2021 Update #22
Progress in Lazarus Park
The Highlights
Trees and shrubs in Printer’s Alley
Middlebury from on high
Henry at 200
The greening of central downtown took a major step forward this week with the planting of 16 new trees and dozens of shrubs, transforming downtown spaces that until now had looked decidedly under construction.
Earlier in the week, landscaping subcontractor Landshapes planted a mix of sugar maple, red oak, and serviceberry trees in Middlebury’s new Lazarus Park and alongside the Post Office on Main Street.
On Thursday morning, as shown in our first photo of the week, Landshapes delivered a truckload of ground cover shrubs in Lazarus Park.
Plant aficionados may detect that in the foreground of our photo are cutleaf stephanandra, on the right is rugosa rose, and behind is gro-low fragrant sumac. Two witch hazel shrubs are sitting on the ashlar block to the left.
By Thursday afternoon, Lazarus Park was looking much more like a park. Come down and see for yourself this weekend!
The Overhead View
Have you been following Middlebury photographer Caleb Kenna’s aerial photos of Middlebury and Addison County on Instagram?
Caleb’s most recent post of downtown Middlebury at dusk is a fascinating shot from high overhead.
You can view it and Caleb’s other photographic posts on Instagram by searching on @calebkenna. If you don’t yet have Instagram, you’ll need to download the app first.
Your Weekly Construction Update
In addition to the new plantings in Lazarus Park, Waters completed the ADA-compliant sidewalk that provides a second walkway between Main Street and the Marble Works through the new park.
In our next photo of the week, taken Thursday morning, the Waters crew is finishing the final sidewalk panel. On the right is the retaining wall that will enclose the stone paver labyrinth. Landshapes is expected to start on that next week.
The new sidewalk is scheduled to open to the public on Monday. When it opens, the sidewalk alongside the National Bank will temporarily close while the Bank’s mason installs stone pavers in the five-foot section between the sidewalk and the Duclos Building.
Across Main Street in Triangle Park, I have an update on easily the most asked about aspect of these final weeks of construction: the Town fountain. As the week draws to a close, Waters expects to pour the concrete pedestal on which the fountain will sit on and next week to re-install the marble surround that was disassembled and stored in 2018.
The fountain itself has been repainted and will be reinstalled in Triangle Park in late July/early August.
For those eagerly following the progress of the south cap wall, good news. The final two concrete pours took place this week and Kubricky has begun stripping the metal forms.
As those forms come down, the crew will rub and patch the concrete to finish the cap wall and backfill the area so that Landshapes can re-landscape alongside the rail corridor. The Battell driveway, as I noted last week, will probably reopen late next week.
Winding up our weekly tour on the north end of the project, the rail platform cured during the week and A&K returns on Friday to strip the forms and install granite curbing that will act as a drip edge/retaining wall behind the platform.
Kubricky is backfilling the rail corridor on the Marble Works side, Lafayette continues to extend the decorative railing northward along the north cap wall, and Witch is just about done coring the holes for the railing posts on the east side of the rail corridor.
Hooray for Henry
The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont reopened in downtown Middlebury this past week just in time to celebrate its founder’s 200th birthday. “Henry at 200,” an exhibit running through December, features many of the most interesting items in his wide-ranging collection.
Also on display through the end of the year are “The Faces of Addison County,” featuring two dozen of Trent Campbell’s most memorable photographs of daily life in our county, and “Kate Pond from the Heart,” a look inside the artistic process of this Vermont sculptor whose work currently resides in the Sheldon gardens. Definitely worth a visit and you can find out more here.
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.