Walls at Oaks Shopping Center

As of June 8, unlike the Uno site, there were no walls going up for buildings at Oaks Shopping Center.

There were other kinds of walls built at this site. There is a retaining wall parallel to Egypt Road. That can be seen in the foreground of the above photograph, just in front of the orange safety fence. 

Looking along Egypt Rd in the direction of Phoenixville, PA.

Above is looking at that same retaining wall from the other side of the safety fence.

There were two alcoves sculpted in the rear embankment on the site. Both of those alcoves can be seen in the backgrounds of each of the above photographs. I really don't know the functions of those alcove. Nor why one is much larger than the other.

There is another retaining wall along the site of the old railroad tracks that ran between the construction site and residential homes along Gumbes Road.

2.1"/53mm of rain fell on June 10 that can be seen here in the basin. I am sure that long wall will keep the residents yards from washing into the shopping center. 

©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

Progress Marches On in Oaks, PA

Progress at the two building sites in Oaks, PA is marching along.

The Chicago Grill site has a level pad and a berm near the cemetery wall at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. 

There is pipe on site that will undoubtably be buried as part of the infrastructure.

Concrete sewer castings are waiting to be placed.

The larger site across Black Rock Road also has signs of progress.

The Oaks Gardens building has been ravaged.

 A broken shell.


The lot has been defoliated, partially graded and rolled. It looks large. Much larger than before the work began. 


To defoliate, whole trees were eaten in one shot by an enormous piece of equipment.


There are graders, rollers, excavators, back hoes, dozers and other heavy construction behemoths on site waiting for their shot at progress.









The train tracks that ran along the western edge of the site were ripped out along with the trees on that grew alongside. 


Houses are now clearly visible along that edge of the site. I am guessing that the owners of those houses have a new clear view of the site, also.

Progress marches on.


©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Super Storm Sandy Clean - Up

Thursday morning, two days after Sandy blew through my neighborhood, with the sun above the horizon just twenty-five minutes, I noticed an impressive mass of trucks in the nearby Target parking lot. There were, by my estimations, thrity-some six wheel bucket trucks, utility pole lifting trucks, trailers, 12 passenger vans and pick-up trucks from out of town. Originating, I figured from the license plates, in North Carolina and Florida.

Organizing amongst the trucks were dozens of safety vest wearing workers - lineman, flagmen/women, tree trimmers and supporting crews. Workers that left their families and put their regular lives on hold. They traveled hundreds of miles north to help clean up and re-energize my neighborhood. An unfamiliar community hard hit by a powerful super storm.

They arrived the night before and stayed at a new hotel in the area, Hilton Garden Inn in Oaks, PA. A facility that opened its doors just three weeks earlier upon finishing construction. The hotel is a few hundred yards away their hot tired trucks rested overnight in the Target parking lot.

According to Nicole Ream, Regional Director of Sales, the hotel embraced the arrival of the workers. "After three days on the road",  Ream said, "Garden Inn wanted to make the workers feel at home. These are great group of guys. They will be working long hours doing dangerous work with high voltage. Once they are here in the hotel we want them to relax and provide them with good food and comfortable surroundings." 

"We here at the hotel are very interested in our community," Ream told me. "The owners and staff are grateful for the sacrifice of these out-of-town workers are making to help our community," she said. She added, the chef has put extra effort into making sure the breakfasts are hearty and will last the men through their mornings. He personally baked cookies to include in the box lunches to bring a little bit of home to their mid-day break and meal. And lastly after sixteen hours of hard labor, the workers should have good hot filling dinners before they get to lay their heads down and close their weary eyes.

Hilton Garden Inn usual guests are corporate and leisure travelers was well as guests from the community. Guests such as grandparents visiting for the holidays or those storm victims without electricity looking for a dry comfortable place with a hot bath to stay for a few nights.

The hotel is located in Marketplace of Oaks /422 Business Center. It shares space with large retail stores Target, Lowe's, BJ's, indoor entertainment and The Greater Philadelphia Expo Center. There are also several eateries such as Bob Evans, Max and Erma's, a hot dog and a sushi restaurant and a pizzeria.

The inn also contains a bar and restaurant that are open to the public as well as a banquet facility for meetings, parties and wedding receptions.

If you see one of these men sacrificing their lives to bring our community back to full functioning, stop and say thanks, thanks a lot.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Early June in the Square Foot Garden

The first seven days of June have past. Before you know it there will be juicy ripe tomatoes. For now, let's take a look at the square foot garden plus the potato towers.

As of 7 June, over 8oz/226g of young, tender, fresh, sweet snow peas have been harvested. Lettuce will be the next. 

This is the potato tower #1, planted first. Atop the tower is a cherry tomato plant. There are several cherry tomatoes close to harvesting size. Warm nights are needed to ripen the fruit.

The encircled are actually potato plants that grew up instead of out the sides of the tower.

Here are the potatoes that cooperated by growing out the sides of the tower.

This is one of the bell pepper plants. There is one orange and one red plant. 

This is one of the many varieties of full size tomato plants.

This is the lettuce from a mixed packet of loose leaf style lettuce seeds.

In the center of the plot is a solar powered light that was used to light a few squares when trying to capture time lapse images of slugs at night.

The snow peas will soon be finished bearing fruit. Today melon and cucumber seeds were planted in the rear of the square foot plot now inhabited by the snow peas. This is where the trellis was placed. The melon and cucumbers vines will be trained up the trellis. 

 


Once the melons begin to form, they will be placed into ladies nylon hose and tied to the trellis. This will provide the melons needed support and still allow room for expansion.

Bush bean seeds were also planted amongst the lettuce squares in the front row of the plot. The lettuce will bolt to seed as the temperatures rise. The beans will take over the squares where the lettuce now grows.


Fertilizer will be added to the squares because of the intense use of the garden. Both fish emulsion and blood meal and green sand will be used. Blood meal and green sand will be scratched into the surface of the soil once the snow peas and lettuce are exhausted. Fish emulsion in a water solution will be applied every two or three weeks. That should be plenty but the plants will be monitored for both under and over fertilization.


Can you almost taste the tomatoes, too?




©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved