Woonsocket Police Station gets new fence, new parking lot
WOONSOCKET – The ongoing fence installation project at the Woonsocket Police Department has evolved into a more comprehensive parking lot improvement project.
For roughly an additional $40,000, mostly for materials, in-house laborers under the supervision of Public Works Director Steve D’Agostino began excavating, regrading and repaving the police department’s newly fenced parking lot several days ago.
After Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt and Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III talked it over, D’Agostino said the general consensus was that this was a good time to do the work.
“We said, ‘Look, if we’re going to do the work, now is the time,’” he said.
Public works crews had already dug some trenches to reroute electrical cables for the new fence when officials started talking about revamping the parking lot. D’Agostino said the work includes the removal of masonry and concrete structures and regrading hilly, grassy spots, all of which will open up new areas for parking in the often packed lot.
“We’re hoping to gain at least 10-15 spots and just make it function better overall,” he said.
D’Agostino was seen operating a grader at the work site to smooth out the exposed dirt where an excavator had already peeled away the old blacktop. Removal of the blacktop with the excavator is the only portion of the job that was farmed out – to Gentes Construction – because the city doesn’t have an excavator.
By using in-house labor and, for the most part, city-owned equipment, the cost of the project is expected to be about 40 percent of what it would have been if the city had outsourced it to a