2021 Update #29

A Break for Labor Day, Then a Final Week of Construction

The Highlights

• Finishing touches on Main Street and Merchants Row

• More progress on the Amtrak rail platform

• Printer’s Alley to reopen next week

It’s been a busy construction week downtown as we approach the end of the Middlebury Bridge & Rail Project.

The project’s end will consist of two milestones, Substantial Completion and Project Acceptance.

Substantial Completion is the date on which the VTrans Resident Engineer determines that all contract work except for “punch list” items—minor repairs and corrections—has been completed. That date is set for next Friday, September 10.

Project Acceptance follows when those minor repairs and corrections—such as fixing cracks in the new sidewalk—are completed. That will take place a little later this Fall.

Speaking of Fall, in preparation for Labor Day weekend, construction will wrap up midday Friday except for some excavation work taking place underneath Cross Street Bridge that will finish by 5 PM. Work will resume next Tuesday.

With that, let’s review what we accomplished this week and see what lies ahead in the final week of construction.

Your Weekly Construction Update

As you likely noticed if you were downtown mid-week, our most visible accomplishment has been the final paving of Merchants Row and Main Street between Merchants Row and Seymour Street.

As we go to press Thursday evening, L&D is in town to stripe parking spaces and roadway markings on Main Street and Merchants Row.

Earlier in the week, as shown below in our first photo, L&D striped parking spaces in the Marble Works alongside the rail corridor opposite Junebug and Otter Creek Yoga, restoring 26 angled and parallel parking spaces for those who work in the Marble Works and their customers.

ACTR’s downtown bus stop, which since construction began has been in front of the Post Office in the southbound lane of Main Street, will now relocate to the northbound lane of Main Street alongside Triangle Park, improving the safety of ACTR and its passengers as well as pedestrians using the Post Office crosswalk.

From central downtown, let’s jump up to the Amtrak rail platform, which saw extensive activity this week. As shown in our next photo, the sign declaring Middlebury, VT an official Amtrak rail station has gone up.

This week’s rail platform construction activity included completing the galvanized steel decking that will support the standing-seam roof, installing LED lights on each post, and grading out the area in preparation for Phase 2 of the project, which will involve creating parking and landscaping the area. That will take place once Kubricky and its subcontractors complete construction of the platform the end of the month.

Our final photo shows the Waters pump truck clearing the downtown stormwater drains of construction debris on Main Street and Merchants Row. This particular drain is located in the space that will become ACTR’s new downtown bus stop.

South of Merchants Row, Kubricky was busy reconstructing the riverbank along Otter Creek between the Battell drive and Cross Street Bridge and stabilizing the slope on the South Pleasant Street side of the rail corridor. Matting is being installed on the riverbank and on the east slope to minimize erosion while grass takes root.

Next week, we can expect the Printer’s Alley roadway connecting Main Street and the Marble Works to reopen for the first time since Summer 2017 (hallelujah) and for the Triangle Park fountain to once more be fully operational. Kubricky will continue removing the access road south of Cross Street Bridge to the bottom of Water Street.

Wishing you and yours a relaxing and storm-free Labor Day Weekend!

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.