants to expand parking at the station but the city balked at that. It appears though that they have come up with a new plan and it’s currently in design. That means it’s a couple years from construction and completion. Below is a link to the new Master Plan. It’s pretty impressive. I hope it is fully completed. Jay

https://unionstationnewhaven.com/development-plan/

It's taking so long. Government moves so slow. Wish the city and state could just compromise.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by JayCT

The Union Station Expansion and Renovation has been talked about for a long time. The problem has been the City of New Haven doesn’t agree with some of the State’s plan. If I remember correctly, the state wants to expand parking at the station but the city balked at that. It appears though that they have come up with a new plan and it’s currently in design. That means it’s a couple years from construction and completion. Below is a link to the new Master Plan. It’s pretty impressive. I hope it is fully completed. Jay

https://unionstationnewhaven.com/development-plan/

Nice! I wonder how well that co-working space will do post-pandemic, but given how long this would take to finish, I reckon it'll probably do pretty well.

It seems to me there's still too much in parking space given the many suburban stations there are, but at least there are a lot of other components to it.

[Connecticut203]

Stamford's proposed south side school split across two campuses to cost city $65.8M

STAMFORD — A pair of new schools that will form a K-8 campus in the Cove neighborhood will cost the city roughly $65.8 million, according to early estimates.

The money will go toward building two new schools a mile apart — a K-4 facility at 83 Lockwood Ave. and a new 5-8 school at the current site of K.T. Murphy Elementary School on Horton Street — and would involve demolishing current structures at each location and also tearing down Toquam Magnet Elementary School.

Toquam is part of the plan because students currently zoned for that school would go to the new two-campus school once completed.

The total price tag for the work is $158.3 million, but the city is expected to receive state funding for approximately 60 percent of the total cost.

School and city officials had previously looked for a location to build a full K-8 school in the city's southern portion, but failed to find a suitable spot. An early idea to build a school at Cove Island Park faced immediate pushback and was quickly scrapped.

School officials are currently pitching the concept of the two-school campus to city boards to secure funding to apply to the state. The Board of Representatives will cast a final vote on the funding on June 5. If approved, the plan would need to be submitted to the state by the end of June in order to be considered for reimbursement. Local officials will know by December if they will receive state funding.

The work is part of a 20-year master plan that would include improvements to all schools and would call for building or expanding four schools, including the proposed south Stamford K-8. As part of the plan, four schools would shutter: Cloonan and Dolan middle schools, Toquam and Murphy.

During a meeting of the Board of Education's Operations Committee this week, a representative from architectural firm SLAM Collaborative presented the latest updates on the school project. By the end of the meeting, the committee voted in favor of the educational specifications for the two-site school.

Kemp Morhardt, principal with SLAM, said the K-4 facility would be the first stage of the project. The current building at 83 Lockwood is occupied by nonprofit DOMUS, with a row of portable classrooms perpendicular to the structure used by preschool Children’s Learning Centers of Fairfield County. Those would be torn down to make way for an L-shaped building with parking and a bus drop-off zone along Williams Street.

Construction would begin in 2025. Students from K.T. Murphy would transfer to the new school in 2028. Then Murphy would be demolished, with construction on a new school at that site starting in 2028. The plan is for the new building to open in 2030, at which point Toquam will be demolished.

Expected enrollment for the Lockwood site is 591 students, with 473 students at the future school at K.T. Murphy, for a total student body of 1,064.

Morhardt said each site presents space limitations. The Lockwood site is 4.6 acres, while Murphy sits on a 2.7-acre lot. In order to secure grant funding, neither project can exceed state space standards, which limits the size of the buildings even more.

Nonetheless, SLAM was able to find enough room to create parking for staff at each school.

Currently, staff at K.T. Murphy often have to find on-street parking. In the the new plan, 79 parking spaces are included in the design to accommodate about 60 to 65 faculty and staff members. At Lockwood, the number of parking spaces is 106, for an expected staff of 75 to 80 employees. Further, a redesign will allow for new bus drop-off locations and places for parents to drop off students.

