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21st Street to remain closed into August
07/30/2012 11:57 AM by John M
@UtilityBuddy: 21st St will remain closed through Aug 10 for manhole testing
Going on month #8 of 21st Street being closed…
TAGGED: 21st Street
I’ll believe it when I see it. Wasn’t this supposed to be done in June?
The dithering continues.
Oh, well…January? June? August? Did ‘utility buddy’ mention August of what year?
There’s been so many unexpected developments on this project.
The city should get their manhole checked
I wonder how much money the city would save through proper project management.
#6 said it best.
How much money would the city save if they knew how to manage projects. it’s ridiculous.
I called the City one day to complain about this work. The lady that I spoke with said “Well this type of project takes a while to complete”. So i asked “what type of project? What are they actually doing?”
Her response: “i don’t know”.
I was transferred from department to deparment and no one could tell me what the project even was. The amount of unorganization is beyond words.
I agree with #7. Instead of saying there have been “so many unexpected developments” why not be a little more specific and try to communicate the issues to more people. A simple press release would have sufficed.
I don’t want a “Utility buddy”, I want (as they said on South Park) an “Accountabilabuddy”!
I feel bad for the people who live on that street. I would be nuts by now! And everyone is right – just what exactly is the issue?
It’ll never reopen. And what’s worse is they’ve recently started closing other streets around this area to tear up the street and leave it that way for days. At this rate the majority of the roads in union hill should be closed for no clear reason by Christmas.
quick…lets have a block party before it’s too late!
I actually stopped on the way home from work one day to look for myself. I admit, it’s a giant hole. A house could fit in the hole that they’ve dug. So it’s a substantial project, but still no excuse for it taking this long. I work in the construction field and I’ve seen entire schools built in the time that they’ve been working on this one street. I drive by each day and see no one working. Just equipment sitting there. Its ridiculous how poorly managed this project has been. I asked one of the residents on that street how they felt…they love it. Their street is closed so they have no through traffic and it’s easy for them to park now. But for the rest of us that actually use that street and care how our community looks, there’s no excuse.
#12, I know someone who owns property on 21st in that block, and they do NOT love it. Their property is rental, and they lost tenants over the construction – the tenants left because of noise and lack of parking, and then the owners had a tough time finding new tenants. So there may be someone there who does like it, and you spoke to them, but trust me – most folks do NOT like it.
Lets hope that the City continues to dig a bigger and bigger hole and maybe that awful new 3 story house at 21st and Broad will be swallowed up.
@14 – Best post ever. Sadly it appears they are now filling rather than expanding. Maybe someone can take one of the 15 backhoes they have laying around that block and use it to push that mess into the hole before it’s too late.
@14 – totally agree!!!
who was the architect for the house on 21st and broad?
RE: The ugly new house at Broad and 21st: How did that get approved by the CAR? Isn’t that a historic district and thus demanding of less tacky/more fitting architecture?!
There’s actually workers there today, guys!
And isn’t that house on Broad like a 6 unit apt. building?
@17 and 18 – None other than David Johannas, esteemed member of CAR, the body that is chartered with protecting us from these types of things. Fox watching the henhouse and all…
Does anyone know how to add an article/photo for discussion on this website? i’d love to see one about the house at broad and 21st. I’d love to hear what everyone has to say and let CAR know how disappointed we are in them for allowing something like this to be built. It’s beyond words. That location is the ‘gateway’ in to Church Hill. How could something that out of scale and that poorly designed be allowed???
There have been 6 posts about the new houses being built at 2102-2104 East Broad, going back to 2008, available here: /tag/2102-2104-east-broad/
What I don’t get (about the houses on Broad) is if he was building from scratch, why not design and build something that looked more like the surrounding area rather than something that didn’t? They are hideous – and stick out like a sore thumb.
This is way off topic but since this seems to be the current bitch about the mistake on Broad thread, I’ve been meaning to get a petition together to send to city hall, city council, mayor’s office, etc on this subject.
My petition would be around this specific design, as well as the general practice of allowing the types of conflicts of interest that allow these to occur on CAR.
Since it sounds like there are more folks than I realized who are pissed, would any of you be interested in meeting to help draft this petition and/or signing it? If so, please email me at sox45fan@hotmail.com and I can try to coordinate a meeting of the interested parties.
I think it’s safe to say the lack of return on our tax dollars is crap. The city continues to prove itself worthless. When the city says “I don’t know” to the question what work is being done I’m not surprised. On two separate occasions in the last year, I’ve had my street dug up to replace water lines. They also dug up big portions of the sidewalk. They covered the street holes with low grade paving material and left huge chuncks of gravel everywhere. The last occassion occured 2 days after a street cleaning. I asked them to come back and clean the huge mess again…no response. It took them 2 weeks to come back and re-concrete the sidewalk. They just filled it with gravel. Seems safe and all…….The gravel was scattered everywhere in people’s yards. They also ran all of their huge backhoes up on the grass areas by the curb creatig huge sink holes…also very safe. I asked them to flatten the large areas out, no response. I did actually speak to someone and got transferred around. Noone knew exactly what the project was or why it was important to leave something the way they found it or clean up after yourself. Anyway, no accountability especially in the non-historic areas of the neighborhood. think citizens should go dig a giant hole at the mayor’s house and leave it for 8 months.
21st street is open!