Streetscape Mock Up of Lighting
and New Sidewalks planned for Summer/Fall 2006 - Click
to Enlarge |
Follow along weekly to find out information
about the Hamburg Pennsylvania Streetscape Beautification Project.
Through a 1.3 million dollar grant secured by the Hamburg Our
Town Foundation a large corridor of 4th Street and State Street
will be getting new streetlights and sidewalks. This project
area is considered to be Phase 1. The foundation is hoping to
continue to expand on the streetscape as funding opportunities
continue to arise. |
ALL stores WILL be open during the rennovation and you
WILL have access to the entrances so please continue to shop downtown!
October 9, 2007
The streetscape is officially
finished, the stores are all open and the lights are on late at night
making all of town look refreshed, walkable and inviting. Cheers to
all who made it happen especially Heim Construction, whose men sweated
it out this summer each and every day to make it all happen. The best
to them and their hard work. For the story from the Hamburg Item click
here
July 18, 2007
The last section of the sidwalk that needs to be
completed is on the west side of South 4th Street. The rest of the
sidewalks look great and were completed with little or no problems.
The credit for the entire project goes out to Heim Construction. Through
the blazing heat and even rain the crew worked hard and fast to turn
out a quality project with little or no interruption in the business
district.
June 23, 2007 The Hamburg PA Streetscape
Project is going very well and progressing very quickly. From a
foot-traffic point of view, no stores are being completely shut
off from the public much longer than the time it takes the construction
company to jackhammer and pour which is around 2 days for each property.
To date they have completed the east side of 4th street to State
Street and the adjacent State Street east side. They have half of
West State Street completed on both sides. The pace is just incredible
and all of the workers should be proud of their efforts. We look
forward to the wrap up which shouldn't be long at all!
May 4, 2007
Demolition started Monday morning at the
eastern corner of 4th & Pine. The curbing is installed and a portion
of the concrete for the sidewalk poured. Monday, May 7, Met
Ed will lay the electric for the new streetlights and then the rest
of the sidewalk can be poured. By the end of week, the stamped
concrete should be in place.
May 1, 2007
Cutting of the pavement is complete on one end
of 4th Street and the cutting of State Street has begun. Also four
properties on the north side of 4th Street have been demolished
and removed. See the feature on the streetscape in this week's Hamburg
Item Click
here for more
April 25, 2007
The groundbreaking for the Hamburg PA Streetscape
project is scheduled for 12:00 PM today. All work will commence
on the project immediately afterwards. Remember to support your
local businesses in the construction zone during the project!
September 28, 2006
Hamburg has finally received the notice from
Penn-Dot that we are allowed to proceed with advertising the bidding
of the streetscape enhancement project. Ludgate Engineering is currently
working on the advertisement which will be submitted to Lynda Albright,
since the bidding must be done through the Borough. The borough
will advertise it twice, and bidders a minimum of 21 days to reply.
For more information call the borough office at 610-562-7821 or
email lynda.albright@comcast.net
for bid information.
September 2, 2006
We finally received approval from Penn-Dot for
the traffic flow pattern that was submitted for the streetscape
project. This means that ALL of the items that needed Penn-dot approval
have been approved. We are hoping to receive approval to bid the
project within the next two weeks. Has anyone noticed the new black
traffic light pole at 4th & Pine? While that was not part of
our initial project, the pole needed to be replaced because it was
damaged in a vehicular accident. Rather than replacing the pole
with another aluminum pole (or one that looks like aluminum) our
Design Committee suggested replacing the pole with one to match
the forthcoming historic streetlights. The Hamburg PA Our Town Foundation
agreed to pay the difference between the aluminum pole and the black
powder coated pole. Now that one of the streetlights looks new,
we will seek funding for the additional three streetlights located
in the downtown.
August 24, 2006
Many are asking about the status of the streetscape
project. We have received approvals from Penn-dot for everything,
except for the traffic flow coordinator. All information was
provided to Penn-dot in a timely manner by our engineer; however,
it takes weeks, if not months, for all forms to be approved
by various dept. heads within Penn-dot. Once again, we stress
that every community that has received the hometown streets funding
is dealing with these same issues. As for the actual lighting
on the streetscape: the historic cast iron lights we have chosen
will be made of powder coated cast iron, so they will require very
little maintenance and could last 100 years or more. The luminary
will cast downward to provide lighting on the sidewalks, but not
up toward the sky. This company has manufactured streetlights
for Disneyworld, Philadelphia, Washington DC, LA, Boston and many
other large cities. Best of all, they are Penn-dot certified,
so they understand all of their requirements. The representatives
at the Our Town Foundation appreciate your patience with this project.
