March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Shaw’s work in early phase> Today’s pile of gravel is November’s Main Street supermarket

BANGOR — So far, it looks like just a lot of dirt, but by early November it will be a new Shaw’s supermarket, really it will.

In recent weeks, more than 4,000 truckloads of gravel have been hauled in from Winterport to raise the ground level of the former Gas Works site on Main Street where the supermarket will be built. By the time they are done, Hughes Brothers Inc. truckers will have unloaded 50,000 to 60,000 cubic yards of fill at the site, according to the company’s Dick Martin.

Then other workers will turn around and start digging it up again.

“We’ll start excavating next week for the footings,” said Paul Ureneck, facilities representative for The Boulos Co. of Portland, developer for the Shaw’s project. “We’ve got a rather ambitious schedule — 22 weeks.” He expects the 50,000-square-foot supermarket to open on Nov. 10.

In the last month or so, the pile of dirt has not only gained height, but it has been moved around a bit.

The gravel was being used as a “surcharge,” Ureneck said. The high mound of dirt “duplicated the weight of the building,” with soils below grade settling. The idea was to have the settling done before construction took place.

With that finished, crews then would move the excess gravel to where it would serve as a base underneath the parking lot.

Steel and masonry will start to go up in about six to eight weeks, Ureneck said.

The underground utilities have been installed, according to Rodney McKay, city director of community and economic development. Among the site work remaining are the lighting, paving and curbing, he said Tuesday.

While the number of workers on the project will fluctuate with the phases of construction, Ureneck said that a total of 125 to 150 people in at least a dozen different trades would be involved.

Langford and Lowe Inc. has been selected as the general contractor, McKay said.

Fourteen buildings in the area were torn down earlier this year by the city of Bangor, with credit for that work going toward the $975,000 in tax increment financing the city is contributing to the project.

The first Shaw’s in Bangor, located on Springer Drive, was opened 10 years ago. That supermarket will undergo renovations this summer and have a grand reopening coinciding with the grand opening of the new Shaw’s in November.

A year ago, the project was slowed by a couple of major obstacles. The owners of Perry’s Restaurant had filed suit to stop the city from taking properties by eminent domain, and city officials were waiting anxiously to see if the Environmental Protection Agency would grant jurisdiction over the environmental cleanup of the Gas Works to the state Department of Environmental Protection. If the federal EPA had retained jurisdiction, the project would have been substantially delayed.

But everything worked out. The several Perry heirs came to an agreement to sell the restaurant building for $160,000, and the EPA smoothed the way for the state to oversee environmental concerns.


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