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01/11/2017 07:00 AMWhile winter isn’t generally considered a construction season, work is continuing on the Downtown Center Project. Phase I of the Downtown Center Project wrapped up in July and now, with the state pulling committed grants midway through the fiscal year, town officials are working to find a way to fund Phase II of the project.
Phase I of the project, which began in fall 2015, included renovations of the sidewalks and the center median downtown. Additionally, new light poles, tree grates, and bike racks were installed above new underground utilities and irrigation. The project was completed on time and within the $2 million budget allocated for the project.
The timeline for the rest of Phase II is still uncertain. The second phase of the project currently includes reduction in U.S. Route 1 pavement width, decorative LED luminaire streetlights, bicycle racks, granite curbing, clay brick paver sidewalks, and additional tree plantings and incorporates enhancements to the Tuxis Walkway entrance and the walkway itself.
At the Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on Jan 9, Town Engineer Mike Ott said utility work for the project is still ongoing.
“Utility work for the entire project that would serve Phases I and II, both overhead and underground, is almost complete,” he said. “We have already started the conduit installation for the buildings that we need to re-service so that utility work for the whole project will continue for the next few weeks.”
Once utility work is completed and the weather warms, all old utilities and poles will be removed, leaving just the streetscape portion of Phase II left to be completed. Once Phase II gets underway, Ott estimates construction is likely to take four months, but will be less disruptive to business owners due to location and the scope of the work.
That disruption may not be an immediate issue, however, as Phase II of the project is currently unfunded.
“We asked our contractor, because they bid it quite some time ago, we asked them recently to update their pricing for Phase II,” he said. “We just received that last week and their estimate is $975,000.”
Ott said the town should plan to carry closer to $1.2 million for the project, building in contingency funds in case of unknowns during construction as was the case with Phase I when contractors stumbled upon two undocumented fuel storage tanks in front of the firehouse that needed to be removed.
Bearing in mind the lack of funding, selectmen asked Ott if there was the possibility of eliminating or reducing certain parts of the project to bring the cost down. Ott said he has asked to contractor to break out certain components of the project that could be adjusted.
One section of the project that was discussed was the extension of the median. In the drawings for Phase II, the plan is to extend the median to the intersection of Route 79. The new section of the median is designed with cutouts for the firehouse and businesses to allow for traffic. Ott said he would like to see this section of the plan preserved.
“As the designer I believe that the median is very important to the look of our downtown center and it was also done to control traffic better at the Route 79 end,” he said. “In the design, we are moving the curb lines in to narrow it up and the median was designed to provide for safer traffic movements.”
For now, First Selectman Tom Banisch said he’s looking for ways to offset the cost of the project.
“We are looking at grants, but I don’t have any confidence at all that we are going to get any grants—not from the state, anyway,” he said. “There are other grant opportunities, so we might be able to find something on the federal level. If we could get even a match it would help. To come up with $1.2 million is not going to happen right now, but we might be able to come up with half of that if somebody could give us half.”