Supervisor for Main Street project arrives in town
|
Officials from the Akron, Ohio engineering firm EG&G, Inc. have positioned a field representative to oversee the Main Street McMinnville downtown revitalization and economic development project to completion. EG&G engineers designed the Main Street project.
An amiable guy with 45 years of construction experience, Ed Vander Horst rolled into town last week after finishing up another job in Slippery Rock, Pa.
“The main thing I do is see that the project goes in the way it was designed, with the proper materials and that it meets the specifications and to answer any unforeseen questions that might come up in regard to drawings or specifications,” he said after a pre-construction meeting last week.
The Ohio resident will be living in Westwood during his time here. He has three other Main Street projects to lay claim to, including two in Ohio and the one just completed in Pennsylvania.
Vander Horst said he is looking forward to living and working in McMinnville and said he answers all of his telephone calls and tries to communicate as effectively as possible with concerned citizens.
“I will be handing out business cards to every business with the understanding that if they have any questions whatsoever, they are free to call at any time,” he said, “and I respond to every message on my answering machine.”
A couple of things Vander Horst has come to know well are reactions to construction obstacles that can temporarily limit access to buildings as well as public perceptions about the project.
“The most problems come about when you have to remove the walks in front of the businesses. At that point in time, there’s absolutely no way that construction can allow people to go through, and that is usually for a short period of time,” he said.
“We can get through a business area in normally, a matter of a half an hour or less. And we will try to restore it so that any patrons who need to go into the area have access – limited access, but there will be barrels and tapes and where required, there will be ramps that are nothing more than 4-by-8 sheets of plywood, but this will allow even handicapped people to get in.”
Working as a field representative is a challenge, but Vander Horst predicted positive results for McMinnville’s Main Street.
“It’s a real challenge, but the proof is in what happens when it’s all done,” he said. “People at the very beginning are hesitant to see the construction and then as it starts to go back together and they don’t see all these ugly wires overhead.
“They see brand new lighting that they never thought existed before because the illumination on the streets will be four-to-five-fold better than it ever was and then the decorative effects of the new concrete walks and all new streets – it just lends an overall atmosphere to bring people downtown. People come into town just to see what happened.”