New England 12, June 5, 2024

Dealer Principal of Equipment East LLC Giovanni Albanese announced the opening of the company’s fourth facility located at 250 Washington St., Auburn, Mass. The new location — named EE RENTS — will focus on building the company’s rent-to-rent business and also will offer sales, service and parts for its product lines of Yanmar, Wacker Neuson, Ammann, Gorman-Rupp, Sullivan/Palatek, Husqvarna and others.

“The continued growth of satisfied customers across Massachusetts and New Hampshire led us to purchase a facility in Auburn,” said Albanese. “The location could not

be better. Our customers need easy access to rental machines, parts, product support and service. Many of our eastern Massachusetts customers do work across the state and this new centrally located facility puts us in a better position to satisfy our customers’ needs wherever their jobs are based.”

The new facility consists of a 15,500-sq.-ft. building on a 10-acre lot conveniently situated on Route 20 and less than 2 mi. from the Mass Turnpike. The company has completed an extensive remodel of the building, which includes a

Developers See Mass Timber as Likely Viable, Less Expensive Solution in Building

In a remodeled furniture factory-turned-apartment building in New Haven, Conn., the walls and ceiling are all yellow pine, harvested from Alabama.

“So here we are, let’s come into the bedroom,” said developer Jeff Spiritos as he led a Connecticut Public Radio reporter on a recent site visit of the future ACME Timber Lofts structure.

Spiritos pointed to the wood’s natural texture in the nearly

completed building, as early April light filtered through the extra insulated, triple-glazed windows, designed to improve ventilation.

“The gaps in between wood, [is] something that’s natural and we’re not trying to hide the fact that it’s natural wood,” he added.

Across New England, developers are looking for new

OPRROOVVEN U WITH UPTI

PTIME IME KITS

SENNEBOGEN, in kee philosophy to maxim created UPTIME Kits

eping with their mize uptime, has Whether you are a service technician i road, these kits have need for every service and PM task in one p created to save you t Managing hundreds o parts, from belts and and special tools bec single part number to n-house or on the everything you e, maintenance place. They were ime and money.

They are:

• Easy to order and ea t d t ockst asy to s l dow NO I th Norour intspar om c with omerscust

• Ideal for stocking se and trucks

Choose from the follo

• Central lubrication

• Preventive mainte

• O-Ring kits

• Electrical service k

• Hydraulic service k

Hydraulic service k : kits shops ols ervice owing kits system kits nance service kits its kits

And the best thing is in stock and ready to built to match your m and series. Count on

in-house. For more in UPTIME Kits, scan th

s that these kits, go, are custommachine model SENNEBOGEN nformation on he QR code.

e orf ) OCT(Ownership of

of related service d nuts to O-Rings omes easy with a o order and stock C OND YBE E H HE HIN T MA virtua lI entim lose llyt

xim ma ommitmentc h about e morad ontract Demolition C parepairtsinsthavether andvirtuinanothermachineI onttoback.If very e ctomehavea Theyechnician machine, wntim w American o-shiptady- of oriesinventplete orf uptime izes aftersale achine”M he yond “Beour ow , Bloomfield Hills, MI or theunitbackquickly. kIg losedonoSinctheey ally Ihaveasituation,[they]bringjust ogooverthroncougheamontht wntime… ock.get theSENNEBOGEN y-t t act OGEN f tor ained technicians tr ned tec cians components and too

N.H. Receives Federal Funding to Repair Storm Damage

Beside the shores of New Hampshire’s Rye Harbor, pummeled in January by coastal storms, officials from local, state and federal agencies gathered April 22 to discuss the future resiliency of the N.H. Highway 1A corridor with help from a $20.2 million federal grant.

Earlier in the day, Gov. Chris Sununu announced that President Biden had approved more than $3 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds to help repair some of the damage from the January storms that pummeled Rockingham and Grafton counties.

The Federal Highway Administration (FWHA) PROTECT grant is allocated directly to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT). It is designed to shore up seawalls along a 3-mi. stretch between North Hampton and Rye, two local communities battered by the back-to-back winter coastal storms and flooding events that resulted in widespread damage to public and private property.

