The State Bond Commission on Tuesday, the last chaired by outgoing Governor Dan Malloy, approved roughly $15 million in infrastructure improvements for Bridgeport including $7 million for Sikorsky Memorial Airport to match $8 million in private investment to revitalize dormant commercial passenger service, $3.7 million toward a new Congress Street Bridge, $2.3 million for the Bridgeport Resiliency coastal flood federal project and $1 million to assist with ongoing demolition and site remediation at the abandoned and blighted Remington Arms complex on the East Side.
Malloy met with Mayor Joe Ganim three weeks ago to prioritize city development initiatives in advance of the bond commission meeting.
“We are excited for the approved funding that will have a positive impact on Bridgeport’s infrastructure and economic development potential,” said Ganim in a prepared statement. “I want to thank Governor Malloy and the bond commission for their approval in securing the financial aid for these projects. I would also like to thank our Bridgeport State legislative delegation for their continued support.”
Mayoral aide Danny Roach has served as the city’s point person for shepherding state money for the Sikorsky investment. Roach, Democratic district leader in Black Rock, was an early supporter of Malloy for governor in 2010.
Malloy is going out the door with a bonding bang that represents a significant state infrastructure commitment to the state’s largest city. The approved items were placed on the agenda by Malloy.
Ganim will also tout these projects as he enters reelection year in 2019. Bridgeport’s eight-member legislative delegation also had a hand in lobbying the infrastructure dough.
The Sikorsky project includes upgrades to the airport’s roadways and parking areas, construction of a terminal building and rehabilitation of an existing abandoned structure to be reused as an operations center.
The city’s in negotiations with airlines that includes $8 million in private investment. The airport has relied on corporate and charter flights. The city-owned airport is located in Stratford that has opposed airport runway expansion.
Technological advances in aviation, as well as airport upgrades, would enhance the city’s chances to bring back passenger service. City and state officials say airport improvements will open the door to regional passenger air service within a range of 1,500 miles using new quiet jets that can take off and land on the existing runways without the need for expansion.
If the city can work out a deal with an airline for commercial flights, it’s subject to FAA approval.
City and state officials have placed a $24 million price tag for a new Congress Street Bridge. Municipal officials, in addition to leveraging $12 million of local capital improvement funds, are seeking the help of members of Connecticut’s federal delegation such as Congressman Jim Himes and Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal to lobby federal dough.
The bridge that fell into disrepair decades ago and was eventually removed was located next to city Fire Headquarters. It has choked off quick public safety access to the East Side as well as curtailed business for merchants.
Federal officials this year declared the Pequonnock River north of the bridge a non-navigable waterway for commercial boat traffic. As a result a new bridge can be a fixed span reducing the cost of bridge reconstruction.
The commission also approved $353,654 grant-in-aid to the McGivney Community Center to finance demolition of the adjacent former Saint Charles Church School for parking and outdoor recreation space, $262,840 to finance alterations, improvements and technology equipment at Bullard-Havens Technical High School and $100,000 grant-in-aid to match private funding in communities where Martin Luther King, Jr. corridors are established for streetscape, signage and façade enhancements.
This is an impressive list. Congratulations and appreciation to leaders from City Hall and our State Capitol delegation. Kudos to elected officials and professional staff alike.
While there is much to comment on, I’d like to focus on a place where I have some expertise: aerospace. Danny Roach’s comments may sound pie in the sky. (And the usual skepticism in Bridgeport makes pie in the sky seem like an expected outcome, i.e., failure.) But outcomes could be positive here, with a modest amount of patience and breadth-holding.
On the economic side, I like the idea of a passenger terminal plan that marries public and private partners. One is unlikely to think the public side of the budget will be invoked unless the private side is engaged as well. If we were dumb enough to bond finance construction of a shell and wait for a private carrier or two to come along to fit out the interior, we’d wind up with a multi-million dollar white elephant that would destroy reputations. Better to envision a true public-private finance partnership, such as we see in the renovation of LaGuardia Airport’s Terminals B,C, and D right now. Especially in the central terminal, you’d be hard-pressed to say which brick or which beam was public or private.,
So we wait for a carrier that can fly into Sikorsky Memorial. Is there such a carrier?
I don’t know for sure, but there are carriers using the latest generation of smaller airliners with short runway requirements and low-noice engines. On the engine side, advances in composite material technology has made the efficiency, power, and noise of turbine engines vastly improved over just a few years ago. Our old friends at General Electric are among the global leaders in this, and I presume Pratt & Whitney has similar products, as do Rolls-Royce and others.
