So, yeah, I remember what I said to the mayor. I said, I can't have my vans stuck on this highway 20 minutes each day. Those were the words of Jamie Sarracco, president of Sarracco Mechanical Services, a local business in Waterbury founded by his father, Tom, in 1975. The mechanical contractor firm now employed over 100 professionals and had strategically placed their headquarters so they thought in Waterbury from their location. The Sarracco team could quickly get to customers in Greater Waterbury, as well as the Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York markets. Jamie voiced this frustration to Mayor O'Leary one day years ago because for many living and working around Waterbury like himself, a certain situation had progressively worsened. It had become a narrative which gave credence to a negative feeling, which was seeping beyond the bounds of the city proper and was now influencing the overall perception of and participation in Waterbury. In summary, more and more people were saying, Good luck trying to get around Waterbury. Welcome to Three by Ten How Waterbury Rebuilt Itself as a City of Strength. Episode two Create the paths and light the way. The issue with getting around Waterbury had to do with a road system that slithered through the center of the city like a pile of snakes twisting, turning this way and that the mixmaster, as it was named. that mixmaster. When it opened to passengers in 1968, the Interstate 84 and Route eight interchange represented one of the more innovative pieces of modern engineering with stacked bridges that allowed more construction to be done on a smaller footprint in use. The road system was intended to provide more efficient passage into and through Waterbury without having to drive a great distance. The intention was good and it did work for a time. But as the amount of cars and trucks increased over time, the Mixmaster struggled to handle the load. With Jamie Sarracco's comment and similar ones from droves of others. The new Waterbury mayor, Neil O'Leary sat down for an important discussion. The day after the election, even before I was sworn in, I got a call to go up to the governor's office. At that time, who was Governor Dannel Malloy, and he asked me to meet him up there at ten in the morning. I did. And he said to me,“What are your priorities? I just want to get my head around what you’re thinking.” So I said several priorities. And they all have to do with transportation. They also talked about the 84 widening project on the east side of town, as well as the mixmaster. Honestly, no one would come to Waterbury during that period of time because there was a bottleneck. You couldn't get through Waterbury in less than 30 minutes. And here we are today. The mixmaster is almost near completion. The 84 widening project, what that's done for economic development and growing the grand list and job creation in Waterbury. It's absolutely amazing. The entire east side of Waterbury is just electrified now While the highway expansion would address a major need above the surface. The city administration knew it had to scrutinize what was below the surface as well. For example, the infrastructure throughout many stretches of downtown Waterbury dated back to the late 1800s. For generations, an antiquated underground utilities maze was held together by figurative bandages, and the city knew it was only a matter of time before they sprung a literal leak. Waterbury took a proactive approach, investing in the replacement of water mains, sewer lines and laterals over 7000 total feet of lines have been replaced, and similar underground sections of the city have been fitted with a full suite of utilities. In other words, any type of business with needs related to water, sewer, electricity and fiber optics can now be supported. A piece from the somewhere in the range of 120 year old piping now sits mounted on a wooden slab in the mayor's office. It's one of the administration's prized mementos, a rust laden reminder that the most important steps toward rebirth are the ones many can't see. With utilities replaced streets scape upgrades were made. Whole passageways around the downtown were transformed, and the city has continued their focus on getting more properties ready for their next significant use. Freight Street along spoke Coming off the downtown hub has been a rejuvenation project more than a decade in the making. Talks, which started in 2011, led to the city taking possession of the 130 freight street and 000 West main parcels in 2020. Two years later, the city purchased 170 freight street. with both properties of the long abandoned Anaconda American Brass Factory in hand. Waterbury now has 20 prime acres in the heart of downtown to remediate and offer for investment. So 2012, only six months into office, we decided that this piece of property was going to be our main focus had been Anaconda brass had been shuttered and closed because we acquired the property the federal government gave us $13 million toward a Tiger grant and we were able to build this road, which ties all the way from West Main Street to Bank Street. I think that the speculators are recognizing, that something very special is going to come out in this piece. We don't exactly know what it is, but what we do know is the interest is overwhelming. We can build anything on this site. A more efficient city center has been connected to the highway widening project and the connections are extending to sibling initiatives like the Riverfront Greenway and Rail Line system. In 2021, as part of a historic $115 million initiative, a centralized traffic control system on the Metro-North railroad, Waterbury branch was added. Within months, the branch's weekday train service increased by nearly 50%. In 2020 to $29.6 million. Federal grant was awarded to improve accessibility a three stations on the Waterbury line while additional investments were made to a parking lot