Oaks Shopping Center Construction Mid-May

Just wanted to keep you up to date on the view in Oaks. Mid-May the construction was at full speed. Possibly a dozen active pieces of heavy equipment.

A large pit was dug. Storage tanks were placed at the bottom of the pit and was backfilled with the grey gravel. You can see it on the left side of the above photograph. The tanks were probably for the fuel to be pumped at the soon to be built Wawa.

An excavator was digging at the site of the unregulated traffic entrance to the shopping center on Egypt Road.

Piles of earth and crushed stone were everywhere.

Within the year the area will never be dark again. The smell of frying burgers will fill the air twenty-four hours a day. Oaks will never look or smell the same.

©Damyon  T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Oaks Shopping Center Progress 8 March 2013

Cold weather and rain have slowed the pace of construction a bit, at the Oaks Shopping Center. I grabbed these overview photographs of the construction site on Friday. 

It was overcast. The ground was covered with snow in the early morning. By 10:00 what sunshine got through the clouds was enough to melt the white blanket.

The graders deposited a large mound of soil behind what looks like a rectangle shaped plot. I believe this is for Penn Liberty Bank, near the intersection of Egypt and Black Rock Rds. There are also sloughs lined with straw between the plot and the intersection. They are probably for drainage as is the same kind of slough near the intersection of Egypt and Mill Rds.

The next plot to the west on Egypt Rd., I believe is for Wawa. That dark square of soil will probably be the gasoline pumps area.

The houses that were once shielded by the train track and trees are quite visible from the road at this point. And, if I can paraphrase, contrary-wise, the saying on the back of a tractor trailer, "If you can see me in my mirror, I can see you."

I am pretty darn sure those homeowners never saw this project coming.

I am reminded of something the Roman poet Virgil once wrote:

Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum

 capti circumvectamur amore, 

which means, according to wikipedia, 

"But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we

wander around, prisoners of our love of detail"

Obla-dee, obla-da!

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Oaks Shopping Center Site Dusted with Snow

Early Friday morning on the first day of February, the Oaks Shopping Center construction site was lightly dusted with snow.

The snow had little effect on the actual construction work. The storm sewer work continued.

Across Black Rock Road was the Chicago Grill / Pizzeria Uno site.

Infrastructure is also the focus of work on that site. 

With the sun being so bright, I dont' think the snow dusting will be around very long. 

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Oaks Shopping Center 30 January 2013

I stopped by the construction site on Egypt and Mill Rds today to check on the progress.  

That pile of wood was the Oaks Gardens building that was still standing on New Years Day 2013.


There was work being done on the infrastructure. Today it was the sewer and or storm drains.

One worker was remotely operating a small articulated roller. Packing down soil that had been returned to the trench above some pipe that was buried earlier. Using the remote is like using a game controller with two joysticks.

When I was still working in the outdoor advertising industry, I used such a remote to operate a 130' extendable truck mounted crane. After operating the crane from the bed of the truck for over twenty years, it took some practice to operate from the business end of the load line.

Back to the construction site. Earth was moving from place to place.

Digging was being done by both a large excavator and a small shovel.

Other parts of the site has been scraped of vegetation. 

There is a huge change in the site from the end of 2012. Taking the project as a whole however, there is a great deal to be done before the expected opening of the Oaks Shopping Center in the fall of 2013.


©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved