It’s “go” time for the Grand Avenue Bridge, and CDOT representatives say they’re doing everything possible to get the word out about the biggest regional construction project in decades.
There’s a long line of trucks along 7th street, underneath the old bridge. A few workers are shoring up the road, installing steel rods and then concrete to make sure the street is stable. That’s before excavation begins nearby for new bridge piers. The machinery is very loud, and it’s nearly impossible to hear someone talk when walking by.
Despite the noisy construction, staff at more than one restaurant along this street describe business as steady. At the Hotel Denver, Mike Bower says establishments in the area are trying to be proactive. "Honestly a lot of people have been working together,” he reported on Friday. Bower is Director of Facilities at the hotel, which is about a block away from the loudest construction. “We’ve been receiving information for quite some time as to how it’s going to go,” says Bower, “and a lot of people have been actively going to meetings.”
Meetings like the CDOT open house on Thursday at the Glenwood Springs Community Center. People packed into a room filled with posters, maps, and a presentation. “This 7th street area, from Colorado to Cooper,” gestures Kathleen Wanatowicz, “[where we] will have pretty much ongoing rolling closures throughout the project, for safety reasons.” Wanatowicz is part of the public relations team handling the new bridge project.
“This is an accelerated bridge construction project,” she continues, “and so because of that we have several subcontractors working at the same time. We have a shoring subcontracting that’s down shoring up the piers, we have a causeway construction where they’re dumping rock. And that is all happening at the same time along with deep utilities on 7th street.” Those utilities are being rerouted to go along the new pedestrian bridge. Even with all the activity on 7th street, Wanatowicz reminds people that businesses are open and worth walking too.
Annie Kittle is among a crowd perusing drawings and a model showing the different construction phases. She’s attending with the postal master of the Glenwood Springs Post Office. “We feel like we need to know [the traffic impact], so that we can inform our carriers to do all the different routes,” Kittle explains. She anticipates mail service delays because of the extra time it will take to get around town, especially when bridge service is totally closed.
That’s estimated to be August through December 2017, when all traffic will shift to Midland Avenue. “It is a 95 day closure that the contract the contractor has,” says Tom Newland, another spokesman for how the new bridge is being put in. “If [the contractor] is early, he has a pretty good incentive… of $25,000 a day to finish early,”
And if [the contractor] finishes late, he gets penalized that amount.” Newland says most of the questions at this gathering are about that three month closure.
Others here have more immediate questions. A man named Chuck is with his friend Bob Maurice. They’re hoping to get a job on the project. "We had our resumes drawn up and submitted,” says Chuck. “We’re just waiting to hear back. I would assume there’s going to be enough work for everybody." It’s an especially good time for more jobs to be available, continues Chuck, because “we predominantly do remodel work. But until the snow melts, people are stuck in their houses, not doing much."
Construction ramps up more this week, and 7th Street downtown will be completely closed during the day, as well as some parking and pedestrian restrictions. Among the many other pieces of the project, the contractor is building a causeway, or temporary rock road, along the south bank of the Colorado River.
