The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority announced that the Dorchester Avenue Bridge in Boston is under construction.
The bridge, which is located between Von Hillern and Kemp streets, was built in 1925 and rehabilitated in 1975. The steel bridge carries vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists over the Red Line, the Commuter Rail Old Colony Lines and the Cabot Yard maintenance tracks.
It is being replaced to protect its structural integrity and ensure reliable service.
Work began on the project in the summer of 2022. The budget for the
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Thompson Equipment Adds Rubble Master Mobile Impact Crushers to Its Offerings
Thompson Equipment, a dealer of aggregateprocessing equipment and solutions for more than 40 years, announced the addition of Rubble Master’s mobile impact crushers to its offerings.
This expansion includes Rubble Master’s leading models: RM 90GO!, RM 100GO! and RM 120X, now available at Thompson’s Lisbon, Maine, and Oxford, Conn., branches.
With this partnership, Thompson Equipment is poised to offer additional mobile equipment alongside its established stationary options, empowering customers to achieve greater agility on the job, increase aggregate production, vertically integrate their aggregate supply and ultimately enhance profitability.
“This partnership opens up a tremendous opportunity for us with the addition of different size class machines,” said Steve Ferris, vice president of Thompson Equipment. “With Rubble Master’s mobile solutions, we aim to meet the needs of a broader customer base by offering unparalleled service and equipment. At Thompson, we believe that ‘the more you make, the more you make,’ and this collaboration will help us achieve our profitability goals.”
State, Local Leaders Celebrate Topping Off of Soccer Stadium
The construction of a professional soccer stadium on the banks of the Seekonk River in Pawtucket, R.I., achieved a major goal recently as the final piece of structural steel was hoisted into place.
“This is a true milestone,” Mayor Donald Grebien said during his remarks before the final beam was lifted by a crane. “This is Pawtucket on the move.”
The Tidewater Landing sports facility, which many said would never be built — and it looked like they might be right when global financial challenges mounted in the wake of the COVID pandemic, driving up prices — is scheduled to host its first game in 2025.
“We are thrilled about our new partnership with Thompson Equipment. Their wealth of experience and complementary products provide an excellent opportunity to serve a wider array of contractors and producers in New England,” said Paul Smith, North American sales manager at Rubble Master Americas.
Designed with the operator in mind, Rubble Master equipment is user-friendly and comes with comprehensive training modules and attractive financing options. Its advanced engineering increases efficient fuel consumption, potentially minimizing operating expenses. Its high-quality design and construction help reduce breakdowns for increased uptime and reduced downtime. Rubble Master’s telematics mobile app, RM XSMART, offers functionality for monitoring and managing equipment and optimizing processes to help enhance profitability.
For more information, visit www.thompson-equip.com and www.rubblemaster.com.
(All photos courtesy of Rubble Master.)
The Ocean State’s professional soccer team, Rhode Island FC, is playing its inaugural season this year at Bryant University’s Beirne Stadium in nearby Smithfield. The team competes in the USL Championship League.
Hundreds of government leaders, team officials, soccer fans and construction workers gathered at the site to watch the final beam installation and to celebrate the milestone, the Providence Journal reported.
“This stadium and the broader [Tidewater Landing] project will transform Pawtucket,” predicted Dan Kroeber, a principal in Fortuitous Partners, which is developing the stadium and nearby parcels on both sides of the river.
The ceremonial event, attended by Rhode Island Gov. Daniel J. McKee, was held at the multi-use stadium’s 25-acre site next to Interstate 95.
The Providence Journal noted that the stadium is expected to be constructed in time for Rhode Island FC’s second season next year but also will include future phases of development on both sides of the river, encompassing hundreds of housing units, a parking garage, retail and restaurants, an event center, a hotel and riverwalks — all connected by a pedestrian bridge.
McKee heralded Fortuitous’ investment in the stadium and in the housing development that is expected to follow across the Seekonk River.
“We’re going to build the bridge,” he promised, adding, “The stadium is poised to really revitalize the city.”
While most know Tidewater Landing as the stadium project, with a price tag of at least $124 million, plans also call for 500 apartments in a mix of one- to three-bedroom units, along with commercial spaces, on both sides of the Seekonk south of Division Street.
The stadium is being constructed to seat 10,500 spectators, and besides being home to Rhode Island FC, will host other sporting events, scholastic competitions and double as a concert venue.
