By ADAM BOWLES
Norwich Bulletin,
May 14, 2005
U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, discusses the BRAC recommendation to fully close the U. S. Submarine Base in Groton at a press conference Friday in New London. From left are State Rep. Andrea Stillman, U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Simmons, Gov. M. Jodi Rell and State Rep. Cathy Cook.
GROTON-- Grim-faced and angry, U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, said Friday the state is ready and resolved to overturn the Department of Defense's recommendation to close the Groton submarine base.
"We're the submarine capital of the world and we will stay the submarine capital of the world," he said at a news conference at the Radisson Hotel New London, prompting applause from dozens of local leaders who had stood in stony silence.
Electric Boat in Groton, a world-leading submarine manufacturer that also maintains and repairs submarines at the base, said it would remain open even if the base eventually closes.
"We want to stress that Electric Boat's future is not tied directly to the Submarine Base," EB officials said in a prepared statement Friday. "Important synergies do exist and 580 of our employees play an important role in the day-to-day activities at the base. Closing the base could eventually impact these numbers."
EB said it has a backlog in constructing Virginia-class submarines, likely a 30-ship program.
John Markowicz, who leads the Subase Realignment Coalition, a regional group fighting for the survival of the base, recalled Winston Churchill's famous World War II speech when he said, "Never, ever give up."
Gov. M. Jodi Rell and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman preceded Simmons' comments with promises of their own that they would expose the flaws that led to the "insulting" decision.
"There is still time to save the base and all its economic promise," said Rell, who stood next to an easel with a timeline showing Connecticut has few opportunities to reverse the decision before a final deadline in December.
The region has proven twice before that success is achievable. But the odds of victory are low as only 15 percent of the recommendations are typically rejected.
Rell said the work to save the base begins now.
On Monday, her staff will meet with the state's Congressional delegation to discuss a battle strategy. On Tuesday, she will meet with the Subase Realignment Coalition and the leaders of the top 10 businesses in New London County to form a counter argument.
On Wednesday, she will oversee a "strike force" of leaders from every state agency to scrutinize the "faulty assumptions" behind the decision to include the base on the closure list.
The Base Closure and Realignment Commission is interested only in the military value of each base and not its economic impact on local communities, Rell said.
But Rell said she and other state leaders will keep in mind the people who would be affected by the closure -- the grocery stores, employees with car payments, the hospitals and large and small businesses.
A state Department of Economic and Community Development study recently estimated the Groton base's closing would result in the loss of 31,500 jobs and $3.3 billion to the state's economy.
Lieberman called the Pentagon's decision irrational and irresponsible.
"It was insulting to our history and endangering to our future," he said, before outlining his plans for action.
He said he will demand a senior level briefing from the Pentagon on its detailed rationale for its recommendation, reach out to BRAC Commissioners, testify at the BRAC hearing Tuesday when the methodology for the list will be reviewed, and work with the local coalition fighting to keep the base open.
The Pentagon is closing bases to save billions of dollars in its defense budget.
The first major deadline the Subase Realignment Coalition faces is July 1, when the Government Accountability Office will show the president and the congressional Armed Services and Defense Appropriations committees how the recommending closings save money.
Lieberman said he will work to prove that the Groton base is a nuclear site that would be too costly to clean up and cannot be rebuilt.
The BRAC Commission must submit a list of recommendations for base closures and realignments to President Bush by Sept. 8. If the sub base is still on the list, the odds of getting off the list drop drastically.
Bush must accept or reject the list in its entirety by Sept. 23, but the White House typically accepts the recommendations. Simmons said the White House has said it will remain isolated from the process.
Once Bush submits an approval list by Nov. 7, Congress has 45 legislative days to reject the list or else the recommendations become final.
Markowicz said he was confident that the "battle-hardened" coalition would create a forceful, data-based argument to get the base off the list.
Phase one of the coalition's strategy was unsuccessful, Markowicz said, but now it's time for the final two phases.
Coalition member William Moore helped lead the winning fight to get the base off the list in 1993. Two years later, he said the base narrowly avoided being added to the list.
