Warm weather equals long construction season for Pinedale

by Tiffany Turner

Construction is everywhere in Pinedale with contractors making use of the unseasonably warm weather to continue to move forward with their projects.

Many of these projects are largescale developments and buildings while others are infrastructure work being undertaken by the town. Current construction includes the first stages of the BloomField development, extensive water and sewer project and a new town shop.

Town Shop

After the long drawn out process that never ended in a completed town garage, Town Engineer Eugene Ninnie said he was tasked with undertaking a new garage at the town’s sewer lagoon located on the edge of town off South Tyler Avenue.

According to Ninnie, the new town garage will be done with performance-based construction.

“We’ll be looking at building in terms of energy savings,” Ninnie said.

The project has a model including the savings that will be created over the next 20 years from the energy-saving products use in construction.

“It’s going to pay the town back,” Ninnie said. “That’s going to be the new wave.”

Currently the structural steel is going up and has been underway since mid-October.

Water, Sewer, Rehab project

The water and sewer project taking place along the south and west end of Pinedale is mostly paused for the winter. Landscaping for these projects has not been finished, and Ninnie said there have been quite a few resident complaints because of this. The majority of the in-town work includes repairing and bringing up to current needs the old sewer system in and around the Redstone subdivision.

“But once that is completed, I think they will be happy,” Ninnie said.

There is also a project in the works to loop the sewer and water mains so there are no dead-end lines.

“The end result is you are going to have a line with pressure,” Ninnie said. “The purpose of the Ehman Lane project.”

The BloomField

Much of the construction seen on the edge of town is the progress being made with the BloomField subdivision.

Work began on the project in September on Phase I of the project, which, according to developer Matter Harber, includes “utilities, roads, curb and gutter and sidewalks along BloomField Avenue (just west of the new Hampton Inn) from Highway 191 north to the new elementary school site, as well as Haymaker Drive (east of the WYDOT building) from Highway 191 looping around the Mobile Home Park, crossing Barber Creek and ending at BloomField Ave.”

“Phase I also includes the Stream Restoration project, from the Barber Creek bridge at Highway 191 and bisecting the entire development to the north of the property,” Harber added.

Roads and utilities will be completed by the spring of 2009, Harber said with 95 percent of utilities currently finished on Bloomfield Avenue and Haymaker Drive and only 25 percent of roads complete due to weather. Stream restoration is roughly 50 percent complete, Harber said, and will continue to be worked on throughout the winter and into next spring.

“This project, in particular, is really taking shape,” Harber said. “From the highway looking between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office and the Hampton Inn, you can see the meanders we have added to restore to the creek to a more natural state, and the ponds have been well-defined by the work being done as well. You will notice that existing native sods are being replaced after completing the necessary excavation, which should allow it to recover very quickly.”

Harber added landscaping for the restoration will begin next summer and include native wildflowers, bushes and trees covering the over 20 acres of open space in the subdivision. This step will also help preserve the wetlands and flood plain area, Harber said.

In addition to the infrastructure work, Harber said there will actually be vertical construction in the BloomField come spring, although the partners have not yet completely solidified what will go up first.

“The school district’s plan to begin construction on the new elementary school was recently approved, and based on their projections as we understand them, construction on the school will begin in June of 2009,” he said. “We are working with other developers and builders on individual projects along BloomField Avenue, and we hope to have some multi-family and small commercial projects beginning in the spring.”

Harber said he was also hopeful the infrastructure for the mobile home park would begin in the spring.

“Plans for vertical construction will be finalized over the next few months of winter in order to prepare for spring,” he said. “It is exciting to see some of the design elements come through as planned. Everything looks great on paper, but until you start turning dirt, it is hard to tell how it will work out, so we are excited about how the project is already taking shape at this early stage.”

“All in all, there should be quite a bit of activity, and we are hopeful to start addressing the workforce housing issues we are facing in Sublette County, as well as many of the small business needs,” Harber added.