Pedal pg 1 6-30-11
- Details
- Category: Past Issues
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM --- Now the real work begins, according to Mayor Bob Viens.
Residents last week voted, 694 to 499, to accept the donation of 65 acres from Wheelabrator-Putnam for a tech park off Kennedy Drive and then for the town to donate 15 of those acres to the Greater Hartford YMCA for the proposed regional YMCA.
Viens said before the week is out, the town will be having a conversation with Wheelabrator-Putnam officials to finalize the donation. In addition, he said, officials will also be "hammering out the details" with the Greater Hartford YMCA for the town's donation of land for the Y project.
Once a small piece of land owned by the state is transferred to the town, construction on the bridge across from the southbound exit off I-395 to Kennedy Drive should begin quickly. The bridge's design and engineering is already completed by CME of Woodstock so it can go right to construction. The bridge is funded by a state grant of $2.75 million.
Viens said town officials have always been looking ahead, long range, to the day that the current industrial park is full. That park has just five lots left and the creation of a "green" technology park will take some time. The property off Kennedy drive has always been a perfect site for a tech park, but there was never any way to get to it.
"We'd love to see construction (of the bridge) start in the fall," Viens said.
Town officials are taking a regional approach. The Northeast Connecticut Council of Governments and its counterpart in Windham have joined forces, making it a much likelier candidate to win state and federal funding. The technology park is a trailblazer in many respects. It will definitely "lean green" and cater to the Quiet Corner's strengths, including plastics.
The 65 acres of the 220 total acres of the proposed tech park will be the only town-owned acres. The rest of the property will remain in private hands. Marketing, getting utilities and infrastructure and management of the entire park will take an unusual business model --- one that does not exist in the state of Connecticut. "We're the first ones in the entire state doing this," Viens said. Officials are looking at business models in Wisconsin as well as other states to get the unusual set up figured out.
"These are exciting times in Putnam," Viens said.
On the Regional YMCA's side, these are also exciting times. James Morton, president and CEO, YMCA of Greater Hartford, said "“We expect to reach our next fund-raising benchmark by the end of summer, which will allow us to engage the services of an architectural firm, and to build our board of managers. There’s much to be done before the shovel hits the ground, but we’re optimistically looking at nine to 12 months. Groundbreaking to grand opening should be approximately 14 months.”
As far as fund-raising, Ronald P. Coderre, fund-raiser for the project, said, "Right now our fund-raising effort is a $1.2 million toward a stated goal of $2.5 million. Now that the referendum is over we will resume our fund-raising efforts in earnest. Our committees are meeting in the next two weeks to move forward with the donors we’ve been speaking with who have been waiting on the land issue."
Morton added that “Fund-raising has reached the $8 million mark" total. That includes $3.745 million in the form of a grant from the state of Connecticut, $3 million from the Hale Foundation; and $1.2 in individual contributions secured through the Community Campaign.