A Look Ahead on Construction

A Review of the great changes happening:

The trees are budding in Market Square!

They continue to lay the belgian block in preparation for flipping the street.

The brick-work has made it all the way down to Starbucks

In the new Square, there won't be individual parking meters.  We'll have the blue paystations that you see in other parts of the City.  One will be located in front of Subway, inin hte blank space between these two bollards.

When they fit the zig-zag pattern of the bricks, they often have to cut the edges to line up with the curb or around the bollards as you see in the above photo.  When they do that, they use a wet saw.

When you are walking through the Square, you may notice some odd cardboard tubes dug into the ground and say "Well, what the heck is that for?"  They already placed the light-pole bases... the trees are in... manholes and fire hydrants are covered...

They use these tubes to set the concrete bases of the bollards.

There are several sets of bollards.  Some will go at the ends of Forbes Ave and Market Street to keep the area pedestrian-only.  On the interior of the Square there is a set arranged in a ring (referencing the previous design) and a few other sets in various locations for safety purposes.

Coming up...

Blockstone continues to be laid (that's the street)

They will finish the brick work between Lubin & Smalley and Crazy Mocha...

They will plant the trees in the sidewalks by the businesses

Within one month...

They expect to begin laying the terrazzo in the center of the Square in late April.  That means less than a month from now you'll begin seeing the surface that we'll be walking on this summer, where we'll sit in the sunshine on lunch-hour with a book, where we'll stand under the clock waiting to meet a friend for happy hour...  It's coming folks!