NHDOT photo

NHDOT joined federal and local officials to announce the first-of-its-kind grant dedicated to transportation infrastructure resilience under the Federal Highway Administration’s Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) Discretionary Grant Program.

State. “The system that was designed in the 20th century isn’t able to handle the precipitation rates and the storm rates that we’re seeing on an increasing basis.”

The Portsmouth Herald reported that by securing public infrastructure, the state’s goal is to reduce the impact of future storms and floods that strike the New Hampshire Seacoast and minimize travel disturbances.

FHWA Administrator Shailen Bhatt was joined at the announcement by the state’s Democratic U.S. senators, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, in addition to U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-1st District, and area municipal officials for an Earth Day event hailing the award.

The grant for reconstruction efforts in the Seacoast is part of the FHWA’s $829.6 million that is earmarked for 80 projects throughout 37 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“What is very clear is after more and more of these storms [is the] protection that was great for decades is not standing up to the 21st-century climate, which I think is emblematic of our infrastructure system,” Bhatt said in his appearance at Rye Harbor

Reconstruction Effort to Stretch Over Five Contracts

NHDOT Commissioner Bill Cass told the crowd the N.H. Highway 1A resilience project dates back to several storms in early 2018 that weakened local public infrastructure, similar to the storms that roared through at the start of 2024.

He added that the Seacoast project will likely be conducted in three phases.

“We can’t just be satisfied with the fact that we might repair the damage as the infrastructure used to exist and feel like we’re prepared for the future.”

“We want to rebuild these revetments and stone walls back, so they’ll be able to withstand those storms and hopefully recover quicker,” Cass said.

Work on the project will be completed over five construction contracts, according to the state agency. Fourteen revetment stone barriers and sea walls are planned to be tended to over a multi-year period.

As part of the effort, one of the first priorities is reconstructing the revetment sections

Chris Pappas

U.S. Representative

between the North Hampton and Rye town lines near Fox Hill Point and Rye Ledge, a roughly 0.6-mi. span, the Herald reported.

An NHDOT narrative from last August notes that $20 million in aid would cover about 80 percent of the estimated construction costs for the project.

Bhatt said that design work for the project is roughly 30 percent complete and the state transportation agency is about two years

away from beginning any construction, an effort that could take upwards of two years.

“Our coastal seawalls play a pivotal role in safeguarding critical state and local infrastructure, necessitating substantial post-storm cleanup and repair efforts after each coastal storm or flooding event,” added Rye Town Administrator Matthew Scruton. “The vulnerability of Route 1A, a vital artery for both local and regional transportation, looms large with each storm or flooding occurrence. This project will reconstruct the seawalls and coastal erosion protections, substantially improving our coastal resilience.”

Getting Ready for Future Storms, Sea Rise

The coastal resiliency grant award comes as local officials throughout Rockingham County are set to receive a separate batch of money after New Hampshire’s disaster declaration for the January storms and flooding was recently approved. Though distinct from each other, the PROTECT grant and the FEMA funding will complement each other, Rye Public Works Director Jason Rucker told the Portsmouth news source. He estimated roughly $500,000 worth of damage was incurred across the two weather events.

“They’re trying to shore that up and [temporarily install] something more robust to try and get us through the summer season,” added Rye Police Department Chief Kevin Walsh.

Members of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation spoke to the importance of rebuilding for the future rather than only addressing current needs and damage.

“We can’t just be satisfied with the fact that we might repair the damage as the infrastructure used to exist and feel like we’re prepared for the future,” said Pappas. “That’s not a recipe for success. We have to be building for the future.” 

Skanska Lands $24M MBTA Red Line Improvements Contract

Skanska, a global construction and development firm, announced that it has been awarded a $24 million contract by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to provide supplemental track improvements to the MBTA Red Line during six 24/7 track outages scheduled in 2024.

