Hartford Business Journal

4 Hartford Business Journal • June 19, 2017 www.HartfordBusiness.com w w w. H a r t f o r d B u s i n e s s . c o m (860) 236-9998 E D I T O R I A L Greg Bordonaro Editor, ext. 139 gbordonaro@HartfordBusiness.com Gregory Seay News Editor, ext. 144 gseay@HartfordBusiness.com Matt Pilon News Editor, ext. 143 mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com John Stearns Staff Writer, ext. 145 jstearns@HartfordBusiness.com Patricia Daddona Web Editor, ext. 127 pdaddona@HartfordBusiness.com Stephanie Meagher Research Director Heide Martin Research Assistant Steve Laschever Photographer B U S I N E S S Joe Zwiebel President and Publisher, ext. 132 jzwiebel@HartfordBusiness.com Donna Collins Associate Publisher, ext. 121 dcollins@HartfordBusiness.com Allison Williams Office & Sales Coordinator, ext. 122 awilliams@HartfordBusiness.com Amy Orsini Events Manager, ext. 134 aorsini@HartfordBusiness.com Kaleigh Hickey Events Coordinator, ext. 137 khickey@HartfordBusiness.com Jaime Rudy Sales Director, ext. 124 jrudy@HartfordBusiness.com David Hartley Sr. Accounts Manager, ext. 130 dhartley@HartfordBusiness.com Christopher Mazzaia Sr. Accounts Manager, ext. 128 cmazzaia@HartfordBusiness.com Kristen P. Nickerson Sr. Accounts Manager, ext. 133 knickerson@HartfordBusiness.com Karen Spatafora Accounts Manager, ext. 131 kspatafora@HartfordBusiness.com Raki Zwiebel Credit and Collections Manager Valerie Clark Accounting Assistant/Office Manager Kim Vautour HR Director P R O D U C T I O N Christopher Wallace Art Director, ext. 147 cwallace@HartfordBusiness.com Liz Saltzman Graphic Designer, ext. 140 lsaltzman@HartfordBusiness.com Peter Stanton CEO pstanton@nebusinessmedia.com Joseph Zwiebel President, ext. 132 jzwiebel@HartfordBusiness.com Mary Rogers COO/CFO mrogers@nebusinessmedia.com Subscriptions: Annual subscriptions are $84.95. To subscribe, visit HartfordBusiness.com, email hartfordbusiness@ cambeywest.com, or call (845) 267-3008. Advertising: For advertising information, please call (860) 236-9998. Please address all correspondence to: Hartford Business Journal, 15 Lewis Street, Suite 200, Hart ford CT 06103. News Department: If you have a news item: Call us at (860) 236-9998, fax us at (860) 570-2493, or e-mail us at news@HartfordBusiness.com Hartford Business Journal accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or materials and in general does not return them to the sender. Hartford Business Journal (ISSN 1083-5245) is published weekly, 49x per year — including three special issues in July, November and December — by new England Business Media, LLC, 15 Lewis Street, Suite 200, Hartford, CT 06103. Periodicals postage paid at Hartford, CT. Tel: (860) 236-9998 • Fax (860) 570-2493 Copyright 2017. All rights reserved. Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Hartford Business Journal P.O. Box 330, Congers, NY 10920-9894 www.copyright.com Brownfield TECHNOLOGY Hartford Fire Insurance Company has an opening for a DEVELOPER in Windsor, CT. Analyze Insurance applications and support business team in requirement analysis. How to apply: Apply online at www.thehartford.com, referencing #1701221/11474.36. TECHNOLOGY Hartford Fire Insurance Company has an opening for a DEVELOPER in Hartford, CT. Responsible for technical delivery of complex system design and development activities. How to apply: Apply on-line at www.thehartford.com, referencing 1701191/11474.38. ENGINEERING Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc dba Nokia in Meriden, CT seeks HW Dvlpmnt Engineer (RF) Provide RF product design, using a core of RF design skills incl new product design, test & qualification. Reqs incl MS or foreign equiv in Elctrncs Eng, Comp Eng, Elctrcl Eng or rel +2 yrs exp. Mail resume to ALU Nokia, Attn: HR, 600 Mountain Ave., 6D-401E, Murray Hill, NJ 07974. Include job code 72649 in reply. EOE. House Bill 7229 is the latest in a series of state efforts the past 10 years that encourage municipalities to get more active in acquiring and restoring brownfields, said Tim Sullivan, DECD deputy commissioner overseeing his agency's brownfield conversions. Under Malloy, the state has committed nearly $200 million in loans and grants aimed at brownfield cleanup. Yet despite that sum, Connecticut has bare- ly made a dent, authorities say, incentivizing municipalities to get involved and ultimately reducing the inventory of brownfield sites. While other states, such as New York and Michigan, have authorized more than 80 land banks, theirs still rely on municipalities to take the lead, officials said. Connecticut, by contrast, pursued a "more market-oriented approach," Sullivan said, not only because the private and nonprofit sec- tors can do it better, but also because the state lacks the money to do it any other way. Local example The Connecticut Brownfield Land Bank Inc. is the only land bank so far in this state, said founder-president Arthur Bogen, an environmental strategist from Essex. The land bank's board includes municipal repre- sentatives from a half-dozen towns, including Southington and Torrington. The 501 (c)(3), operating on a fees-for-ser- vices model, recently signed an agreement with the town of Southington to remediate the abandoned, 2-acre Becton-Corbin man- ufacturing site, next door to the main fire- house in the center of town, Bogen said. The town recently won a $400,000 remediation grant from DECD for the site. Restoring idle properties to pro- ductive use is espe- cially vital, Bogen said, at a time when the state and munic- ipalities are strug- gling financially. "It's important we not write off these assets,'' he said. "They were an impor- tant part of the tax bases. We've got to turn these dormant assets around and put them back on the tax rolls.'' Among its highlights, the bill makes land banks eligible for state and federal grants, instead of relying on more costly loans that must be repaid. They also may accept chari- table contributions to fund cleanup efforts and could be eligible for forgiveness of local property taxes, supporters say. Land banks also benefit from certain reg- ulatory and limited-liability protections that give its operators and municipalities confi- dence that a brownfield site, once properly cleaned, won't boomerang and require more cleanup because more toxins are discovered at the site later on. That shield also extends to protection from lawsuits or other legal action from abut- ting property owners to a remediated brown- field site. Worries about future liability once a site is cleaned up have posed past stumbling blocks to municipalities. A year ago, Malloy vetoed a predecessor measure, House Bill 5425, despite supporting it in general terms. The governor objected at the time to provisions exempting notes or other obligations issued by the proposed land banks from any state taxation. Malloy said that could have led to a loss of millions of dollars in state revenue. He also worried it might set a legal prec- edent that could lead to corporations arguing they shouldn't be required to pay state corpo- rate taxes. Catino said the 2017 measure revised lan- guage to address Malloy's concerns. According to a Malloy spokesman, the final language of Bill 7229 is under review. n Tim Sullivan, deputy commissioner at the state Department of Economic and Community Development, stands inside a former Hartford brownfield site. P H O T O | H B J F I L E UNCOMMON EXPERTISE. 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