2018 Update #35
A Festival Week
It’s rare to see kids downtown during the day. It’s mostly just us adults going about our daily business.
This week was a welcome exception, as hundreds of kids and their parents attended the 40th Annual Festival on the Green noontime children’s concerts.
By arrangement with the Vermont Agency of Transportation and Kubricky, all construction activity in the central downtown stopped each day this week between 11:30 and 1:30 so that the concerts could take place undisturbed. And so that your community liaison could hum along to a few songs with the next generation of our community.
That fun break aside, it was another activity-full week downtown so let’s review what we accomplished this week and what lies ahead next week.
On Friday, Maine Drilling & Blasting will embark on what it expects to be its final round of blasting in Printer’s Alley. Blasting is scheduled to take place about 2 PM on Friday, with two additional blasts likely to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. ECI will then excavate the fractured rock from the blasts later in the week.
Over in Riverfront Park, Hayward/Baker has a little more to do to complete its work stabilizing the slope extending from the National Bank’s parking lot to Otter Creek. That should wrap up this phase of work in Riverfront Park.
Kubricky spent the week raising and lowering manhole covers along the planned pathway of the temporary access road connecting Water Street to the Battell Building parking lot and clearing much of the area along Otter Creek north toward the Battell Building. That work will continue next week.
Finally, as noted last week, the long-anticipated work in Triangle Park is scheduled to get underway starting Monday. Hayward/Baker will mobilize into the park and begin drilling minipiles to stabilize the rail embankment. This work will be similar to the drilling of minipiles in Merchants Row and Main Street last summer, with one crucial difference: no road closures and no sidewalk closures. And I’m afraid the time has come: those five parking spots on Main Street alongside the park will now be closed to the public to allow the contractor safe access in and out of the construction zone.
I’ll close this week with a view of the Printer’s Alley construction area courtesy of our good friend Peter Dempewolff and the unique vantage point of the St. Stephen's bell tower.
That’s all for today. See you downtown.
Please keep your comments and questions coming. Send me an email at jgish@townofmiddlebury.org and I’ll try to cover it in my next update.