Tearing Down Litchfield House

By Kendra Bobowick

Litchfield House has proved tough to tear down.

Despite the bidding disputes, unexpected hazardous material remediation, a need for more funds, and Mother Nature all contributing to demolition delays, crews finished leveling the building Wednesday, February 2. As machinery worked to tear apart a remaining wing of Litchfield House Monday, Elliott Jones with the West Haven-based AAIS demolition crew was accurate with his prediction that the partial walls and roof would be down by Wednesday. But plans to start his machinery early Tuesday morning and finish the job then were again hampered by snow.

Talking about the field of debris that was once Litchfield House, and the machinery on site, executive assistant Sue Marcinek in the first selectman’s office said Tuesday, “Nothing’s moving.”

With heavy snowfall throughout January, when much of the demolition work took place, and February’s first two days also filled with snow, Mr Jones said, “The snow has been killing us.”

Just past Christmas saw the start of remediation work on the site. As December ended and January began, the remediation continued and demolition began midmonth, Mr Hurley said. “Now it’s two weeks later and almost the whole building is down,” he said Tuesday, February 1. The project since December has gone “really, really well.”

A Rough Road To Demolition

Litchfield House demolition plans saw several setbacks since the fall of 2009.

In October 2009, initial bids for the demolition and remediation work found the town facing a lawsuit.

In an appeal filed October 20 in Bridgeport Superior Court, Standard Demolition Services, Inc, of Trumbull intended to sue the town, for one, because it did not get the demo job. The company’s attorney sought a court order to prevent another firm from performing the work.

Through the court appeal, Standard Demolition sought to have a judge prevent the town from entering a contract with another firm to do the demolition work at Fairfield Hills.

According to the legal papers, on August 28, Standard Demolition obtained bidding documents for the project, which involved the demolition of both Litchfield House and Yale Laboratory at Fairfield Hills.

Standard had submitted the lowest bid for the project. Standard Demolition was affiliated with work taking place in Hawleyville at the Housatonic Railroad’s transfer station, which was in a disagreement with the town at that time regarding permits for operation.

Although the town’s counsel prepared to fight allegations, officials settled on a rebidding process.

By August of 2010, Yale Laboratory demolition — a portion of the Litchfield House demolition project — began. A backhoe’s jaws widened, then clamped onto portions of Yale Laboratory, ripping down the former state hospital’s morgue on August 6.

Lead And Asbestos

Just two months later, the Litchfield demo hit another snag.

In October 2010, Public Works Department Director Fred Hurley conveyed the news. “Two hundred, twenty-four” windows in the building, “and they are load-bearing,” he told selectmen on October 20. He then described the scope of additional abatement that might be required to remove lead- and asbestos-laden grout around those many windows at the Fairfield Hills demolition site.

The abatement was necessary, and would require an additional $425,000 in funding. On December 15, the council approved a bond amendment that would increase borrowing on an existing $1 million bond to $1,425,000. The added borrowing ensured there was enough funding to accommodate both the unanticipated abatement and to complete the demolition.

Parks and Recreation Department capital plans have been intermingled with the demo costs. The department’s plans have changed, however. A sum of $289,711 has already been spent from the $1 million bond for the schematic design and management of a standalone recreation center project.

Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Ed Marks views the expenditure as money well spent. He told The Bee on December 21 that an order for the plans and management of a standalone recreation center project was initiated in good faith that such a project could eventually materialize.

But today, new options have surfaced that might prevent such a standalone center initiative from ever coming to fruition. He said that in today’s dollars, the latest estimate for a standalone facility as planned is $18 million.

And every year further out, construction cost estimates escalate by four percent.

Mr Marks explained that if no standalone project ever results from the plans taxpayers have already paid for, the expenditure of the $289,711 was still “a good exercise” because those plans will serve to guide the town (and minimize future costs) whether Newtown moves toward what is now estimated to be a $18–$20 million standalone recreation facility; a proposed reoutfitting of Newtown Youth Academy for a Parks & Rec center; or outfitting another municipal facility for Parks & Rec use is pursued.