Main Street demolition work: After slow start, street finally getting torn up
After a fairly slow start, McMinnville Public Works crews worked at full speed tearing up portions of Main Street late last week as residents got used to traffic changes downtown.
Crews started removing large underground foundations that supported traffic signal poles on Tuesday and Wednesday. They found two separate decades-old steel fuel storage tanks from an old gas station across from Magness Library, as well as brick from an old sidewalk lying underneath the existing sidewalks.
It wasn’t until Thursday work seemed to shift into higher gear. Despite Friday’s rain, crews had half of the first phase of Main Street between Chancery Street and Court Square demolished by early Friday morning, which attracted attention from shop keepers and others.
Karen Parisi is one business owner affected. Despite the inconveniences construction will undoubtedly bring, she said now is the perfect time for her to start a new business on the corner of Chancery and Main streets.
“It kind of works because in my opinion, as they’re remodeling this,” she said while pointing to the street, “we’re remodeling this,” she added of her new store, a handmade soap shop called The Lathers’ Lair.
“It’s going to be beautiful and we’re going to be first,” she said.
City officials said during a meeting for business owners at city hall Thursday they would try to re-open Chancery Street for thru traffic once phase one construction is completed this winter, although traffic still won’t be able to flow east down Main Street from Chancery Street.
Parisi said she is excited about the improvements on Main Street.
“I think it’s happening fast. I think it’s going to be ahead of schedule and I think it’s going to bring a lot of attention to this Main Street.”
Public Works director Bill Brock said finding the storage tanks did not slow crews down as much as he initially feared because they were mostly filled with water. Had they been filled with fuel, it would have been a different story. As it was, finding the tanks confirmed rumors about the tanks being there and that was the extent of the excitement.
“People had told us that they were still in the ground and had water in them. We didn’t know that until we finally got down and dug into them,” Brock said, adding the city contacted the state’s Department of Environment and Conservation for guidance after finding them.
“We contacted the state and asked them what to do because they were underground storage tanks. They told us out of the Cookeville office as long as there weren’t any contaminants in or around the tanks, we could just remove them.”
Crews pumped the water out of the tanks, removed them and filled the holes with rock Wednesday.
Thursday and Friday, workers began the more exciting process of tearing up asphalt after removing giant foundations for the poles that were 40 inches in diameter and 10 feet long.
Waterline work is also in store in the near future, which is expected to cause a one-lane closure on the rest of Main Street east of Court Square.
Apex Construction is the general contractor and site superintendent Frank Randolph of Apex said Friday all was going smoothly so far.
“Next week, be patient on foot traffic downtown,” Brock added, predicting a lot of sidewalk removal. “Use back doors as much as possible.”