But he said this year's fight will be harder than ever for several reasons.
Two more commissioners have been added to BRAC, meaning the coalition will need more votes for an overturn. Other communities nationwide have become just as savvy about the process. And the Pentagon has been more tight-lipped than ever about information related to the recommendations.
In 1993, the realignment coalition discovered the Pentagon used measurements that applied to cruise ships but not submarines when evaluating the Groton base.
This year, state leaders said the Pentagon did not factor in the base's synergy with EB.
Lieberman said the country was forgetting the lessons of history, particularly Pearl Harbor, and leaving itself vulnerable at a time when the nation is waging a war against terrorism.
"They've hit
us," he said of the Pentagon, "but they haven't knocked us down."
June 30, 2002
By PENELOPE OVERTON, The Hartford Courant
Rising three stories above the shallow surf of Madison's
Seaview Beach is Martha and Christian Bardin's dream
house, a striking mix of shingle, metal and wood that has
captured the mood of Connecticut's booming shoreline.
The California family's new home, which was completed
this month, is five times bigger and nine times more
valuable than the rambling, rickety bungalow that stood on
the land they bought for $1.2 million in 2000.
They were drawn to the central Connecticut shoreline
because of its reputation for strong public schools, its
rugged New England beaches and its proximity to New
York City, which is a relatively short train ride away on the
commuter line.
"It feels peaceful and private and picturesque," said
Christian Bardin, a recently retired marketing executive for
Neutrogena. "I didn't want to raise my children in L.A. This
seems like a perfect setting to raise a family, to do almost
anything."
The Bardins are joining a wave of new people, money and
architecture flooding the historic seaside towns from
Branford to Old Lyme, creating a red-hot land market and
red-hot tensions between old and new, the rich and the
really rich.
The Bardins skipped the high-priced homes and clogged
highways of Fairfield County's fabled Gold Coast in favor
of the more affordable coastal suburbs east of New
Haven, willing and able to trek ever eastward in search of
buildable coast.
"That area is very nice, of course, but it seemed too
crowded and a bit overpriced for what you were getting,
too," Bardin said. "Here it is just as nice, if not nicer, and
we have more potential because it is up-and-coming."
The trend toward bigger, costlier luxury homes on smaller
and smaller building lots resembles the frenzy that
gripped the original Gold Coast more than a decade ago.
The shoreline is so hot that locals call it Gold Coast East.
The region was officially discovered in 2000, Madison
builder Bill Plunkett said. That's when the number of luxury
home orders exhausted the supply of local builders.
That's also when the Bardins came to town, eager to fulfill
their architectural fantasy.
From the back, their house blends into the weathered
shingle streetscape. A silvery metal roof hints at the
secrets lurking behind that Nantucket facade. On the
beach side, however, a spectacular wall of windows and
balconies greets the sea.
The southern face of the house is so dramatic that
passersby often stop, stare and point. Sometimes they
snap a photograph. Others gawk at the floating
staircases, the open floor plan and Scandinavian design
clearly visible through the window.
"People either hate it or they love it," Plunkett said. "They
spared no expense and wanted it done right. It's a near
perfect example of what's happening up and down this
stretch of shore."
Across the country, Americans are building bigger, pricier
and more luxury-laden homes, but local census data,
land-use permits and house listings show this big boom
is especially hot along the shoreline between New Haven
and Old Lyme.
In the past five years, architects say, the size of new
shoreline homes has doubled, averaging about 5,000
square feet now. Even the tiniest of shoreline spots now
feature speculative, brand-new, year-round mansions
thanks to friendly zoning panels.
In a great many cases, these buildings cannot go up until
more humble structures come down. Madison recorded
the demolition of two single-family homes in 1999, three
in 2000 and seven in 2001, with town officials expecting
those figures to keep growing. Guilford reported five in
2000 and has approved four so far in 2002.
It's a cultural shift that can be observed on a daily basis
from behind the counter of Jay Medlyn's farm stand in
Stony Creek, a posh waterfront borough of Branford that
functions as a geographic gateway to central
Connecticut's shoreline.