“We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with the MBTA through this new project on the Red Line,” said Rob

Pine, vice president of operations of Skanska USA Civil’s New England region. “This work will bring vital improvements to Boston’s busiest subway line, an essential part of the daily commutes of Bostonians across the city.”

The project scope includes the replacement of ties, rail and restrained rail along both tangent, curved and restrained curve track; removal and replacement of broken or lock

spike plates with pandrol plates, insulators and C-Bonds; replacement of the contact rail and ballast; joint elimination through thermite welding; direct fixation and floating slab repairs including concrete repairs and replacement; surface line and tamping; and track stabilizing.

Construction for the project began this year. For more information, visit www.skanska.com. 

Yale Professor Calls Mass Timber ‘Triple Win’ in New England

ways to increase affordable housing inventory, and some are trying to do so by using mass timber to inflict less environmental damage.

Spiritos’s building will eventually hold 18 apartments, with the top two floors constructed entirely of mass timber.

He also is in the midst of constructing another mass timber apartment building in New Haven that will be home to many residents with low incomes — those earning 25 percent of the area’s median income.

Mass timber, short for massive timber, is a construction model that uses pre-manufactured solid wood panels in place of concrete and steel, which are major emitters of carbon dioxide.

Using a renewable source and with most of the pieces made elsewhere and pieced together on site, labor costs and environmental impacts are less.

ACME Timber Lofts is a preservation, restoration and vertical expansion of an existing 3.5story, 150-year-old, unreinforced masonry structure, via a new mass timber stair and elevator core and two story cross laminated timber (CLT) extension, with exposed CLT interior and exterior walls and ceilings.

“The environment is really causing us to [do this],” Spiritos told the public radio network. “The affordability crisis is a mandate, and when you put them together, you’re really getting to mass timber being worth a real second look.”

Mass Timber in Climate-Friendly Housing

While it has been used for decades in Europe and the Pacific Northwest, only in recent years has an increase in mass timber construction in New England been seen, though not to the degree proponents would like.

Regardless, some say it could be key to creating sustainable new housing in the region.

Amanda Smith, a researcher specializing in buildings with the Minnesota-based nonprofit Project Drawdown, said to create more climate-friendly buildings, officials need to look at reducing the amount of energy that buildings use in their everyday operation, and reducing the amount of emissions created in the construction of the buildings.

That is where mass timber has the most potential, Smith said. Using wood to create strong walls and beams requires much less use of fossil fuels.

“It’s important to look into the forestry practices of where you’re sourcing that mass timber from,” she noted. “But it’s maybe our best hope for reducing our use of concrete and steel.”

Expanding Mass Timber in New England

It may be hard to replace carbon and steel in our tallest skyscrapers, but mass timber buildings are getting taller, according to Ricky McLain with the Wood Works Products Council. A 2021 building code change allowed mass timber buildings to go up to 18 stories, he said.

“In those taller buildings, they’re nearly all multifamily for mass timber,” McLain continued. “I think what that did was open people’s eyes [and have them] say, ‘Okay, mass timber can be used in multifamily [and works] well.’”

But he sees a few reasons it is not being used more often for housing in the Northeast, including that mass timber often has a higher upfront cost because, currently, the wood is shipped from the Southern states, Canada and Europe.

“That’s very difficult to convince a private developer who is maybe trying to do an affordable housing project and costs are extremely important,” McLain said.

Costs would go down if there were suppliers of mass timber in New England, but that requires more existing mass timber constructions.

“The potential suppliers that are looking at coming, they want to see that the demand is already here,” McLain told Connecticut Public Radio. “They don’t want to hear there’s interest, they want to see that there are real projects. So, it’s a chicken and egg problem.”

Where mass timber can be cheaper is in its labor costs due to the fact that such projects typically need between six and 10 workers, a fraction of the number used in steel and concrete constructions.

“The fact that you’re needing that much fewer laborers on site is beneficial where there’s not that much availability of labor,” he added.

Supporting RegionÊs Timber Industry

Of course, what New England has is plenty of trees, and foresters looking to sell their wood.