and waiting room upgrades. Ultimately, an expansive three Phase Greenway project will run for more than seven miles through Waterbury and include a multi-use trail, pedestrian bridge, kayak launch, grilling areas and other leisure features. Funding by way of a federal grant to the tune of $23.1 million is helping the Greenway happen. While the City of Waterbury has made astounding improvements to its infrastructure, the exponential impact comes from professional relationships. You know, it's all a collaboration. Everyone on the team has to be talking the same language and communicating on a daily basis to get these kinds of projects done because it's just so overwhelming. The different agencies that are part of a project this size. And that's where it all comes down to. At the end of the day, it's all about building relationships. Have we not started building relationships with these individuals from day one, You wouldn't have projects like this. So a lot of areas are definitely at the forefront on these projects because of the fact that we've built these relationships and people trust the work that we're doing and that when we say we're going to do something, we actually do it. City officials have also applied for multiple grants, even for ones that historically have not been awarded to municipalities submitting for the first time. Waterbury was awarded one such grant, which kicked off the whole freight street expansion and ultimately affected redevelopment across a significant part of the city's downtown. Yet the Mixmaster project is deservedly credited as the ripple of momentum that influence a number of other projects to move ahead across the city. Maybe the most notable aspect of the highway project, especially given the scale of the work, was the adherence to expectations. The $330 million reconstruction, which began in April 2015, was completed a year ahead of schedule and remained on budget at the highest level. The I-84 widening built confidence in Waterbury for anyone dreaming of doing a project there. And as the ambition to transform Waterbury was reinforced by more and more completed projects, a comprehensive effort to further strengthen Waterbury core assets accelerated. The city invested in the educational system building three new schools, which became part of a nearly 50 institution system. One of the newly created schools, the Waterbury Career Academy, exposes students to four pathways that were selected based on labor market information to best align curriculum with the economic needs of the Greater Waterbury region. Manufacturing, information technology and engineering education and training. And Health Sciences. The graduation rate for the school's first cohort was 99.5%, and students were accepted into top universities like Yale, Brown, Virginia and Penn. One of Waterbury Career Academy's valedictorians, a native Albanian named Daiana Lilo, recently graduated from Harvard with a degree in government and data science. She now works in a manhattan law firm, while her advocacy for stateless individuals, those without official citizenship, has brought her international acclaim and a voice at the United Nations Refugee Agency, I've really enjoyed growing up in Waterbury. I feel like the diversity and the culture has taught me a lot in going through the Waterbury public School system was also great for my learning and development. We should be thankful to grow up in a bustling city with so many diverse people and so many cultures. We're full of heart. We're full of determination. And we can do so many great things. the Higher Education Institutions in Waterbury, Connecticut State, Naugatuck Valley Post University and the University of Connecticut have all broadened their academic horizons in conjunction with Waterbury’s growing vitality. Naugatuck Valley renovated its Founders Hall to include a new Center for Health Sciences opened in 2017. The center is now a mecca for manufacturing, nursing and other workforce ready programs. In the last five years, Post University acquired and expanded an online school of nursing created a series of continuing education courses and state claim is the second largest university in Connecticut. In addition, 2014 saw the State of Connecticut award, a multimillion dollar grant to the city for furthering its Waterbury next strategy. The long shuttered Holland Hughes Department store, located in the heart of downtown, benefited reopening its doors in December 2018 as a newly transformed high tech office building. With Post University as its first tenant, the UConn Waterbury campus has transformed several of its two year programs into four year programs, expanded its downtown campus with the renovation of the historic rectory building near the Palace. Theater is in the process of re utilizing the former Oddfellows Hall building as a state of the art classroom Space Research Center and health care simulation laboratory, and has been designated a Center for Excellence in Allied Health Sciences. This distinction allows students to complete their four year major at the UConn Waterbury campus to intern with local health care providers and to address the need for qualified health care professionals in the city and beyond. Dr. Fumiko Hoeft, UConn Waterbury Campus Director had this to say. The state of health care in our state, in Connecticut, as well as the United States. Many people probably have read newspapers or heard about it in terms of the medical professionals. There's a major shortage in the area. But I think with these shortages, I think it brings opportunities in terms of thinking about how we can best provide care to our community, to our patients, to our families. It gives us a moment to pause and think about where we really need to kind of beef up and to support the next generation of health care and provide support. In relatively short order, the city's past viability is through diligence and care have become