City Buys Wadsworth Street Properties From State for $1

The Middletown Common Council voted 9 to 1 this week to approve a deal to take over two parcels of land on Wadsworth Street for $1.

Democratic councilman Grady Faulkner was the lone nay vote among the group. During the discussion portion of the resolution, Councilman Todd Berch suggested an amendment that the properties be demolished, not boarded up, but later withdrew that motion, after understanding it was unneccessary.

The boarded-up homes at 135 and 155 Wadsworth St., are owned by the State of Connecticut and were used for the former Long Lane School detention center. They will be demolished and converted into open space.

The proposal to purchase the land goes as far back as three years ago, when the Middletown Economic Development Committee meeting in which Bill Warner estimated the demolition costs for Wadsworth Street and Portland Street (which have since been razed) properties at $100,000. 

Council members said the structures on the parcels had become overgrown and infested with pests, leading to the idea of demolishing them, the Middletown Press reported.

According to the Hartford Courant, in 2011, the city spent $75,000 to demolish two dilapidated, condemned houses on one cramped lot at 20 Portland Street.

Last May, the Alondra Hernandez Community Garden on Portland Street was dedicated. Now a flower garden at the 20 Portland Street lot, it stands in memory of the Macdonough Elementary School girl who suffered an aneurysm last February at school and died at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center.