A viable mass timber industry in the region would create a new market for wood, leading to more forest maintenance as trees are harvested, according to Chad Oliver, a professor emeritus at the Yale School of the Environment.

He calls it a “triple win.”

“We have better biodiversity,” Oliver noted, “we have less fire and CO2 pollution from fires, and we have less CO2 pollution from building things out of steel and concrete.”

The biggest challenge facing a mass timber industry in New England is that it is still new to the area, and it would be more utilized in housing developments if more people understood the benefits, he said.

“There’s a lot of misinformation that leads people to think it’s not environmentally sound, when, in fact, it’s extremely environmentally sound,” Oliver explained. “New England would come around to that. There are certain incentives that could be put in [place] that would really help it move faster.” 

UMaine Athletics to Make $320M Expansion to Complex

University of Maine Athletics recently announced a $320 million renovation project from the Harold Alfond Foundation which includes a $170 million investment to fund the school’s Athletics Facilities Master Plan.

The money represents one of the largest contributions ever to a college sports program, The Maine Campus, UMaine’s student newspaper, reported April 22.

Plans call for adding 4,900 sq. ft. to the Alfond Arena entrance and making a 5,000sq.-ft. renovation to the existing Alfond Arena.

As a result, the men’s and women’s hockey teams will receive new locker rooms equipped with modern lighting and the latest technology to create one of the premier facilities for college hockey in the United States. The squads also will benefit from a new film room that seats 42 individuals, and an upgrade to a tunnel leading to the arena.

The two hockey facilities will be connected by a new concourse entrance featuring a new building design to complement the recognizable Alfond Arena profile. The spacious concourse will include renovated points of sale for tickets, concessions and the brand-new area for the Bear Necessities team store. To preserve and celebrate the sport’s history in Maine, a new Hockey Hall of Fame also is planned.

When entering the facility, fans can expect to be welcomed to an area celebrating Maine’s only Division 1 program, with displays of the athletic department’s history and accomplishments.

New and renovated offices for the men’s and women’s head coaches, assistant coaches and support staff also have been designed for the hockey programs and are to be equipped with modern technology to train and care for student-athletes.

Additionally, the Shawn Walsh Hockey Center will be upgraded with modern sports medicine and strength and conditioning spaces.

Hydrotherapy cold and hot tubs as well as larger and more efficient areas for treatment and injury prevention will be constructed, along with room for upgraded training equipment and nutrition areas, to bring the total amount of renovated space to about 13,000 sq. ft., The Maine Campus reported.

Funding from the Alfond Foundation also is earmarked to pay for:

• Upgrades to the Dexter Lounge, one of the signature components of the hockey

The two hockey facilities will be connected by a new concourse entrance featuring a new building design to complement the recognizable Alfond Arena profile.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, along with U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, announced the awards in a joint statement.

“Marinas are an important part of supporting Maine’s recreation and tourism economies, connecting Maine people and visitors alike with the scenic coastlines and working waterfronts our great state has to offer,” the lawmakers said.

The federal grants are designed to help improve local waterways.

DiMillo’s Marina received $1,422,731 in federal funds and has a non-federal match of $582,016, for a total of $2,004,747.

arena. Those improvements will allow student-athletes, staff, donors, and fans to enjoy events, meetings and gatherings to celebrate UMaine’s athletics program.

• Improved branding in the arena geared toward celebrating the history of Maine Hockey as well as recognition opportunities for donors and an improved entrance for premium seat holders.

• A new arena lighting system.

• A beer garden at both the hockey arena and at Alfond Stadium.

UMaine’s student newspaper noted that the athletics department also will continue to consider options for the in-venue fan experience, as well as parking and traffic flow procedures.

The university’s upgrades to the Alfond Arena and Shawn Walsh Hockey Center will further the school’s commitment to excellence in the athletics program, noted Jude Killy, UMaine’s director of athletics, while strengthening gender equity and provide a preferred destination for high school sport championships and community events.

“The enhancements will provide championship-caliber resources for the men’s and women’s ice hockey programs as they prepare to compete in front of the best fans in Hockey East,” Killy explained. “These improvements will continue our efforts towards being the premier destination for college hockey.”

