Construction springs up throughout Chester this summer

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2016 Telegraph Publishing LLC

In addition to road closures for bridge work in Weston and culvert work in Andover with paving all around the area, Chester will be busy with construction on municipal and private jobs all summer. Work on a new Jiffy Mart and the Dollar General has begun and will soon be joined by several public projects both large and small.

Long-awaited sidewalk work, library repair

On Thursday, May 19, the town will open bids on sidewalk construction from along the southside of Main Street from the Green to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and from Main Street to the bridge over the Middle Branch of the Williams River on Grafton Street. Sidewalk work will also be done on Maple Street between Main and Depot streets. According to Chester Executive Assistant Julie Hance, the work, which is expected to begin toward the end of June, will take care of sidewalks that are in the worst condition.

The Whiting Library also will undergo long-anticipated repairs and restoration this summer as well. In an interview on Monday, Hance said that the town has received bids and contracted for the work, which should begin soon. The $119,000 project is being funded by $99,800 in USDA Rural Development grants and loans matched by $10,000 from town coffers and $10,000 from library funds.

Water project set to begin, gravel permitting in question

By far, the biggest projects will be the installation of about 3,000 feet of watermain beginning near the Sandri Sunoco station south to  Green Mountain Union High School and the construction of a 330,000-gallon water tank and the transmission line to connect that tank to Chester’s municipal water system. This is the project that was approved by voters last September after a rocky path that included a land purchase that mixed water system needs with gravel extraction.

Bids for the main were received earlier this year and construction is expected to begin by the end of May and continue until early fall. Bids on the tank and transmission line project are due on May 5 but, before construction can start, the project must clear the Act 250 process including demands from Vermont Fish and Wildlife to reserve large portions of the 139 acres purchased from Michael and Amy O’Neil for wild habitat including a deer wintering yard.

Hance believes that the Fish and Wildlife issues will be settled shortly and that an Act 250 go-ahead could see construction on the tank and transmission line begin by the end of June but, at this time, the future of gravel extraction remains up in the air.

And still more…

Bids are also due on May 17 for culvert work on Potash Brook Road that Hance also expects to be done this summer and a Vermont Better Backroads grant application for correcting three erosion sites in Smokeshire is pending. The town expects to hear by the end of the month and plans to use town crews to do the Smokeshire work.

The Potash Brook Road work resulted from the flooding of July 28, 2014. A FEMA buyout and demolition of houses at the end of Kingsbury Road, which resulted from the same storm, may also get the go-ahead shortly, according to Hance.

Vermont’s Land and Water Conservation Fund and Buildings and General Services Grants and a bond issue voted on at Town Meeting will make it possible to replace the town pool liner and decking, build a larger ice skating rink and resurface the basketball court, all at the Pinnacle Recreation Area on Lover’s Lane. The current skating rink on Cobleigh Field will become additional parking.

Future work

While engineering for fixing the chronic problems with Route 35 to Grafton has been finished and a VTrans Large Structures Grant for $175,000 — of the projected construction cost of $235,000 — has been secured,   plans have not been finalized and there is doubt that construction could be started before 2017.

This summer will also see a scoping study looking into the possibility of extending sidewalks out to Green Mountain Union High School and engineering work ahead of construction of storm drains to alleviate flooding in the Mountain View and Kevadus Circle communities. That project would involve Federal money administered through Vermont’s Clean Water Fund in a grant/loan program.