The Tidewater Landing project was first announced in 2019 and broke ground in 2022, according to Providence Business News (PBN).
Brett Johnson, co-founder of Fortuitous Partners and chairman of Rhode Island FC noted that “from day one, I have believed in this project. I am so proud of our progress, and I look forward to celebrating more construction milestones in the future.”
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Public Funding to Pay for Much of Construction
Kroeber and Johnson and their associates raised $50 million in private equity from unnamed sources to finance the stadium and the team. According to the partners, the private investment in Tidewater Landing by Fortuitous represents the largest such investment in any Rhode Island development in more than a century.
However, PBN said that much of the financing for the project has been from local and state governments.
In a June 19 article, the online news source reported that earlier this year, the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency sold $54 million in tax-exempt bonds in collaboration with the state to help build the stadium. Those bonds would provide the $27 million the state had pledged for the project, but esti-
mates are that taxpayers will pay $132 million in principal and interest over the next 30 years to repay the bonds, much more than the $59 million that was estimated in 2022. Additionally, R.I. Commerce Corp. authorized an additional $14 million in tax credits, and the city of Pawtucket provided $10 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds, on top of a tax treaty that will save the stadium owner up to $37 million in property taxes over 20 years, PBN noted.
“The Tidewater Project is more than just a soccer stadium — it’s an economic gamechanger for Pawtucket and Rhode Island,” McKee continued. “The latest progress is a testament to our strong public-private partnership and I’m grateful for the hard work and perseverance of our leaders. This is another milestone on our way to welcoming more good-paying jobs and revitalizing the riverfront.”
LaBella, JCJ Architecture rendering
The Tidewater Landing sports facility is scheduled to host its first game in 2025. STADIUM from page 4
Vt.’s Latest Flooding Raises Concerns Over State’s Aging Dams
The latest flooding in Vermont has added fresh urgency to concerns about the hundreds of dams in the state, a third of which are more than a century old.
The July 10-11 deluge from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl was not as bad for the hundreds of dams across the state as compared to last year’s floods, when five failed and nearly 60 overtopped. But the second bad flood in a year raises concerns about the viability of these structures as climate change brings heavier rains and more powerful storms.
“The many thousands of obsolete dams that remain in our rivers do not provide protection from flooding, despite what many may think,” Andrew Fisk, the northeast regional director of American Rivers, an environmental advocacy group, said in speaking to the Associated Press (AP).
“Dams not created specifically for flood protection are regularly full and do not provide storage capacity,” he added. “And they also frequently direct water outside of the main channel at high velocities, which causes bank erosion and impacts communities.”
The challenge facing dams in Vermont is playing out across the country as more of them overtop or fail during heavy rains. The Rapidan Dam, a 1910 hydroelectric dam in Minnesota, was badly damaged in June by the second-worst flood in its history; and in Texas, flooding damaged the Lake Livingston Dam’s spillway about 65 mi. northeast of Houston.
There are roughly 90,000 significant dams in this country, according to data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), of which at least 4,000 are in poor or unsatisfactory condition and could kill people or harm the environment if they failed. To guard against such catastrophes, they need regular inspections, upgrades and even emergency repairs.
Like the rest of New England, Vermont has mostly older, small dams built to power textile mills, store water or supply
irrigation to farms. The concern is they have outlived their usefulness and climate change could bring storms they were never built to withstand.
Two Years of Flooding Put Dam Safety in Spotlight
The July 2023 floodwaters in Vermont drew outsized attention to dams mostly due to the failures and near failures, according to AP. In the capital city of Montpelier, for instance, a dam was at risk of sending water over the emergency spillway and through parts of the town.
The National Inventory of Dams, a database regulated by the USACE, lists 372 dams in the state, with 62 rated as high hazard, meaning lives could be lost if the barrier fails. Ten of those were rated in poor condition, which means remedial action is necessary.
State officials told the AP they actually regulate 417 dams and that there are hundreds more too small and of minimal hazard to be regulated.
The flooding rains last summer led to a rapid inspection of all dams in Vermont, with more than $1.5 million spent to stabilize and repair storm damage.
“The team had never been faced with a situation [where] 8 inches of widespread rain [fell] across essentially the entire state of Vermont,” explained Neil Kamman, director of the Water Investment Division of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. “It stressed all of the facilities that the state of Vermont owns and that the dam safety team manages but filled up hundreds of dams, caused the failures that you know about, and created a whole bunch of unknown uncertainties out there on the landscape in terms of downstream risk due to … prospective dams having been destabilized.”
