Despite pandemic, work continues on multiple Brookfield projects
BROOKFIELD — From social distancing to widespread mask-wearing, a lot of changes have taken place in people’s day-to-day lives since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March.
Here’s an update on
some key Brookfield projects that are still chugging along, amid some of the challenges.
Brookfield streetscape
Construction for the third phase of the town’s streetscape project remains on track for spring 2021, said Greg Dembowski, a project manager and the town’s economic development manager.
“The pandemic really hasn’t slowed us down much,” he said. “We’re in design work, engineering design, and the people working on that, our engineers, are working from home and working with the DOT, who also works remotely.”
The third phase — which tacks on additional sidewalk space, a multi-use trail, a couple hundred trees and shrubs and a “pocket park” — is also expected to finish in spring 2021, Dembowski said.
There’s an added challenge, though: Dembowski said they’re also hoping to “fast track” to the project’s fifth phase at the same time.
That’s because the fifth phase ties the third phase back to the Still River Greenway at Laurel Hill Road, Dembowski explained, which would be close to the site of a potential grocery store the Zoning Commission is set to discuss this week.
“Phase three will be done in the spring of 2021, and we’re hoping to put phase five right on the back of that in the same calendar year,” he said, “but even if phase five can’t be done next year, phase three will be done.”
They’re still waiting for the Department of Transportation to sign off on funding for phase five, Dembowski said, but they’re “hoping to have that commitment from them within the next couple weeks.”
For the project’s “pocket park,” officials are also currently getting feedback for a sculpture the Brookfield Arts Commission picked out called “Cotyledon Rising” from artist David Boyajian.
Cotyledons, the first leaves to emerge from a plant’s embryo, display budding new life, the potential for growth and survival, Boyajian said.
“I think each and every community has that within them,” said Boyajian, a New Fairfield resident.
Brookfield’s first selectman, Steve Dunn, said the town has gotten about 30 responses with residents’ input on the sculpture so far, with about 60 percent in favor of it and 40 percent who weren’t.
“The biggest concern we’ve gotten from people, and it’s understandable, is that they’re having a hard time relating it to Brookfield as a rural town, and they would like to see something more in keeping with the character of the town,” Dunn said. “And other people just love it because they think it’s absolutely beautiful, would be a great addition to the downtown.”
Still River Greenway trail
The town submitted a request for a grant to help cover the cost of part of its Still River Greenway trail project referred to as the Town Hall Access project, Dembowski said.
This part of the project centers on a trail extension that stretches from close to the police station all the way to a Pocono Road parking lot that’s going to be paved, Dembowski said.
If the project can nab the grant — a state funding source with a “very competitive process” — the Town Hall Access project would finish up in summer 2021, Dembowski said.
“We have a lot of activity going on,” he said.
Another part of the Still River Greenway project, a potential pathway from the town’s Four Corners to New Milford, is in earlier stages, Dembowski said — a task force is looking into avenues for funding and where the path would precisely be.
“The trail extending north into New Milford is really more conceptual at this time, because we neither have funding or a path with all the right-of-ways in place to make that happen,” he said.
Huckleberry Hill project
The new, over 156,000-square-foot elementary school’s design review got the green light from the Zoning Commission earlier this month.
In spring 2019, voters fervently supported plans for the new school, which were valued then at a more than $78 million price tag.
“It’s been a very exciting project,” said zoning commission vice chair Mary Cappiello. “It’s overdue in the town. The schools were very aged, overcrowded to some extent, but just the facilities themselves were very old.”
The new school, which would be located at 100 Candlewood Lake Road, is planned to have 280 parking spaces and sit on an almost 23-acre property.
From here, the project would move into final design and going out to bid, which officials “hope to do in the December, January period,” Dunn said.
An ad hoc committee looking at potential uses for the decades-old Center Elementary School is set to come in front of the Board of Selectmen in November to share what it thinks could occupy the school’s space next, Dunn said.
Examples of possible uses could be to have a library there, or use it for Parks and Recreation programming, he added.
“We’ll wait and see what they come up with, but they basically talked to almost every group in town, ‘What do you need?’ ‘What do you think we should do here?’ ‘Do you have space needs?’ et cetera et cetera,” he said.