Rock and Roll

If you have been watching the progress of the Pondcrest Phase, you can probably really start seeing the streets be defined with curbing in, rock going down, and some sidewalks being started.  This will continue for the next few weeks.  The contractor is finishing up paving on another job, so all of their dump trucks are about to free up which means they can redirect them to delivering base rock here for the rest of the roads.  Next week, you’ll most likely see many dump trucks coming in and dumping rock.  Let’s do the math to see just how many trucks will be needed:

Infographic created by ChatGPT

Here is one of those dump trucks dumping base rock in the North market extension.

Before all of that rock gets brought in, the curb had to be put in and where there are streets without curb, the edges of the road must be staked.  You’ll see the crew continuing around the site putting in wooden stakes along the edges of the road with marks on the stakes showing the elevation of the top of road.

Stake at edge of road showing elevation of Edge of Pavement (EOP) and sidewalk. The blue line towards the bottom shows where the asphalt will be and the pink line shows where the sidewalk will be. In this case, there is a curb so the sidewalk is 6” higher than the pavement.

The majority of the curb is in.  As we saw in the previous post, most of the curb was hand formed and poured.  More recently, they used a curb machine for some of the last stretches of curb.  I asked why and was told they simply wanted to see how the curb machine did, as they are looking to use it on larger jobs.  Because Habersham’s street network is made up of smaller size blocks and have lots of curb cuts for crossing sidewalks and alleyways, typically hand forming curbs turns out to be easier.  The concrete crew would probably agree too, but they at least got a chance to try both.  

Here, a crew is hand forming a new curb.

Here, the crew has switched to using the curb machine. The machine basically extrudes a curb along a string line and it requires no form boards. The concrete is thick enough that it can stand on its own.

So, which way is faster?? Here is the curb machine in action. Don’t blink!

One thing you’ll notice on some of the curbs is that they have stamped “W” and “S” letters on them.  This is not indicating any cardinal directions, but rather it is marking the location of water and sewer service lines.  This is a requirement from BJWSA.  When there is no curb, the lines are marked with a different method.

May be hard to see in the first picture, but here is a closeup showing the water and sewer location stamps.

Sidewalks have also just started and you’ll be seeing them being poured over the next week.  Sidewalks will be 5’ wide like in Habersham.  This width is 5’ because that is the dimension that allows two people to walk comfortably side by side.

North Assembly Row starting to take shape with sidewalk being poured on one side, curb in, and base rock down.

Other work happening on site includes the power and telecommunication conduit continuing their installation, conduits for street light power going in, and the three phase conduit that will supply power to the pump station will be put in next week.  Pressure tests were done on the water line crossings along Cherokee Farms Road so that they could be prepared for paving.  These tests have to hold 150PSI for 2 hours with no pressure lost at all.  One crossing had a slight drop, so that will need to be troubleshooted and retested.

With the roads being rocked and sidewalks going in, we hope to be able to provide the opportunity for a site walkabout soon.  We will let everyone know when this gets scheduled.

One of the alleys that has a dry pond park in the middle.

Pool site gets curbing on one side where the parking will be.