In response, the Vermont Legislature approved the hiring of four staffers in the state’s dam safety program, bringing the total to nine, and allocated an additional $4 million to a dam safety program, up from $200,000. That money can now be used for emergency risk reduction, restoration or dam removal.
Vermont’s Dams Held Up Well During This Year’s Floods
Luckily, after the most recent flooding earlier in July, Vermont officials said the damage has been minimal. No dams are believed to have failed and only one — Harvey’s Lake Dam in Barnet, which is classified as a low hazard structure — overtopped. But even in that case, there was not likely to be any significant impact to property nor the nearby roadways, the AP learned.
Julie Moore, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, said during a news conference July 12 that inspections found the Winooski River Valley flood control reservoirs “continue to do their job well” and that levels at the Waterbury Reservoir “are stabilizing with plenty of storage remaining.”
Those dams, along with the East Barre Dam, are critical to flood control in an area that stretches from Barre to Essex. Moore also said that officials had completed inspections at “seven particularly at-risk” dams in the northern part of the state and that “no damage was identified.”
The floods this year came too soon for the additional money and staffing to have an impact, but Kamman said the experience of responding to 2023’s flood helped shape a more robust response from the team this time around.
“The biggest difference between the response this year and last year is the fact that we had the game plan worked out for a widespread event that could stress a large number of facilities all at once,” he explained.
New Haven Begins Traffic-Calming Project On Busy Avenue
Chris Ozyck loves living in the Fair Haven Heights neighborhood of New Haven, Conn., but he doesn’t love the fact that his vehicles have been struck six times over the past 23 years while parked in front of his home on Quinnipiac Avenue.
Three of his vehicles were lost to those collisions, including pickup trucks and a trailer.
Ozyck has even resorted to his own measures to try to prevent the accidents, including carrying around a bright orange traffic cone which he places behind his pickup truck each time he parks it.
But now he has some hope that things will get better.
City and state officials, led by New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, announced July 12 that work has gotten under way on a $2.6 million state-funded infrastructure project to install traffic-calming measures to slow speeding cars and trucks and improve pedestrian safety along a 2.3-mi. stretch of Quinnipiac Avenue, one of eastern New Haven’s busiest transportation corridors.
The area to be addressed runs from the Annex through Fair Haven Heights.
As part of the effort, the city will mill and pave Quinnipiac Avenue from its southern end at Townsend Avenue/Fairmont Street north to Foxon Boulevard. Along the way, crews will build raised crosswalks, raised intersections and speed tables. Additionally, the city is set to provide pedestrian crossing improvements by re-aligning intersections and shortening crossing distances as well as installing new curbs and sidewalks where necessary.
The work will take approximately 3-4 months to complete, according to New Haven officials.
Similar changes also are in store for a stretch of Valley Street on the west side of town, explained Elicker, who thanked New Haven’s delegation in the General Assembly, and the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s (CTDOT) Local Transportation Improvement Program for funding the work.
The Stamford Advocate reported that a separate project is being planned to upgrade and tame Foxon Boulevard, another of the city’s busiest and most dangerous stretches of road.
“The reality is that we tragically have seen too much dangerous driving in New Haven,” added Elicker, who was joined at the site of a news conference at Quinnipiac and Essex Street by state Sen. President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven; state Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven; state Rep. Al Paolillo Jr., D-New Haven; four city alders; and several area residents.
Elicker referenced the Connecticut Crash Data Repository, compiled by the University of Connecticut, in noting that there were 50 vehicle crashes along that stretch of Quinnipiac Avenue in 2023, 85 in 2022, and 93 crashes — one of them fatal — in 2021.
In response, the New Haven Police Department recently doubled the size of its traffic enforcement unit.
Safety, Livability to Improve On Quinnipiac
Ozyck, who serves as associate director for the Urban Resources Initiative at Yale University, lives on the stretch of
Quinnipiac Avenue south of the Grand Avenue bridge, between Grand Avenue and the Ferry Street bridge. He said he knows the new project will help with more than the street’s safety.
“If we make this neighborhood more walkable, people will want to move here,” Ozyck explained.
Assistant City Engineer Dawn Henning told the Advocate that there is no single hot spot for traffic accidents along Quinnipiac; rather, crashes occur “all along the corridor,” she explained, adding that the planned improvements will make it safer for everyone.