Medlyn's family has fed three generations of area
residents.
His grandfather delivered fresh milk to the quarry workers
and lobstermen who lived in Stony Creek during World
War I. His father fed the first wave of summer folks from
New York as the area evolved from blue collar to blue
blood.
Now Jay raises tomatoes, cuts firewood and plows
driveways for the millionaires who live in Stony Creek's
waterside estates. His clientele has included Bill Gates'
father, J.P. Morgan's granddaughter and a New York
Knicks owner.
"Every new bunch of people that come are a little richer
than the last," said Medlyn, 46. "Most of the rich people are
as nice as pie, but it is sad that we're losing all the regular
folks. Even the doctors and lawyers can't afford it
anymore."
A few working-class families remain to build the
mansions and repair the yacht engines. Some can barely
afford the rising taxes on the old family homes, while
others have struck it rich by playing the local real estate
market.
That's how William Theroux worked his way into a
three-bedroom contemporary in Stony Creek. The
exterminator locals call "The Bug Man" has bought and
sold nine houses in the last two decades, making money
on every sale.
"The only way somebody like me gets a house in Stony
Creek now is if I inherit it or if I hit the lottery," Theroux said.
"I hit the housing lottery. I trade houses like some people
trade cars. It's the only way I can compete with the rich
out-of-towners."
Realtors, builders and town officials say wealthy families
are leaving New York, Fairfield County and Litchfield
County because those places are largely built out, with
every scrap of shoreline and many wooded acres already
supporting a million-dollar home.
They push east looking for affluent suburbs on the
commuter train line to New York that has social cache,
good schools, a historic downtown and land deals that
seem like a bargain compared with Greenwich, Darien or
New Canaan.
The new arrivals are competing for land with the wealthy
families already living in the region, including many who
are connected to Yale University, one of New Haven's
hospitals or one of the old-money families who used to
summer there.
"It's crazier than the Gold Coast ever was," said Realtor
Jackie Caron, who sold homes in Stamford for 20 years
before joining DeWolfe Realty in Old Lyme in 2000. "We're
selling houses sight unseen in a matter of hours. Price is
not an issue."
The average home along the shoreline in the central part
of Connecticut was valued at $210,600 in 2000, which is
26 percent higher than the state average, federal census
data show. Homes south of Route 1 are more expensive,
with shorefront lots regularly fetching $1 million.
Guilford set its sale record for a single home in June 2001
when Bonnie and Jonathan Rothberg, the founder of local
biotech company Curagen, paid about $5.9 million for a
modest ranch on 4 waterfront acres in Guilford.
The Rothbergs, who used to live in Guilford's Old Quarry
neighborhood, have cleared the land overlooking the
water, but neighbors don't know if the couple plan new
construction or a much-discussed vineyard.
The Rothberg sale outdid the $4.9 million paid weeks
before by Thomas P. Salice, the head of a New York
venture capital firm, for a 6,500-square-foot colonial
nestled on Vineyard Point. The Realtor described it as a
weekend getaway.
The shingled, seasonal ranches, capes and cottages that
once dominated the shore are giving way to bigger, more
grandiose structures known as builder's colonials that sit
cheek-to-jowl on tiny lots overlooking Long Island Sound.
The environmental impact of the trend toward such big
houses makes some architects uneasy.
The big houses require more natural resources to build
and more energy to heat, said architect Bernard Lombardi
of Guilford.
"You just don't need that much space," Lombardi said.
"How many dining areas and bonus rooms and garages
do you need? Somehow we have translated redundant
living into social status at the expense of conservation."
The luxury housing market has flourished despite the
economic downturn. Some builders think the troubled
stock market is actually fueling this boom, lowering
interest rates and turning real estate into a relatively safe
investment vehicle.
"This is a different kind of clientele we're talking about,"
said Daniel Dimes, who works for Flamand Builders of
Guilford. "We're talking about people who look at a bad
economy as an opportunity, not a liability."
A bad economy often brings a flurry of land transactions
as those losing money sell property to cover debt and
raise capital, and those making money or remaining
steady take advantage of the fire-sale prices, Dimes said.
