BUCKLAND — While construction of a new highway garage is slated to wrap up by the end of the month, work on the site itself, including updating the drainage plan, will continue in the spring.
The 2 Sears St. property has the highway garage building and a pole barn, where equipment will be stored.
“The buildings should be done by the end of the year,” said Selectboard member Dena Willmore, noting the pole barn will be closed, with the doors on, by Dec. 15. “The part that will not be done is the site. We continue to have issues with the site.”
Site excavation and construction started in the spring of this year, Town Administrator Heather Butler said. The construction project has cost $2.8 million, including the only other unforeseen obstacle: the removal and remediation for a 2,000-gallon underground fuel tank, which cost $40,000.
The general construction was contracted to Westfield Construction, who subcontracted the site work to Taylor Davis, according to Butler.
Willmore said crews are painting and still need to finish work with the walls before finishing the plumbing and electrical work. Electricity and heating are two hurdles that need to be overcome.
“We’re desperately waiting for the power company to bring power to the main building,” she explained. “Then we can get power to the pole building.”
The town is “in constant contact” with Eversource, Butler said.
Propane tanks are needed for the heating system, Willmore said.
“We’re going to basically finish the interiors of both buildings and we’ll transition the Highway Department equipment and personnel over to the new buildings. All of that is on track,” Butler said.
Site construction had been ongoing, but will be “buttoned up” for the winter, Butler said. She said holding off on site work until the spring will allow Roy S. Brown Architects “to go back and verify that the site conditions that are presenting themselves will be properly addressed with a drainage plan.”
Butler explained there are areas around the building itself where “the storm water isn’t acting as it was anticipated,” resulting in puddles.
With yearly and seasonal variations in weather, the puddles have shown the town that the site drainage plan needs to be updated.
“When these plans were designed, (it) was done under existing conditions and those conditions have clearly changed,” Butler said.
Although the puddles will force construction to pause, the pause itself brings “a silver lining,” Butler said.
“It gives us an observation period that we wouldn’t otherwise have to make sure that when we do modifications this spring, that we do them correctly,” she said, after having seen how water interacts with the site over the winter and the spring thaw.
“We just need to not be rushing to finish (construction) for the sake of finishing it if we have the opportunity to push pause and do it correctly,” Butler said.
Butler noted she is grateful and impressed with the integrity of the contractors.
“They certainly are motivated to wrap this project up as well, but they’re the ones who are saying, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t coming together in the way we expected,’” Butler said of the site construction.
Reach Maureen O’Reilly at moreilly@recorder.com or at 413-772-0261, ext. 280.