2021 Update #18

Steady Progress on All Fronts

The Highlights

• Main Street sidewalk project to finish up next week

• South cap wall demo done

Before we set out on our weekly roundup, let me bring you up to date on Middlebury’s most visible construction project, the Town’s replacement of sections of sidewalk and curbing on Main Street.

As planned, Granite State Asphalt Paving, in a one-day blitz during Monday’s high summer heat, installed all-new granite curbing from Merchants Row south to Bakery Lane and Mill Street as well as in front of the Community House and in a short section across the street on the Town Green.

Gary Freeguard’s concrete crew is now in town working in tandem with the Champlain Construction crew to pour new concrete sidewalks and, across the Battell Bridge, concrete curbing. Champlain Construction expects to finish up and return Main Street to normal life next week. Until then, alternating lane traffic through the center of town will remain in effect during weekdays.

Your Weekly Construction Update

Removal of the south cap wall, which has drawn a fair amount of our attention this past month, is now complete. Hot on the heels of the saw cutting and hammering, Kubricky, as shown in our first photo of the week, is tying rebar and forming up the replacement south cap walls for a concrete pour later in July. That work will continue next week.

Staying with cap walls, as shown in our next photo, the Carrara concrete pump truck made its last visit to the north end of the project on Wednesday as ECI completed pouring the north cap walls. Next week ECI will strip the forms and continue installing underdrain and then backfilling alongside the rail corridor north of Main Street.

Last week I mentioned that Witch is coring holes in the north cap wall for the decorative railing that will sit atop the wall and provide a measure of safety. In our next photo, you can see the core holes, running roughly every six and a half feet the entire length of the U-walls. Lafayette will install the railing in July.

A relatively quiet week up at the site of the new rail platform, as an electrician was on-site to install conduit needed to power new lamp posts, platform lighting, and numerous outlets along the platform. Next week, the Kubricky crew is expected to start tying rebar and forming up the platform itself.

Also on the electrical front, East View Electrical is expected in town in the near future to begin wiring up Lazarus Park so that Kubricky can install new lamp posts in the park. That lighting will be welcome in what has been a relatively dark space at night.

Slow but steady progress in Lazarus Park, as Waters set granite curbing along the lower edge of the new park (shown below in our final photo of the week) and began marking out the ADA-compliant walkway that will wind around the back end of the labyrinth retaining wall. As the sidewalk work moves to finish, we’ll see Landshapes back in town to backfill and begin plantings in the new park.

Finally, the remaining top soil was spread in Triangle Park and we should see the green space get its first cut in the near future.

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.