The big-house boom is boosting local property tax
revenue, something that couldn't have come at a better
time, Madison First Selectman Thomas Scarpati said. The
state has eliminated millions of dollars in funding for
more affluent towns such as Madison.
The biggest tax benefit of the influx is yet to come for most
of the towns along the central Connecticut shoreline,
which are just now completing the revaluation of property
that determines a lot's value and the owner's tax bill.
The new property assessments and tax bills are likely to
shock waterfront property owners, especially those who
have built large luxury homes, said Nancy Duffy, a Guilford
Realtor and chairwoman of the local tax appeals board.
"It used to be the land under the beach house that was the
most valuable, but now the house is catching up," Duffy
said. "I think some of the people who live on the water are
going to be faced with some very difficult choices."
The towns are taking steps to rein in the development,
hoping to preserve the region's ocean views and scenic
pastures and prevent the exodus of the retired or
middle-class residents who can no longer afford their
longtime addresses.
Most of the effort is concentrated in land-use regulations.
Old Saybrook prohibits the conversion of beach houses
into year-round residences, which discourages at least
some demolitions. Guilford forbids new shoreline
construction to eliminate a public view of Long Island
Sound.
Towns are joining forces with local preservation groups to
buy up thousands of acres of undeveloped land.
But the rub between the old and the new is not always
about money.
Some newcomers are quick to complain about the very
things that had initially attracted them to the region, such
as fishing docks or small farms that suddenly smell and
make too much noise, said Guilford First Selectman Carl
Balestracci.
Some of the very same people who moved to Guilford
because of its small-town values are now lobbying
against a playground project planned for Jacobs Beach,
Balestracci said. They think the traffic and noise will
shatter the peace.
"It's the close-the-gate mentality," Balestracci said. "`I'm
here now, but nobody else is allowed.' It's a lot different
than when I was growing up working in my father's
grocery. Everybody knew everybody else."
When people visit Connecticut, do they go straight to Foxwoods? Or do they stroll through a museum, or maybe head for the ocean? Do they stay a night or two? Will they dine at a restaurant? And how much do they spend when they're here?
These are some of the questions the state tourism office is trying to answer through a new study that began last summer. In the “Intercept” study, as it's known, researchers ask visitors in person to fill out a questionnaire that also asks them why they travel to Connecticut, where they like to spend time and how much they enjoy their stay.
Other tourism studies have been ongoing around the state for years, but the in-person Intercept study produces a highly accurate measure of a number of issues, especially of visitors' economic impact on the state, said Barbara Cieplak, marketing director for the state tourism office. She said calculating tourism's financial impact was a significant impetus for doing the study, which tourism-related businesses had been asking the state to do.
“The (tourism) industry told us they wanted this kind of info,” Cieplak said. “They can better understand who their customers are, in their region and statewide, and that will help them make better business decisions.”
Cieplak said the tourism office had been considering the project for a number of years but had to develop the methodology first. Participating attractions and businesses are paying for their own research, and their costs vary, Cieplak said. Witan Intelligence Strategies of Avon is conducting the research. Company President John Bourget helped the tourism office organize and design the study.
Area attractions that have participated in the study so far said they opted in because they want the information. Locally, the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Museum and Research Center and Mystic Seaport were part of the summer 2001 segment while Mystic Aquarium, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun were part of the fall 2001 segment.
“I think that it is always important to know what it is you are selling and how what you're selling is received by whom you are selling it to,” said Mitchell Etess, executive vice president of marketing at Mohegan Sun, of the casino's reason for participating. “It is much easier to make good marketing decisions when you have as much quality data as possible.”
Lisa Jaccoma, vice president of public affairs at the Mystic Aquarium, said it is important to understand your audience. “This helps us get a handle on our user base and gets at who our audience is — when they come, if they plan to visit more than one place, why are they here ...,” Jaccoma said. “You have to understand your market.”
Peter Glankoff, director of communications at Mystic Seaport, said that if the organization tried to conduct such research on its own it would prove prohibitively expensive. “This really demonstrates that the state tourism office is reaching a new level of sophistication and support for the entities that comprise the tourism industry in Connecticut,” he said. “This is a good study. There's a lot of comparative information. We can see our own strengths and weaknesses and where our opportunities are.”
