Demolition Work Set to Begin Around Police Station
By David Huck | Correspondent at September 19, 2023 | 9:15 am | Print
Residents passing along Farmington Avenue will begin seeing changes to the area around the proposed police station as demolition work gets underway.
Brian Saluk, town construction manager, said remediation work has already started on two of the properties and that work to begin taking down the buildings will begin during the first full week of October. Heavy construction equipment will soon be moved to the site for work that’s planned for the next several months.
By the start of winter, buildings located at 889, 903, and 913 Farmington Avenue will be taken down in anticipation of the proposed police station and other development planned for around the expanded train station. Some of the buildings, such as the former Kraft Foods site, are more than a half century old.
Gone will also be the former Pioneer Precision Products and the former Kensington Furniture store.
Their removal will usher in a new feel to Farmington Avenue, town officials say.
While there won’t be any road closures during the demolition work, Saluk said that those passing by could see a “stream” of trucks entering and exiting the site. To minimize the buildup of materials taken from the buildings, the construction crew will try to haul out as much debris as quickly as possible, Saluk said. Measures will also be taken to minimize dust, such as the wetting down of areas before they are razed.
Late last month, the town received a $406,057 grant to complete the remediation work at the 1.7 acre site at 889 Farmington Avenue. The state has been in favor of development near the site due to the planned expansion of the New Haven to Springfield rail line that will be finalized in the fall of 2016.
A contract has been awarded to Trumbull-based Standard Demolition Services to do the work at 889 Farmington Avenue. The work will include taking down the building, though the foundation will remain, according to Saluk. He said there is more remediation work that is needed to remove contaminants from the ground and that work is not yet scheduled.
The work to remove mostly PCBs and asbestos at 903 and 913 Farmington Avenue has been ongoing for about a month, Saluk said. The razing of these two buildings will likely start in October, as well, and will be completed in December.
The sites at the 900-block of Farmington Avenue will be left empty and possibly seeded with grass, Saluk said. “We’re anticipating that’s where the police station would go,” he said.
Asked why work was proceeding on buildings ahead of the November referendum vote on the police station, Saluk said he wasn’t apart of the original planning.
“It was decided at some point that after looking at some other sites that this was the best site to place a police station,” Saluk said. “The process of doing demolition and remediation takes time. Rather than wait until we have the go-ahead, either by the town council or the referendum…in the interest of saving time it was decided to get those buildings removed because the property is not worth anything.”
Saluk said that the longer the police station is put off, the costlier it will become. He said that if residents vote it down, the town still has a “great location” that becomes a “valuable piece of property.”
Other work that’s planned for the area includes creating a boulevard that runs from the train station, through the former Pioneer site, and onto Farmington Avenue.
“It’s an exciting project” Saluk said. “There are separate projects all coming together here—with or without the police station.”
The start of the demolition work comes as town officials continue their informational sessions on the proposed $21 million police station. On Sept. 16, during the third session held so far, more than two dozens came out to hear from representatives involved in the project. As officials continue hear more comments from residents, they have expanded their presentations to include answers to questions that have been poised. The architect working on the project further detailed the other sites that town officials had considered before selecting Farmington Avenue, for example. Those included the former Saturn car dealership on Frontage Road and the building that is now the Powerhouse Gym in Webster Square. The architect said the buildings were deemed in adequate.
Additionally, the architect, Brian Jacunski, said that the buildings that are being torn down on Farmington Avenue do not meet the requirements for wind, snow, and seismic activity that is needed for a more robustly built police station.
Town officials are continuing to make their case for a new police station, which will be around 31,800 square feet. Among those is Police Chief Paul Fitzgerald, who during the September meeting talked about the many new cyber crimes police officers have to deal with due to the advent of the Internet.
“The tasks that we do are far and above what they were in 1974,” Fitzgerald said, referring to when the current 10,244-square-foot police station was built.
Some residents, however, continue to say they are “uncomfortable” with how the added debt for borrowing to build the police station may add to their tax bills in several years.