Companies like Embrarer in Brazil and Bombardier in Canada, not to mention Airbus in Europe (provided its French-British consortium roots survive Brexit) have developed a range of what you might call “bigger smaller” short/medium-range aircraft. A review of excellent regional jet articles in Wikipedia shows progress marching right through this decade. See, for example, the “crossover jets” sub-heading concerning developments in 2017 from Wikipiedia’s “regional jet” article at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_jet
Also interesting is the redevelopment of small airports that once served cities and now serve cities again. London now has a necklace of these smaller fields in addition to the well-know Heathrow and Gatwick international behomeths. But in North America, take a look at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport on Toronto Isiand just off the coast of Toronto, Canada, in Lake Ontario. Its runways are about the same length as Sikorsky Memorial’s runways and Billy Bishop (discrete from the major hub at Lester B. Pearson International) now has a small but cozy slate of scheduled commercial airline takeoffs and landings that could be an inspiration for Sikorsky Memorial. Some even fly into Hartford-Bradley!
Aerial photo of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport:
https://goo.gl/images/B87ScW
Admittedly, in full disclosure, some in Toronto want to allow jet flights into Bishop with some runway lengthening involved. Here’s a Toronto Globe & Mail article from md-2017 on that, but dammit let’s not pursue that can of worms right now …
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/up-in-the-air-whats-next-for-torontos-island-airport/article28937119/
And a 2018 article from Daily Hive Toronto the same topic —
http://dailyhive.com/toronto/toronto-billy-bishop-airport-record-breaking-summer
$15 Million for these projects is barely enough to fund more “studies”… Recall that several years ago $2.7 million was appropriated from the state to “study” and “design” a new Congress Street Bridge… It seems that the only thing yielded by that “study”/design initiative was the idiotic, economic-development-limiting decision by Federal officials this year to …”[Declare] the Pequonnock River north of the bridge a non-navigable waterway for commercial boat traffic.” …” As a result a new bridge can be a fixed span reducing the cost of bridge reconstruction… ”
“Reduce” the cost of construction to $24 million! Recall that on March 24, 2004, the I-95 Exit 28 N-bound bridge melted after a fiery oil-truck crash on that span… It was assumed that it would take months and $several-million to re-open the span… It was accomplished in 6 days by New Jersey company ACROW for less than $2,000,000 — less than the “study” to determine that the Pequonnock River should be removed from among Bridgeport’s economic assets… (Wow! The brilliance at work on Bridgeport’s behalf in City Hall/Hartford/DC… No wonder that we’re prospering beyond measure and attracting capital for development in the $billions — from all over the world! NOT!)
But not to digress: The Congress Street bridge — a not-too-fancy, “functional” bridge –could be designed and built for far less than $24 million, by the Army Corp of Engineers and ACROW (as this writer has suggested previously — throwing in the other closed spans on the Pequonnock and to Pleasure Beach for a few more million…), and could be designed to allow shipping on the Pequonnock — per its use in our manufacturing heyday, such that we aren’t short-sightedly limiting our future options…
And, of course, it will take far more than $15 million to retool Sikorsky for real passenger service. And the runway size will forever limit that option to a minimum — at least for conventional aircraft… Now; if Sikorsky helicopter were to work on an improved passenger model, and even practical freight-transport helicopters that could be used in conjunction with Sikorsky Airport, et al. (and a citywide system of heliports, for instance…); that could reduce Sikorsky Helicopter’s problematic dependence on military contracting, while enhancing Sikorsky Airport’s/Bridgeport’s transportation and economic development options…
All-in-all, this great news does little more for Bridgeport than provide false hope and political propaganda opportunity…
“City and state officials have placed a $24 million price tag for a new Congress Street Bridge. Municipal officials, in addition to leveraging $12 million of local capital improvement funds, are seeking the help of members of Connecticut’s federal delegation such as Congressman Jim Himes and Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal to lobby federal dough.
“The bridge that fell into disrepair decades ago and was eventually removed was located next to city Fire Headquarters. It has choked off quick public safety access to the East Side as well as curtailed business for merchants.”
The second paragraph says all you need to know. Rather than rebuilding the bridge the Finch administration was preoccupied with finding tenants for Steel Pointe. The Ganim administration has been preoccupied with Little Joe Ganim.