We Head Into the Final Three Weeks The Highlights New granite curbing and sidewalks for Main Street and Merchants Row New tracks for the rail corridor The last day of August will make the start of the final three weeks of our 10-week closure of Main Street and Merchants Row. As we’ve seen throughout August’s updates, a lot of activity is taking place simultaneously to reopen downtown and the rail line on September 21. One of those activities, shown in the photo below taken Thursday morning, is the excavation of the upper stretch of Merchants Row. The stormwater structures show the approximate level of the finished grade of the roadway. Rebuilding Central Downtown This week Landshapes comple
Construction Activity Intensifies as We Pass the Halfway Point The Highlights Laying the groundwork for healthy trees and new lighting downtown Last of the precast pieces leaves Fifield Farm On Monday this week we passed the halfway point of this summer’s construction. The rail tunnel is in, central downtown is being rebuilt from the ground up, and the project remains on schedule to reopen Main Street and Merchants Row to thru traffic and the downtown rail line to freight traffic by Monday, September 21. There’s still a lot of work to be done to get us there and if you’ve been downtown this week you’ve no doubt seen the flurry of activity taking place on Main Street and Merchants Row. Contin
Now You Can Start To Imagine What Our Downtown Will Look Like The Highlights New sidewalks for Merchants Row and Main Street Getting ready for new light poles and trees downtown During the first phase of the Main Street shutdown, the work downtown seemed to have a single point of focus. Excavation of the rail corridor dominated those first several days. Then construction of the rail tunnel took center stage. Now that we’ve arrived at the halfway point of this summer’s construction and those two major phases are complete, work is progressing on several fronts simultaneously. For this week’s update, let’s review what’s happening “above ground” to restore central downtown and then look at the
We Close In On the Halfway Point The Highlights Rebuilding Merchants Row and Main Street Temporary traffic impacts on Seymour Street Sunday-Tuesday Once Kubricky set in place last Friday the final piece of the new rail tunnel—TUP 94, as many an informed observer along the St. Stephen’s walkway could have told you—work between the bridges took a turn toward less dramatic but equally important tasks. Backfilling the excavated areas on either side of the now-completed rail tunnel was front and center this week. In the photo below, Carrara is pumping flowable fill (a cement mix designed for backfill) on the St. Stephen’s side of the tunnel while “the Slinger” layers in stone fill on the other si