GENESEO – Members of the local community had some of their most important questions answered by the engineers and contractors who will be doing the work for this summer’s Main Street water main replacement and surface repaving project.
The Village Trustees, about two dozen local residents, and several business owners including Grayce McLaughlin of Touch of Grayce, Renee Livingston of Cricket’s Coffee Et Cetera, attended the presentation and question and answer session by engineering firm MRB group and contractor Nardozzi Paving, as well as a representative with Contract Trade Services, and developer Don Livingston.
“We’ll be tearing up Main Street from the bear fountain to North Street, replacing 6 and 8 inch water main that was put in before the Village even existed,” said Mayor Hatheway. “This will be replaced with 12 inch water main, plus sewer work where there is some mixing between sanitary and storm water. The new water main will go in about 8 feet to the West of the existing pipe in the Northbound lane of Main Street.”
Marty Mincer with Nardozzi paving said that the excavated area of Main Street will be a 4-foot strip from the bear fountain to North Street, to be filled with compacted gravel as work progresses, to be finally paved over in August.
Dave Willard with MRB group added that LaBella Associates based in Rochester will be removing contaminated dirt and buried fuel barrels from under Main Street in July, where there was a Ford dealership during the 1930’s. The contaminated area is anticipated to be about 40 feet wide, from the curb to the center line near Special Tees and Cricket’s Coffee. This area will likely have the sidewalks removed and rebuilt.
“We are concerned about access to Main Street merchants,” added Mayor Hatheway. “The contract is well aware of this.”
Willard added that there will be temporary shutdowns of water service to individual buildings for about 1 hour as the new pipe is hooked up to each building.
“Because of the obvious impact to the Village, we will want to do that work at night,” said Willard. “We will work with individual residents and businesses to figure out when is the best time to make the switch, which honestly for most cases takes 5 minutes. If there are complications it can take up to an hour.”
Willard said that two-way traffic on Main Street will be maintained throughout the project, but parking will be interrupted.
Day work will be from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and night work will begin at about 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., with advance notification to Main Street residents of night work.
Some homeowners asked if sewer and water problems around their homes would be addressed as part of the project, and MRB group and Nardozzi representatives said that they will work with each homeowner to address their individual needs.
“My cell phone is (585) 703-7254, anyone call me with a concern,” said Steve May with MRB. “I don’t always hear my phone around equipment, but you can leave a voicemail saying ‘I’m so and so, I live at this address and this is the issue.’ Typically if it’s serious it will be done by the end of the day.”
Mayor Hatheway added that though the project will definitely be a nuisance, Main Street will be much improved for years to come once the work is over.
“It’s a little bit of a nuisance, but good things will come of it,” said Mayor Hatheway. “If all of us can kind of grin and bear it, that would be best.”
PHOTO CAPTION: (Photo/Conrad Baker)
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