Construction Update – March 2015

by Melissa Spear

You have probably noticed on-going site preparation activities through the fall and winter (new electric service has been brought on to the site, all utilities have been moved underground, and in February they removed the telephone poles that used to feed electricity to our site), the second week of March will mark the beginning of work to actually construct the new building.  All of our subcontractors have been selected and are participating in weekly coordination meetings with our Construction Manager to make sure everything that everyone is responsible for is aligned and makes sense.  Once this coordination process is complete we will begin an exciting new phase of this project – building a building!  Here is what we can expect to see happen over the next few weeks:

• On March 9th, a 12 x 50 foot construction trailer will be delivered to our site. The trailer will be located along Springside Avenue just south of the “construction entrance”.
• The week of March 16^th our Construction Manager will occupy the trailer and begin to have a steady presence on our site. Soon after that a 6’ high chain-link fence will be erected that will enclose the construction site. The chain link will have inserts that screen the construction site from the road but will be left open along the pedestrian path so that people will be able to watch the construction from our site.
• Excavation for the foundation will begin sometime in mid to late March depending upon the weather. The current schedule shows concrete being poured around the end of March…keep your fingers crossed for a nice, warm spring…which would allow us to actually erect the walls and roof of the structure (all of which are being pre-fabricated in New Hampshire) in June.

IMPORTANT:

Once the construction site is enclosed all parking will be moved to the far end of the parking lot.  There will be parking for approximately 50 cars with the new configuration.  From the parking lot, you can use a walking path that travels on either side of the farm, and past the wetland, to get up the hill to Common Ground High School or to the farmhouse.

There will be more construction updates as we get into the swing of things.  It has been a long haul…and it is going to be an amazing building!