"Given these two sites and how small they are, you’ve been able to apparently work miracles as far as where buses and drop offs will go," said Michael Hyman, chairman of the Operations Committee.

The proposed size of the Lockwood building is about 71,600 square feet, while the K.T. Murphy replacement building is slated to be about 79,300 square feet.

One of the proposals for the Lockwood site to add a media center that could stay open during hours when children are not in the school building so that members of the community could use it. Superintendent Tamu Lucero said the school district is examining ways to partner with Ferguson Library to run the space and that such a collaboration could be considered for any new school construction projects going forward.

"It seems to us that it would be actually a win-win for the school district, as well as the community," Lucero said.

District officials are trying to come up with ways to revive the district's school media centers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when specialists who ran the centers were eliminated because of a massive cut made to the school district's budget.


https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/loc....php#taboola-1

[BPt111]

A Greenwich developer has plans for Stamford's Pacific Street: a 'mini downtown' with a historic feel


STAMFORD — Pacific Street is the “vertebrae” of the South End, developer Andres Hogg said. While Atlantic Street and Canal Street extend down the west and east sides, respectively, of the 350-acre peninsula, Pacific runs right through the neighborhood's core.

When it’s completed, Hogg said he hopes to have a "mini downtown" reminiscent of smaller towns around America and Europe: “pedestrian friendly, historic, with a historic look where you can go from one building to the other without stepping out onto the street,” he said.

“We don’t have the scale but we have the character in most of the buildings that we own. And that’s what we’re trying to follow,” Hogg said.

Accumulating the properties has been a delicate process, Hogg said. He said he's maintained an open line of communication with neighboring South End property owners and historic preservationists, some of whom have felt burned by the neighborhood’s large-scale redevelopment over the past 15 years.

“We bring something different. The South End community has been, for the last 15 years, so impacted by what BLT has been doing that every meeting that I had when I started, I had to explain to them that I was not BLT,” Hogg said. “The meeting started like that. I’m not from Manhattan, I (live) seven minutes away and I’m not BLT. And everybody relaxed.”

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/loc...c-18091958.php

[allanny13]

In Darien, the old Bank of America office building is almost entirely demolished now- really a strange sight to see downtown without that building in between it and I95.

[BPt111]

Stamford to rival New Rochelle and White Plains, NY skyline

677 and 707 Washington Blvd., approved at 365 feet

Crews have not yet broken ground on Stamford's to-be tallest skyscraper: a 365-foot blade at 677 and 707 Washington Blvd.


In February 2021, the Zoning Board approved the 34-story building for the undeveloped parking lot next to the site of the former UBS trading floor. It was billed as the gem of a gateway district into the city from the Stamford Transportation Center.

Developer George Comfort and Sons still plans to move forward, spokesperson Justina Lombardo said in a May email.

The building will include 36,880 square feet of retail space along the street, plus 404 one- and two-bedroom apartments.




Landmark 3, approved at 320 feet

The latest Zoning Board approval will become a 320-foot apartment tower from what was an underused office building in the Landmark Square complex.

Landmark 3, another Cappelli project, will feature 400 apartments, 420 parking spaces and 5,200 feet of ground-floor retail space.

The changing character of the block was central to the pitch made by land use consultants to the Zoning Board. Attorney William Hennessey and consultant Rick Redniss gave statistics showing how office space drastically outpaced the city's population in the second half of the 20th century, though recent decades have been more a regression toward the mean.

Before urban renewal, downtown blocks were lined with houses and businesses. Consultants said the pendulum is moving back in that direction — although it might be swinging a bit higher this time.

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/loc...rc=startribbon

[Connecticut203]

I saw the article, was surprised at the heights of some of these buildings. Didn't realize Atlantic Station is only 280 feet tall. I thought it was at 300/315.

Disappointed that this new building has been scaled down to 365 feet. I was looking forward to seeing Stamford's first 400 foot building. Still nice additions to the skyline. Interestingly, when you look at the Stamford skyline, everything East of Landmark is low rising and from late 70's & 80's...everything West of Landmark is New and taller. The skyline is spread out and disjointed, but I am glad there are new buildings to shine