When asked about CTDOT’s funding of the project, Looney said, “It’s a significant state commitment, one which I’m more than willing to make. There’s a growing need to build in more safety measures.”
Paolillo and Lemar also praised the city’s plans for the corridor.
“It has been an exhaustive community process” to get to this point, according to Paolillo, but “we now have something” to improve the situation.
Lemar, the Connecticut House chair of the General Assembly’s Transportation Committee, lauded the street upgrade as part of a broader effort “to reorient our transportation system to be about people and not about vehicles.”
Fereshteh Bekhrad, an architect and developer who lives and owns rental properties in the neighborhood, said she was thrilled to see the work go forward.
“We had so many accidents,” Bekhrad said in speaking with the Advocate. “Today is a wonderful day for me.”
Officials Hope to Start Full-Scale Renovation On Victory Theatre
Construction bid documents for the $71 million planned rehabilitation and reopening of the 104-year-old Broadway-style Victory Theatre in downtown Holyoke, Mass., are expected to be finalized by the end of the summer, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported June 30.
The news is a good sign for a project that many believe will be transformational for the region’s arts scene and serve as an economic catalyst for Holyoke.
Susan Palmer, the theatre’s project manager, told the city’s development and government relations committee in June that the documents could be ready by Aug. 1, a month earlier than anticipated, meaning that the rehabilitation work remains on target.
With $78 million in funding sources, and a nearly $22 million investment in private equity from Axos Bank of San Diego, facilitated by Stifel Investment Bank of St Louis, enough money is available for the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MiFA) to begin work on the Victory Theatre to begin, Palmer told the Gazette.
Additionally, Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia pledged $2 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act money toward the work in late 2022.
“In terms of have we identified enough
money to get the job done? We have,” said Palmer, who has an expertise in theater upgrades.
She added that the project will draw people into the community when the work is completed by June 2026.
Crews Currently Preparing for Renovations
In 2009, MiFA acquired the rundown site at 81-89 Suffolk St. in Holyoke — a building that has now been closed for 45 years. In recent weeks, heavy machinery has been positioned inside, with workers on the roof and in the structure’s ceilings. All 1,600 of its old seats have been removed as part of the construction’s preparations, noted the Gazette, based in Northampton, Mass.
MiFA Executive Artistic Director Donald T. Sanders told Holyoke’s development and government relations committee that progress on the theatre is “extraordinary.”
He also provided a tour of the building in the last week of June, with some walls opened up to continue a necessary evaluation in preparation for the construction bid documents.
The tour comes on the heels of last spring’s completion of a $400,000 restoration of two 23-ft.-tall murals created by Italian immigrant Vincent Maragliotti in
1942. Although the murals have returned to Holyoke, they are being kept off site and will not be put back alongside either side of the theatre’s stage until the renovation work is completed.
Much of the ongoing work is not yet visible to the public, explained Matt Jacobs, construction manager for Barr & Barr in nearby Springfield. Crews are currently in the midst of gaining access to various areas of the building so they can finish the construction bid documents as well as mitigate water infiltration and prevent any deterioration that might occur.
Sanders provided a summary of work done at the theatre last winter and into early spring, including various roof repairs and investigations, and making the building’s parapet and chimney safe, Later in the spring, he said, a Jersey barrier and custom scrim along Chestnut Street was installed, along with the placement of a temporary fence near the alley, and the removal of some ceilings ahead of the structural reviews.
City Leaders Have Differing Opinions On Project
The Gazette noted that there is both enthusiasm and concern about the Victory Theatre rehabilitation project from Holyoke
city councilors who serve on the development committee.
Ward 6 Councilor Juan Anderson-Burgos said that people should see the theatre as a piece of history in the city and as being similar to venues in other areas.
“This is what we need in this city, because if it’s good enough for Boston, if it’s good enough for New York, if it’s good enough for Rhode Island, well, dang it, it’s good enough for Holyoke,” AndersonBurgos remarked.
But At-Large Councilor Michael Sullivan contended that city residents believe Holyoke officials need to first concentrate on fixing problems with crime, which he said will continue to discourage people from coming to events, even if the theatre renovation is complete in the coming years.
Development committee chair and Ward 4 Councilor Kocayne Givner said more affordable housing, enhanced municipal services and increased policing can all be generated from revenue from people who come to Holyoke for shows at the Victory Theatre and then spend money at other local businesses.
“Having more funds to do the things we need is really helpful, so why not take the money from those who would like to come in and spend it,” Givner explained.