Bangor-based WBRC and Crawford Architects in Kansas City, Mo., are the architects for the Alfond Sports Complex project. The building effort itself is managed by PC Construction, located in Portland.

The project is expected to be completed later this fall after having been under way for three years when new turf was installed on the football field.

In 2023, the Alfond Arena completed work on installing a new video board, ribbon boards, a new sound system and an LED lighting system as well as the new softball complex, field hockey complex and baseball scoreboard and fencing.

Future upgrades for the athletic program include a new soccer and track and field complex, new turf for Mahaney Dome, and an indoor connector to Memorial Gym. Work is also slated to begin in 2025 on building Morse Arena construction, the new home of UMaine’s men’s and women’s basketball teams.

Two Maine Marinas Get $3M From Feds to Make Upgrades

A pair of marinas in Maine are in line to receive a total of $3 million in federal funds to make infrastructure improvements, Mainebiz noted April 16.

DiMillo’s Marina, on Commercial Street in Portland, and Peaks Island Marina are the recipients of the money, which comes from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Boating Infrastructure Grant Program.

The facility plans to partner with the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) to add two 75-ft. transient berths as well as 70 ft. of side-tie dockage to extend the current dockage to 200 ft. in length.

The marina also will replace aging pilings, install three-phase power, add a more accessible gangway, build a boater’s lounge and replace an aging fuel dock.

Peaks Island Marina was granted $1.5 million in federal funds and has a non-federal match of $2,199,094 for a total of $3,699,094.

Along with MaineDOT, the dockyard plans to add 30 dedicated transient slips and 1,438 ft. of transient side-tie dockage, in addition to a wave attenuation system, an added fueling system and utilities.

Mainebiz reported that the grants for Maine were among more than $21 million announced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier in April to support construction, renovation and maintenance of marinas and other boating facilities for outdoor recreation and waterway access nationwide. 

“The enhancements will provide championship-caliber resources for the men’s and women’s ice hockey programs as they prepare to compete in front of the best fans in Hockey East.”

Jude Killy University of Maine

Funds Set to Make Maine Roads More Climate Change Resilient

The signs of climate change have been getting worse lately in Maine, with recent storms cutting off access to local roads along the state’s southern coast.

“It gets pretty bad,” said Kittery Town Manager Kendra Amaral in speaking with Portland’s WCSH-TV in late February. “We have anywhere between three and six roads that end up getting cut off that are important thruways for community members and for just general traffic in town when we have storms with high wind and high tide.”

Amaral added that the situation has gotten so bad that she believes something needs to be done before the next coastal flood emergency happens.

Luckily, “The shipyard employees and contractors can get off the island and safely away from the danger area, and our community members can get away from the coast in a safe manner without being blocked by flooded roads,” she said.

Help is on the way.

Abbie Sherwin has been leading the team working on a newly funded project focused on producing designs to increase the resilience of vulnerable roadways in Kittery.

A senior planner and coastal resilience coordinator for the Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission (SMPDC), Sherwin said the effort includes areas like U.S. Highway 1 over Spruce Creek, and Whipple Road over Gate 2 of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) entrance.

“These two roadway segments are really important for local and regional travel. They’re also emergency and evacuation routes,” she explained. “They provide critical access to and from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, but they are also really important from a local commuting perspective. So, they’re important regionally as well as locally.”

To help develop solutions to the problem, the Maine project received a grant totaling $545,700 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, U.S. Department of Defense, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Kittery Roads Susceptible to Sea-Level Rise

A community of 10,000 residents located at the southernmost tip of Maine across a series of islands, Kittery also is home to significant coastal habitat and wildlife, and extremely vulnerable to coastal hazards.

The oldest town in the state, it also has a robust year-round population and the PNSY, a keystone of Kittery’s waterfront, is a critical U.S. military installation — one of only four remaining U.S. Navy repair shipyards in the country.

