As of Friday of this week, the long-lingering sidewalk construction on Pacific Avenue between 4th and 3rd Streets by Wells Fargo Bank and Homelife Furniture, which has suffered through several technical re-do’s and tenting to allow for flatwork in the rain, will be stripped of forms, coned off where there’s any trip hazards, and opened up to foot traffic. Then, starting Friday morning, the next stretch of sidewalk from 3rd to 2nd will be torn up.
Which means that the Rendezvous, with its two mid-block doors (and no rear access), will only be available to customers that cross a bridge. Remember that, with this project, when sidewalk demolition occurs, a pedestrian access to each business and residence must be kept open at all times. This will include the Tillamook Apartments as well.
After demolition, and after conduits, drainage, and curbs are laid out, the sidewalks on that block will be poured in such a way as to extend past one of the Rendezvous’ two doors (the one without the bridge). Then the bridge will be moved over the curing sidewalk to the second entrance and the next stretch of the sidewalk will be poured past the initial entrance. At all times, patrons of the Rendezvous will have the best view in town of the ongoing construction, so please make sure that you don’t miss out on this great opportunity.
As to the other, bigger, but less integrated into daily community life, bridge, on Wednesday we should witness the setting of the first girder span, with two more being placed and the big bearings seated three on each end by the end of next week. It won’t be too much longer until the bridge deck begins to be formed.
Along the other arms of the project, the drainage work is within 100 feet of its limits on the north end by the Diesel Repair Shop and should complete that last extension and stub out the westward laterals in the next two days so that they can jump off that task and do the Pacific Avenue demo. Similarly, the electrical work will be adding the junction boxes in the new tree wells in the Second Street Plaza and laying the conduits from 3rd to 2nd in the next week so that they can jump over to begin the work in Goodspeed Park.
ODOT and Oregon State Bridge Construction are still negotiating ideas on how to accelerate the speed of the sidewalk construction. While they have a concept that appears to be workable at this time, they are still officially paced to work on one blockface at a time. Hopefully, that will change soon and the project will take off in a flurry of activity so that the Pacific Avenue sidewalks are back open and humming with pedestrians frequenting their favorite businesses again.
But let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.