Brockton Moves Closer to Renovating, Building New High School
Brockton High School in Massachusetts has moved one step closer to getting a massive building renovation.
At the Brockton Public Schools (BPS) meeting June 27, Mayor Robert Sullivan said that state education officials will conduct a feasibility study for a state-subsidized renovation project at the school.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) had earlier invited BPS to enter the feasibility study phase for either a future rehabilitation or replacement of the state’s largest high school.
“That was a game changing vote,” Sullivan said at the school committee meeting. “That’s great for Brockton High, that’s great for Brockton Public Schools.”
The Brockton Enterprise reported that the high school was one of 10 schools selected for the MSBA’s CORE grant program, which was established in 2004 to fund major construction projects for public schools in the state. After missing the invitation twice, Brockton High sent a letter of interest in 2020 that was finally accepted in December 2022.
“The feasibility study will carefully examine potential solutions to the issues identified at the school’s facility and will
help us develop the most cost-effective plan to address those issues,” Massachusetts Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg said in a written statement.
If the next step in the process results in a determination that a renovation or replacement of Brockton High School is indeed feasible, the city would be eligible for reimbursement by Massachusetts in adherence with the funding formula outlined in Chapter 70B of state law, according to BPS.
The minimum reimbursement for a potential future project would be 31 percent but could be as high as 80 percent based on the factors laid out in the state funding formula.
A new Brockton High could cost $1 billion, meaning the city would pay roughly $100 million to $200 million for its share.
Sullivan said state leaders have pledged that the $2.5 million for the feasibility study will be included in an 80 percent reimbursement, although cities typically pay that fee in full.
The MSBA will contribute up to $800 million.
The huge project came under threat just this past February when members of the Brockton City Council considered denying BPS the money needed to secure the feasi-
bility study. The council has been critical of the school district’s spending since its $18 million budget deficit in 2023, the Enterprise noted.
“This is what we wanted,” said Ward 7 Councilor Shirley Asack at the time, “but we’re not in the right place to accept it.”
Despite the school district’s financial insecurity, though, the Brockton city councilors voted unanimously in March to approve the entire $2.5 million.
Building Better Brockton High School
James Cobbs, acting superintendent of BPS, noted that at the recent MSBA’s board of directors meeting, the state body outlined how the school district and MSBA would collaborate in exploring all options for creating a better Brockton High, which first opened in 1970 and will begin its 54th year of service in September.
Now, the city and MSBA will partner to identify a project manager and a design firm to document Brockton High’s educational programming, evaluate existing space and conditions, and determine what the most cost-effective and practical approach would be to solve identified issues at the school.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to continue our partnership with the MSBA and explore the possibilities for the future of Brockton High School,” Cobbs said in a statement. “This is a unique chance to do a thorough exploration of our current and future space needs and determine what path makes the most sense for our community.”
Brockton High was earlier invited into MSBA’s eligibility phase in 2022, which typically lasts two years, BPS noted on its website.
Any future proposed project would be subject to the remaining steps of the MSBA process, which includes schematic designs, project funding, detailed designs, construction and project completion.
Located about 25 mi. south of Boston, Brockton High is not only the most populous school in the state, but it is also among the largest in the country with an enrollment of approximately 3,600 students, according to BPS.
The MSBA was created 20 years ago this month by then-Gov. Mitt Romney has since given the green light to over 1,000 school building renovations across the state and awarded more than $17 million to fund these projects.
STORY from page 1
The state of Massachusetts is making headway on putting together the funding needed to replace two aging bridges that connect Cape Cod to the rest of the state.
Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll announced July 12 that the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) have secured nearly $1 billion in additional federal dollars to replace the Sagamore and Bourne bridges over the Cape Cod Canal. The funding was included in a bipartisan bridge investment program.
The additional money brings the total amount of federal funding secured for the project to nearly $1.72 billion, in addition to the $700 million in state funding pledged by the Healey-Driscoll administration, the Associated Press (AP) reported July 14.
The full cost to replace both spans is estimated at around $4.5 billion.
“This is a game-changing award for Massachusetts,” Healey said in a press release. “We’ve never been closer to rebuilding the Cape Cod Bridges than we are right now. This funding will be critical for getting shovels in the ground. We promised the people of Massachusetts that we were going to bring home this funding and get these bridges built — and we’re delivering.”
