BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS CONSTRUCTION
Preserving
a symbolic foundation of small-town history ... one brick at a time
Main Street of the eastern Nebraska town of Scribner (pop. 980) is built of brick. To locals, the thousands of bricks, so intricately bound and woven together, serve as visual representations that refl ect the attributes of their community — strong, supportive, steadfast. Aside from the constant rigors of daily traffi c, the street has endured fl oods, blizzards, intense heat and frigid cold for nearly a century.
Scribner has come a long way from the days when the water source consisted of a series of cisterns along Main Street. The cistern confi guration was long ago replaced by the current network of underground water lines, although concerns about the capacity of the system prompted city offi cials to explore the feasibility of an upgrade. With municipal budgets tight, the town looked for assistance in helping fund the project.
“We rolled up our sleeves and got to work in search of funding options,” said Deb Eggleston, Scribner’s economic development director. “We had worked with several state and federal organizations in the past that were very helpful in identifying opportunities and securing funds. The city was able to allocate additional dollars for storefront improvements, things like building preservation, window and door replacement and ADA accessibility.”
Linear jigsaw puzzle
In addition to the water line upgrade, two new underground electrical mainlines were also specifi ed, each spanning a two- block stretch on opposite sides of the street. City offi cials chose Thompson Construction, based in nearby Arlington, Neb., as the general contractor after an extensive bidding process.
Founded in 1980, Thompson Construction is a family-owned, full-service contractor that specializes in underground utility installations. Thompson subcontracted the electrical portion of the project to Klein Electric, another family-owned business, based in Wakefi eld, Neb. In addition to the underground electrical mainlines, Klein Electric also installed new streetlamps and related components.
The plan specifi ed that the two new waterlines be installed using the open-cut/trench method and the electrical lines by horizontal directional drilling.
14 WorkSaver | SPRING 2012
It was the trenching and digging component that had townspeople concerned. “Maintaining the integrity of the nearly century-old brick street was important to us,” Eggleston says. “It is a part of the fabric of our community and we felt confi dent Thompson was sensitive to that, and would do everything they could to preserve it.”
Kelly Thompson, company president, admits he likely underestimated the amount of time and labor involved with removing, cleaning and replacing the thousands of individual bricks that would be displaced by two open-cut trenches fl anking opposite sides of Scribner’s Main Street to make way for the new water lines.
“We had done similar bricked main street projects like this in the past but on a much smaller scale,” Thompson says. “Making all the components mesh in
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