Two roads in Kittery that are crucial for community travel and access to PNSY are especially vulnerable to sea level rise, SMPDC noted.

“Spruce Creek, a tidal waterbody bordered by saltmarsh intersects those roadways and is threatened by nonpoint source pollution and possible future development,” the Saco, Maine-based SMPDC wrote in a project description. “The project team from SMPDC plans to engage technical experts and local partners to complete a preliminary design of nature-based solutions to address vulnerabilities of Spruce Creek, the two roads, and associated storm and sewer infrastructure and to enhance the resilience of Kittery and the PNSY military operations.”

The commission added that the effort’s activities will include a site assessment of the creek and the roadways to identify conditions, vulnerabilities and opportunities for solutions; a development and evaluation of three conceptual designs, before choosing one to advance; and robust community and stakeholder engagement throughout the process.

Following that, SMPDC will present a plan to include a 60 percent design for the site and a decision, based on collaboration between Kittery and PNSY which, according to Sherwin will help “the community move from the planning stage to get to some designs that will eventually or possibly lead to construction projects to enhance the resilience of the road.”

Solutions to Be Applied to Other Maine Communities

Key roads flooding and becoming impassable during heavy rain events like the region has seen in recent months are among the issues worsening with climate change.

But these problems are not just happening in southern York County.

“We know that vulnerable transportation infrastructure is not unique to Kittery,” Sherwin told WCSH-TV. “It’s a common issue up and down the coastline as was highlighted with the recent storms that we experienced.

“So, part of this project would focus on transferring the information that we glean from this effort but also some of the design aspects on how we could possibly incorporate nature-based solutions into these infrastructure projects and share them with other communities.”

According to Amaral, the town of Kittery is on board.

“This grant was just the appropriate and obvious next step for working on solutions for an area that we’ve identified as being very vulnerable,” she explained. 

Equipment East Opens Spacious 15,500-Sq.-Ft. Facility

spacious showroom, parts counter, hydraulic hose shop, employee offices, large parts warehouse and a 10-bay service center.

“Equipment East has a diverse customer base that includes excavating contractors, heavy highway contractors, site developers, landscapers and municipalities, as well as commercial and residential contractors,” said Albanese. “We have a full line of products from small hand tools to a large selection of attachments and machines of all sizes to meet our customers’ needs”

Equipment East has experienced considerable growth in a short period of time. The company opened its first facility in

Dracut, Mass., in 2009 and later added facilities in Brockton, Mass., and Bow, N.H. The newly expanded footprint of four locations allows Equipment East and EE RENTS to provide equipment parts, service and rental support to its growing customer base in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and beyond.

“EE RENTS is pleased to be a part of the Auburn business community and we are eager to serve the needs of the bustling central Massachusetts market,” said Albanese.

 CEG

(All photographs in this article are Copyright 2024 Construction Equipment Guide. All Rights Reserved.)

see FACILITY page 18

EE RENTS not only represents manufacturers of earthmoving equipment, but it also works with manufacturers such as Wacker Neuson and Sullivan/Palatek to provide for customers’ smaller equipment needs.

EE RENTS has the attachments in inventory to meet all its customers’ needs.

The Auburn, Mass., facility has a massive parts storage warehouse, which allows EE RENTS to keep a large inventory on hand for all the manufacturers it represents.

The EE RENTS facility is located at 250 Washington St., Auburn, Mass.

Blaine Senecal greets customers at the new parts and service center of EE RENTS.

FACILITY from page 1

THE DOER’S DREAM

Loved for the features. Trusted for the

Standard features include:

• LED front and rear work lights

• Auto leveling bucket

• Ride control

• Review camera

• Two speed travel

• AM/FM bluetooth radio

• Free Hi MATE telematics access for 5 years

New Equipment East Facility Feature

Wacker Neuson machines are one of the core products available for rent at EE RENTS.

The new hydraulic hose shop allows EE RENTS to satisfy most of its customers’ hose and coupler needs while they wait.

The 15,500-sq.-ft. facility, which includes five service bays, gives EE RENTS plenty of space for future growth.