Plan to Replace Aging Cape Cod Bridges Take Big Step Forward
The USACE currently owns and maintains the two bridges, which officials have said are structurally deficient, functionally obsolete and nearing the end of their usable life. The Corps of Engineers has warned that if the spans are not replaced within the next several years, one of them would have to be completely closed for 18 months for maintenance.
Original construction on both Cape Cod structures began in 1933.
Replacing Two Bridges is Critical to Massachusetts
The AP noted that current plans will concentrate first on replacing the Sagamore Bridge before turning to the Bourne Bridge. After the entire project is finished, MassDOT will own, maintain and operate the completed bridges.
According to Healey’s press release, replacing the coastal bridges “also presents a powerful opportunity to modernize designs to improve safety, mobility and resiliency [as well as] increase economic vitality and improve access through better pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure,” according to the governor’s news release. “The project will bring the bridges into a state of good repair, lower the long-term maintenance costs, address issues with traffic operations, improve safety by reducing crashes by as
much as 48 percent, and preserve and enhance productivity through new direct jobs and other economic benefits. The new design also will have multimodal elements including shared-use paths to fill transportation gaps and ensure full accessibility for pedestrians, cyclists and people with mobility devices.”
The construction of the Sagamore Bridge replacement will be fully offset from the existing bridge so that traffic may be maintained on the older span during the project.
MassDOT will enter into a project labor agreement to support fair wages and working conditions for the more than 9,000 high-quality union construction jobs that will be created from this project and meet the state’s goals for workforce participation by minorities and women in construction.
“We’re very grateful to the congressional delegation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and members of the HealeyDriscoll administration for helping us win this federal grant award,” said MassDOT Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver. “With this second [grant] for the Cape Cod Canal Program infrastructure needs, we are now on a path forward to continue with environmental permitting, selecting a design-build firm and breaking ground for construction of the new Sagamore Bridge.”
Securing Federal Grants Cap Years of Effort
Last year, Massachusetts won $372 million for the bridge replacement project from the Federal Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant program. The state also secured another $350 million in the Fiscal Year 2024 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act.
Still, Healey said her administration is continuing to pursue more federal dollars to help pay for additional phases of the project, including the Bourne Bridge replacement.
U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, D-9th District, which includes Cape Cod, said the latest federal grant is the culmination of more than a decade of work.
“The new Sagamore Bridge will be more than just a connection between two sides of the canal; it is a lifeline for the quarter of a million people who live on Cape Cod and the economic driver that brings workers and tourists back and forth every day,” he explained.
Of the two bridges, the Sagamore span has more traffic and accounts for about 56 percent of the crashes on the two structures. A new structure at the crossing will have wider lanes, rapid bus transit, and bicycle and pedestrian access, the AP noted.
The new Bourne Bridge also will include a shared path for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Dorchester Ave. Bridge Could Open to Traffic This Fall
Work
project is $47,125,079 and is provided by federal formula funds and some MBTA matching funds, according to Lisa Battison, a spokesperson of the MBTA.
The lead contractor on the project is SPS New England of Salisbury, Mass., and Select Demo Services of Salem, N.H., is the demolition contractor.
“Dorchester Avenue over the MBTA Red Line, Cabot Yard Spur and Old Colony Main Line consists of replacement of the existing three-span highway bridge with a new, two-span precast reinforced concrete deck panel slab and cast in place closure pours, sidewalks and barriers, on weathering steel multi-girder superstructure,” according to SPS New England. “A new pile supported abutment will be constructed behind the existing reinforced concrete rigid frame south abutment of the south span, using drilled and driven pipe piles and a reinforced cast-in-place concrete cap.
“A new pile supported pier will be constructed between the existing granite block south abutment of the north span and the reinforced concrete rigid frame north abutment of the middle span, using drilled and driven pipe piles and a reinforced cast-in-place concrete cap,” SPS added. “The existing granite block north abutment of the north span will be reused, and a new precast reinforced concrete cap will be placed on top to support the new superstructure.”
To relocate the existing utilities from the existing Dorchester Avenue bridge, a prefabricated temporary utility bridge will be erected on a reinforced concrete foundation supported by drilled micropiles. Work also includes the rehabilitation of an existing 300-ft. long bin wall by installing soil nails and a reinforced concrete face.
“Work to date has included demolition of the existing bridge, stabilization of the Von Hillern Street retaining wall, reconstruction of the Red Line subway tunnel roof, substruc-
ture work [including foundations and piles], new beam seat installation, erection of bridge steel and the installation of new utilities [20-in. gas line, electrical and third-party fiber optic installation],” Battison said.
