Bangor readies rollout of waterfront

BANGOR – The transformation of Railroad Street into the gateway of the Bangor Waterfront will be completed in time to greet the nearly 100,000 people expected to attend this year’s National Folk Festival on Aug. 27-29, city officials said this week.

Construction on the waterfront located just a few hundred yards away will be temporarily halted and the area cleaned up for the August festival before work is resumed again in December, officials said.

“They are a little ahead of schedule,” Bangor Mayor Dan Tremble said Friday.

“I think [the Railroad Street construction] will give the area a more festive look,” he continued. “It’s going to be the main entry point to the waterfront, and we want it to be very welcoming to visitors.”

The $2.5 million renovation of Railroad Street, which connects Main Street and Front Street, is being done by general contractor Sargent and Sargent of Hampden with the help of several subcontractors. Brick sidewalks have been laid down on both sides of the street, and grass laid down as well.

Gardens are set to be planted on both sides of the street, which will be highlighted by the new, ornate iron street lamps already installed. Park benches will be placed next to the gardens.

The real highlight of the construction on Railroad Street are the four “kinetic structures” designed by Cape Cod Fabrications of North Falmouth, Mass.

“They’re really unique,” city engineer Jim Ring said this week, adding that the structures should arrive in Bangor by the end of the month and be put in place then.

The structures, ranging in height from 20 to 35 feet, are composed of a granite base with a square column on top. The columns will be illuminated from within with the words “Bangor Waterfront” cut out of the sides.

The columns will lead to a series of “crow’s nest” cables, which in turn will be connected to metal sails that will be set on top of arms which, powered by wind, will rotate around the main posts.

Although these improvements may seem extravagant to the Bangor taxpayer, Rod McKay, Bangor director of Community and Economic Development, emphasized that little of the $2.5 million needed for the renovations has come from the city.

“The city is putting in a small part,” he said Wednesday. “The majority [of the funding] is coming from federal and some state resources.”

Construction began on the Railroad Street area almost a year ago, but onlookers should not be fooled into thinking progress has been slow.

“Although the construction is being done in a relatively small area, there is a lot of work that needs to be done in a very specific order,” Ring said. The city engineer added that the most complicated part of the project was the utility work done under the street’s surface.

While the Railroad Street project looks to be almost finished, the waterfront remains very much a construction area. Huge piles of dirt, gravel and rock sit by the river as hydaulic shovels and dump trucks maneuver between them.

Ring said waterfront construction, the current phase of which started a month ago, will be cleaned up and halted for the Folk Festival.

“The duration of that project is quite long; we needed to get started on it before this year’s festival,” Ring said Friday. “If we didn’t get it done by this year’s festival, we didn’t think we could get the [next phase of] construction done for the next festival.”

Cianbro Corp. of Pittsfield is working on strengthening the waterfront’s vertical steel bulkhead before the Folk Festival. After the festival, with the waterfront’s bulkhead sufficiently strengthened, a new contract will be awarded to renovate the river’s edge, installing new walkways and railings.

A city employee working at the construction site said Thursday that the mini-army of contractors assigned to the two projects will be “working like crazy” to get the job done.

Even if the project isn’t completely finished by the time of the National Folk Festival, “it’s still going to look good,” he said.