Among the topics examined in the interviews are lodging and the number of nights the visitor is spending in Connecticut; motivation for the trip; the level of satisfaction in the Connecticut experience; and the purpose of the trip. The survey also asks if the visitor decided to visit Connecticut on the spur of the moment or planned the trip and which activities and attractions the visitor will participate in or go to. Answers to these questions could help the state to determine how best to market its attractions, Bourget said.
Some of the preliminary findings from at least the first couple of segments of the study include the fact that people of all ages visit the state. Connecticut is not strictly a family destination. “There are a lot of seniors who like to travel,” Bourget said. “Yes, there's a healthy percentage of people who come with children. But adults traveling without children is significant ... There are seniors who don't have kids, adults who don't have children, adults who have children who left them at home. This is a different market than adults with children who bring them.”
The study has also found that people who visit Connecticut really enjoy their stay. Perceptions of the state were high, in some cases much higher than competing states, Bourget said, prompting a number of return visits. “People like it here and they come back,” Bourget said.
k.kaplan@theday.com
Cables Save Wright's Fallingwater
By
TODD SPANGLER
.c The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - Fallingwater is falling no more.
After months of work, Frank Lloyd Wright's sagging architectural masterpiece is standing on its own again with the help of an innovative system of steel cables buried under the home's stone floors.
Dramatically cantilevered out over Bear Run, Fallingwater still tilts a little bit toward the bucolic stream but is no longer in danger of being renamed ''Fell-in-water.''
The steel supports that have propped up the home for the past five years while engineers were developing the less-obtrusive solution will be gone by late summer.
''It's going to soar again over the waterfall,'' said Lynda Waggoner, director of the structure voted ''Building of the 20th Century'' by the American Institute of Architects.
Back in the 1930s, when Wright was rewriting the concepts of organic design with his plans for department store magnate Edgar Kaufmann Sr.'s vacation home 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, there were concerns the concrete cantilevers could not hold up the building on their own.
Almost as soon as it was completed in 1937, Fallingwater sagged and cracks formed in its pale ocher terraces.
Engineers believed it was just settling, but the cantilevers - reinforced concrete beams that jut out of the hillside and support the house - slowly continued to dip toward the creekbed.
In the mid-1990s someone noticed the structure was in danger of failing completely. Since 1997, steel beams and girders on the creekbed have helped hold it up, compromising Wright's vision of the structure as one practically levitating over the creek.
According to Waggoner, weight transferred from the second floor onto the first floor made the structure sag by as much as six inches in some places.
The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which owns the home, called in Robert Silman's New York engineering firm to help find a way to shore up the structure, quietly and unobtrusively.
The plan called for taking up the sandstone floors on the first level and getting down to the cantilevers themselves. Steel cables were placed next to the beams, running much of their length and anchored in place with blocks of concrete poured beside the cantilevers.
Over three days, hydraulic jacks slowly pulled the cables taut with hundreds of tons of pressure. If the building's structure could be compared to a human skeleton, the cable system - invisible once the stones covering the first floor and terrace are laid again - acted like muscles helping Fallingwater to hold itself in place.
The cables lifted the structure about a half-inch above the steel supports rising from the creek and took pressure off the cantilevers.
The plan has worked. The cracks disappeared. The jacks were removed, the ends of the steel strands were cut off, and the holes in the walls where the strands had poked through were patched and painted so that the system is invisible.
Fallingwater will still point downward. Because so much of the building had settled that way over the years, any drastic leveling of the structure could have shattered windows and damaged other sections.
''Those deflections will always be there,'' Waggoner said. ''You don't notice it as much from the interior of the house as you do from looking at the exterior.''
Throughout some of the work - which is part of an overall $11 million restoration - people could still visit Fallingwater.
Now, said Waggoner, the flooring is back down inside the house and the Wright-designed furniture will be in place next week. Weatherproofing on the terrace will soon be replaced and stones there put back down.