“The contractor will set the pre-cast deck panels for the new bridge deck and will also install fireproofing coating on the steel members supporting the new roof slab inside the Red Line subway tunnel below the bridge superstructure,” she added. “Precast approach slabs were placed at both abutments with a crane during the weekend of June 15-16.”
Remaining work, Battison said, includes installing and completing the bridge deck, sidewalks and parapet as well as finalizing utility routing. The target is to have full beneficial use of the bridge and open to traffic this fall 2024.
The bridge is currently closed to traffic and will remain so through the completion of the roadway deck and surface materials. CEG
MBTA Customer and Employee Experience Department photo
Some of the work to date has included demolition of the existing bridge and stabilization of the Von Hillern Street retaining wall.
MBTA Customer and Employee Experience Department photo The bridge is being replaced to protect its structural integrity and ensure reliable service.
MBTA Customer and Employee Experience Department photo
began on the project in the summer of 2022 and the budget for the project is $47,125,079.
MBTA Customer and Employee Experience Department photo
Funding for the project has been through federal formula funds and some MBTA matching funds.
DORCHESTER from page 1
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New England Nonprofit Funds 10 Affordable Housing Projects
Evernorth, a nonprofit housing capital syndicate based in Portland, Maine, and Burlington, Vt., has closed its latest multi-investor fund of $61 million, which will provide equity to finance 10 housing projects in Maine, in addition to four in Vermont and one in New Hampshire.
The organization serves low- and moderate-income people by advancing the development of affordable housing in the three states.
A total of 15 investors committed the equity to Evernorth’s Housing New England Fund V as a financial resource for the region’s critical affordable housing needs, Mainebiz reported July 15.
Of the 10 properties financed by Fund V, nine are projected to be completed this year to create 371 homes.
“We raised capital from a wide-range of investors and new partners enabling us to expand our reach to preserve and create much-needed affordable housing in these unprecedented times.”
Nancy Owens Evernorth
Below are the names of the Maine projects, including the developer, number of units and amount invested by the Evernorth fund, according to Mainebiz:
• The Davis Road project in Bangor is being created by the city’s Housing Authority and the Bangor Housing Development Corp. It will be made up of 32 apartments for adults 55 and older at a cost of $1.9 million.
• In Belfast, Congress Square Commons is a project from Developers Collaborative encompassing 36 apartments for families. It will cost $8.2 million.
• The Oak Grove Commons in Bath, built by Realty Resources, is an acquisition and rehabilitation housing project comprised of 34 apartments for families at a cost of $7.4 million.
• Wedgewood in Lewiston is under the supervision of the Lewiston Housing Authority with Avesta Housing serving as a development consultant. The project is a combination of acquisition and rehabilitation as well as new construction that will create 82 apartments for families for $10.3 million.
• Augusta’s 99 Western Ave. project is to be built by Mastway Development and will feature 38 new apartments for families. It is a $3.5 million construction effort.
Nonprofit Dedicated to Helping Fund Affordable Homes
Evernorth was created by a merger of Housing Vermont and Northern New England Housing Investment Fund in 2020. Since then, it has raised and deployed more than $1.5 billion in equity capital for affordable housing, building more than
17,000 affordable homes for low- and moderate-income people across northern New England.
Its Fund V investors for the latest group of affordable housing projects included community, regional and national banks.
“We raised capital from a wide-range of investors and new partners enabling us to expand our reach to preserve and create much-needed affordable housing in these unprecedented times,” Nancy Owens, Evernorth’s president, said in a company news release.
Mainebiz noted that Evernorth raises equity by syndicating federal low-income housing and historic tax credits as well as various state, historic and affordable housing credits.
“In addition to receiving a reliable return on their investments, the community banks and the regional and national companies that have invested with the Housing New England Fund V will help to build or renovate tangible, long-lasting affordable housing resources throughout northern New England,” added Cynthia Lacasse, Evernorth’s executive vice president and chief program officer, in the news statement.
Local banks contributing to Fund V included Bangor Savings Bank, which committed $4 million, and Bath Savings, which committed $1.25 million, according to a separate news release.
The need for affordable housing in all three states remains strong, the nonprofit noted. As a result, Evernorth has a pipeline of high-quality community developments which need financing and will be unveiling Housing New England, Fund VI later this summer.