June 23, 2006
The first phase of the streetscape project should
be complete by the end of June. Everything went smoothly except
for one water line leak, which was repaired by the contractor.
There seemed to be no problems with parking, or with traffic control,
except for a few hours of traffic having to manuever around the
cement truck. The openings have been covered with a layer
of black patch which will be the temporary cover until the demolition
project begins. We understand the black might not be the most
visually appealing; however, it is the cheapest way to cover the
holes, since it will just be a temporary fix. The property
owners I have spoken to have had no complaints, so hopefully this
is a good sign that the entire project will proceed smoothly.
June 2, 2006
The Hamburg PA streetscape project has begun
and so far there have been no problems with parking or traffic flow.
Three of the eight underground vaults have been blocked off,
and the rest should be blocked next week. Once the cement
has had time to harden, the fill will be brought in and a temporary
concrete sidewalk will then cover the work area.
While it may seem like the project is moving slow, we were informed
this week by a Penn-Dot representative that the Hamburg
streetscape seems to be the farthest along out of all the communities.
Since there are federal and state monies involved, there are tremendous
amounts of paperwork and many rules and regulations that must be
followed. Hamburg's representative engineer, Mr. Pete Eisenbrown,
has been very helpful through the whole process, as he brings
a wealth of knowledge and experience with streetscape projects similar
to ours in other communities, mainly West Reading and Phoenixville.
He has completed the bid package for the actual sidewalk and curb
construction and it was sent to Penn-Dot for their review weeks
ago.
To keep the community informed, a 2nd Street Smarts flyer was
written by Ruth Zerr and will be distributed shortly. Remember,
if you are one of the 1st 25 people to wear a hard hat to town during
the construction, stop by Miller's 5 & 10 for a free single
dip ice cream cone!
May 19, 2006
A pre-construction meeting was held with
the E Kuzer Inc., the contractor who will be filling in the underground
vaults in preparation for the streetscape. The project is
slated to begin next week; however, during the beginning
of the week you won't see a whole lot of activity, as the contractor
will be meeting with property owners and taking photographs of the
existing structures. By the end of the week, you should see
construction begin.
The public parking signs for Burkey & Driscoll's lot have arrived
but will not be hung until some of the street parking needs
to be eliminated due to construction. According to the contractor,
we shouldn't have to eliminate parking during the first two weeks
of the work.
The Foundation will be running different promotions during the streetscape
work. Over 300 children's hard hats were ordered and
will be distributed to children while in town. Posters are
being made to hang in store windows stating "I support the
streetscape project". And don't forget to wear your own hardhat
to town and visit Millers once the construction begins. If
you are one of the first 25 people, you will earn a free single
scoop ice cream cone.
Since communication plays a key role in seeing that the project
runs smoothly, the Our Town Foundation will try to keep everyone
updated as we progress. The Foundation has decided that every
Thursday between 11 a.m. and 12 Noon, the office will be open to
visitors specifically to discuss any construction concerns they
may have. If the daytime slot does not suit, then John Leonforte,
the Code Enforcement Officer will have open hours in his office
at the Borough Hall every Monday evening between 6 and 8 p.m.
We will also accept appointments by calling the office at 610-562-3106.
May 12, 2006
The streetscape project is scheduled to begin
on or around Monday May 22nd. The first step will be filling
in the vaults on 4th Street. This work will take approximately
one month. John and Steve from Burkey and Driscoll Funeral
Home and Furniture Store have agreed to open their private parking
lot for customers of the business district during the project, as
long as there are no funerals planned. Public parking will
only be provided between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday
through Saturday. Entry to the lot will close at 4 p.m. daily,
but vehicles may remain parked until 5 p.m. at which time they can
exit from the rear of the lot. Any cars remaining on the lot
will be towed at owner's expense. Signs have been ordered
and hopefully will arrive before the project begins. Next
time yo see John or Steve, please say thank you, as their generousity
will certainly ease parking congestion during the enhancement project.
