Construction enters Court Square
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New water lines have been buried between Chancery Street and West Court Square and subcontractor workers were placing more 12-inch line and water valves in the ground on Main Street in front of the courthouse Friday, prompting a temporary closure of the intersection.
That work will lead to new taps for individual businesses and work is planned for storm and sanitary sewer lines, project engineer EG&G, Inc. field representative Ed Vander Horst said.
“The contractor has structures coming for his storm sewer next week, so we’ll be able to come back in here, start on that end [Chancery Street intersection] again and put in our storm drainage,” he added. “Then we also have a sanitary sewer that goes down to Colville, so we’ll probably be saw cutting the roads in those areas, following right up on finishing the sanitary.”
In the course of trenching for a new water line to be installed Friday, workers hit an old water line city crews apparently did not know was there, with one report noting the earliest record of a water line downtown dates to 1901.
Vander Horst said such incidents are common during construction. Workers were capping off the busted pipe an hour after the incident occurred and appeared to have the situation under control, but some water service was temporarily cut off while the problem was fixed.
During a progress meeting last week, officials reported there have been some surveying discrepancies, but Vander Horst said they are being rectified.
Once water, storm and sewer work is completed, people will begin to see crews working above ground once again.
“The whole idea is to get that whole intersection down there buttoned up so we can start setting our curbs up,” Vander Horst added of the area nearest Chancery Street.
General contractor site superintendent Frank Randolph of Apex Construction said Tuesday barring any problems that would prohibit crews from working nearest Chancery Street or in front of the courthouse, crews are not expected to trench for water line farther east on East Main Street at this time.