marketable assets and assets that the city already leveraged are being invested in and further expanded upon. The Palace Theater, which reopened to great fanfare in 2004 after nearly two decades of dormancy, has continued to add more events of diversity and renown from Broadway hits and Bob Dylan to local performers and President Clinton. Says Frank Tavera, the Palace CEO One of the largest stage houses in the state of Connecticut is ours unencumbered space and a performing arts center so we can put on a show of any size and caliber. There’s incredibly rich arts and culture opportunities here. And I think it's our job as the largest of the venues to be critical partners with and to kind of work to extend that brand, because that's what will draw people more consistently to our area. The theater's ticket sales tracking has identified that their audience demographic is increasingly from beyond the Waterbury region. From the glowing reviews word of mouth is shifting as more and more folks talk about the stunningly beautiful venue hosting world class entertainers. That's an easy drive from their home. If the Palace Theater is one of the city's most popular attractions, the Mattatuck Museum is another. The museum has been an anchor institution in Waterbury, starting as a historical society in 1877 and exhibiting art ever since its first display hall opened in 1912. After two years and $9 million of investment from the city, state and community members, The Mat unveiled a breathtaking 14,000 square foot expansion in 2021. It added two new classrooms, new gallery space, an expanded museum shop, and a new outdoor roof terrace overlooking the refurbished Waterbury green. The expansion has created even more vitality in a city already known for its high degree of cultural enrichment. Bob Burns, the Mattatuck Museum director, had this to say. With our dual mission, we tell the history of the Naugatuck Valley from pre-colonial times the native people who lived here before, and then the founders of Waterbury, who came here all the way to today. That's our major focus, but we actually are really working to reflect the diversity of our own community. Waterbury is a city where 72 different languages are spoken in the public schools, and so our art now reflects that in the exhibitions that we have as our changing exhibits. Another sign of recent progress comes in the form of one sizable refurbished symbol, an illuminated cross that overlooks the city. High above I-84, it juts into the Waterbury skyline from Holy Land USA, an 18 acre religious theme park that opened in 1955. Hundreds of thousands of visitors flocked to the attraction over the years. But when it closed in 1984 for renovations, Holy Land USA never fully reopened and fell into disrepair by the late 1990s. The cross, which stood alone on the land's precipice, was dismantled and replaced by a smaller, poorly lit cross for Joe Pisani. This was personal Pisani, a born and bred Waterbury and owner of Pisani Steel fabrication, recalls his teenage self staring at the cross in the distance from his Sacred Heart high school classroom window. There was days where I would stare at the cross and pray that the answer would come to me. And it did. The young Pisani’s godparents lived down the hill from Holy Land, so Joe would walk up to the park every Sunday and pick blueberries with his family, and an indelible part of his memories was the cross. In the Sixties This was quite a destination for for Catholics and Christians. They would, you know, make pilgrimages to the tune of 50,000 plus a year busloads. It was just a great experience. The structure was replaced by a steel version in 2008 and five years later, a nonprofit purchased the property in order to reopen it. Pisani was first in line to help donating the materials and labor for a new 62 foot cross with a special led surface, allowing the piece to change colors for liturgical occasions. Joe did not devise a lighting concept. That was the genius of his beloved wife, Mary Jean. A group of caring citizens also provided financial and resource support for the project. One large supporter was Fritz Blasius a local business owner who for decades has quietly and significantly bolstered countless community initiatives. It was an amazing day. When we mounted the cross, we had to weld it together here in the field. It was in the middle of December, December 20th. We were working. It was 70 degrees in December. So we tested the cross out that very night that we erected it, and the traffic on 84 stopped at a standstill. It was just a highway just shut down and people were just looking. It was amazing. People just stood. The highway just shut down unexpectedly. Two days later, the official ceremony saw thousands flooding the local streets and parking lots. It became the the social event of the decade. In 2019, the public was invited back to visit Holy Land USA, and it remains open today. Regardless of one's faith, the cross symbolizes how Waterbury has risen from its past ruin. 22 tons of pride with 5000 individual bulbs constituting what's now called the peace cross as the mixmaster has widened. So to have the eyes on Waterbury. Each effort, regardless of size, is broadening people's view of Waterbury. It is no longer just another city that was once the world capital of something. Waterbury maintains the pride of its Brass City successes. Waterbury is invigorated with the ambition of its present, and Waterbury is ready to make a big splash. Mayor O’Leary, standing beneath the I-84 interchange, gives a glimpse into the next big project for the city of Waterbury. with all of the success and the transportation infrastructure, the infrastructure and the city. We have all of these successful projects and you wouldn't believe who that's attracted. Listen to episode three of the Three by ten podcast. Watch the three part video docu series and buy the companion hardcover book at thewaterbury.com