I would also like to thank all the property owners who have signed
releases to allow the vault work to be completed. Some of
the property owners had additional utility work that needed to be
taken care of before we could begin the project, and this all was
done at their expense. So far, there have been no objections, and
everyone has been willing to work with the Foundation in seeing
that the project progresses smoothly.
The Foundation will be advertising on the radio as well as in the
newspapers that the businesses are open, and to encourage people
to come to town. In addition, once the project begins, we
will run a few promotions to keep everyone upbeat. The
first promotion is a free single scoop ice cream
cone from Miller's 5 & 10 to the first 25 people who come to
town and visit their store with a hard hat on. The
promotion will only begin when the construction starts!
May 5, 2006
In preparation for the streetscape project,
most of the flower barrels were redistributed this week to businesses
outside of the construction zone.
April 28, 2006
Members of the committee attended a special
workshop with Mr. John Bry, our representative from the Pennsylvania
Downtown Center in Harrisburg and discussed ways to keep the public
informed on the streetscape project. Mr. Bry recommended publishing
a monthly newsletter to keep the community informed with factual
details. April's newsletter was distributed locally this week.
Many people have been questioning why the trees were cut down on
4th & State Streets. Many trees were obstructing sidewalks,
power lines and some were infested with ants, while others seemed
to be decaying or diseased. The existing wooden barrels will
be removed shortly and distributed to business owners outside of
the streetscape project area.
Bids were opened during the April 24th Borough Council Meeting for
the work to be done with filling in the empty coal cellars
that are under the sidewalks. The work should begin sometime
in Mid May.
April 7, 2006
The streetscape project is progressing. Sealed
bids will be opened at the April 24th Borough Council meeting for
the work that must be completed prior to the actual sidewalk and
curbing project. This involves filling in empty underground coal
cellars. The engineers are currently working on the proposals for
bids for the remainder of the work, and when they are completed
they must then be reviewed and approved by Penn-dot, and once approved the
advertising seeking bids can be published. The project was
delayed another two weeks while we were waiting for Penn-dot to
review a proposal we submitted to them to temporarily allow one
way traffic during the construction to ease the traffic flow.
Unfortunately because of the construction on I78, and the possibility
of accidents and traffic being rerouted into town, we will not be
permitted to have the temporary one way traffic.
Our targeted date for the coal cellar work to begin is now May 15th.
March 24, 2006
The design committee has been busy with wrapping
up details on the streetscape project. Bids for filling in
the underground coal cellars are due in the Borough by April 10th.
That portion of the project is scheduled for the end of April.
These coal cellars must be filled in before any sidewalk demolition
can begin. We were successful in receiving the environmental
clearance; therefore all clearances have been granted by Penn-dot.
February 24, 2006
The design committee will be hosting a public
information session on March 6th at 7 p.m. in the Sr. Cente in
regards to the streetscape enhancement project. Everyone is welcome
to attend to learn about this exciting venture. I am sure
many of you have read the write up in the Item on the proposed project,
and are aware that we are hoping for a Spring start. Ludgate
Engineering is assembling the bid packages, and advertising shall
begin shortly.
We finally received all the necessary clearances from Penn-dot,
with the exception of the environmental clearance, but that should
be forthcoming. A contract has been signed and returned to
Penndot, and they now have 60 days to endorse it and return it to
us. |
 
See the recent restoration projects funded
by the Hamburg Our Town Foundation - Click
here
Hamburg, Pennsylvania is a community in the middle
of a revitalization. Various organizations from the Our
Town Foundation, Hamburg
Area Historical Society, Hamburg
Lions Club, The
Greater Hamburg Business Association, Hamburg
Jaycees, The Chamber and numerous others have combined their
interests in helping Hamburg to become, once again, the great town
it was and will be . These efforts have earned Hamburg several distinctions
of prestige such as The Main Street Program, Designation as a Pennsylvania
Blueprint Community and several grants for facade improvements,
streetscape beautification and numerous individual grants. Check
back regularly as historichamburg.com will continue to feature what
is happening in the town. See some of the major projects in Hamburg
here. |
