Making progress
Construction will continue into next year on major public projects
Work continues on
the Community Resilience Center on
Ferretti Road in Groveland, where workers are winterizing the building so they can work inside during rainy or snowy weather (top). Capital
Project Director Maureen Frank, 57, of Sonora, points to an
area where a small conference room will
be at the Groveland center (above). Boyer
Construction project manager Jesse Oliva,
39, of Tuolumne (photo right, at left)
oversees workers framing with metal studs inside the new
Community Resilience Center on Bay Avenue intuolumne on Friday morning. Workers are (from
left) Oliva, Corey Boer, 51, of Salida, and Billy Weitzel, 34,
of Modesto.
Construction is nearing the halfway point on community resilience centers in Tuolumne and Groveland following supply-chain issues that set back the projects almost two months.
Estimated to cost nearly $25 million combined, the two centers are funded entirely by a portion of a $70 million federal grant that California received in 2016 through the National Disaster Resilience Competition for projects designed specifically to help Tuolumne County recover from the 2013 Rim Fire and withstand future catastrophes.
Robert E. Boyer Construction Inc., a Sonora-based company that received the $16.7 million contract to build the facilities, and its subcontractors have been working to erect the steel framing of the buildings and put roofs over them ahead of winter so progress will be able to continue in the coming months.
Deputy County Administrator Maureen Frank, who is overseeing the projects, estimated construction was more than 40% complete on the Tuolumne center and nearly 40% on the one in Groveland.
“Everything is really looking good,” she said. “It really makes a difference to have a local contractor.”
The facilities are designed to function as evacuation shelters during times of emergency and as community centers for public use at all other times.
Each center will be about 8,775 square feet and contain a lobby area, office space, large gathering room for up to 200 people, commercial kitchen, bathrooms and up to two classrooms, in addition to parking lots with approximately 200 spaces.
They each will also have other features unique from each other that are designed to meet the specific needs of each community, such as an outdoor amphitheater for performances and presentations at the one in Groveland.
Construction began in May on the center at Bay Avenue and Cherry Boulevard in Tuolumne, followed a few weeks later by the one off Ferretti Road in Groveland.
Frank said they ran into a supply-related problem that set back construction by 56 days due to the county’s architectural contractor, the Sacramento-based Lionakis, having to redesign the roof trusses on both buildings.
The delay will push the earliest opening date for both centers likely to around the end of September, though Frank said it could be later if she’s able to acquire funding for some specific features that were not covered by the federal grant.
“It will probably be a month to a month and a half after construction is completed,” she said of when the public would be able to start using the centers.
There are several other major public projects currently under construction throughout the county that include a $35 million new sewage plant in Sonora, roughly $8 million interchange project on Highway 108 at Peaceful Oak Road, and $2 million realignment of the Parrotts Ferry Road and Highway 49 intersection near Columbia.
Such construction projects are good for the local economy, Frank said.
“It helps out the county’s general revenues when there is a lot of construction going on,” she said. “A lot of money swirls around in the county.”
Tuolumne Utilities District said in early December that its contractor for the construction of its new Sonora Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility at the south end of Southgate Drive near downtown Sonora was constructing two secondary clarifiers that are 65 feet in diameter and18 feet deep.
The agency said wastewater will flow from two new aeration basins into the clarifiers, where floating solids such as oil and grease float to the top and are skimmed off and removed. Other solids known as sludge settled at the bottom of the basin to be collected by a rotating rake system and removed.
Some of the sludge is then conveyed back to aeration basins to repeat the cycle, then the remaining sludge is thickened and processed to be hauled off site.
Construction on the new plant, which will replace the current one that was completed in 1978 in the same location, began in October and is expected to take less than two years to complete.
Funding for the plant comes from a $24.9 million low-interest loan and $8.5 million in grant dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with TUD contributing approximately $8.8 million of its own funds from wastewater reserves.
The county Public Works Department is also expecting contractors to break ground later this month on the realignment of Parrotts Ferry Road and Highway 49, also known as the Pedro Wye.
Blossom Scott-heim, supervising engineer for the county, said the contractors were out this week setting up fencing around environmentally sensitive areas and traffic control signs for when the work begins.
Scott-heim said they are waiting for next week’s expected multiday storm to roll through, with the plan still to complete the project by March depending on the weather over the coming months.
The project consists of widening Parrotts Ferry Road in the area, constructing a right-turn lane from Highway 49 onto Parrotts Ferry Road and left-turn lane from Parrotts Ferry Road onto Union Hill Road, and eliminating the current “swing lane” that currently connects Highway 49 to Parrotts Ferry Road.
Meanwhile, communications staff at Caltrans said work on the Peaceful Oak Interchange project has been placed on “winter suspension” and is not expected to resume until spring.
Caltrans expects to complete the project by May 30, at which point motorists will have access to a new entrance ramp to get onto eastbound Highway 108 from Peaceful Oak Road and exit ramp for westbound motorists on Highway 108 to get off at Peaceful Oak Road.
Both ramps were subtracted from the $53 million second phase of the East Sonora Bypass project eight years ago in order
to cut costs at the time.