Tony Overman/The Olympian
Workers from Hamilton Construction pour the first permanent concrete footing for the new Fourth Avenue bridge Friday morning in this photo looking east. "Up until this point we've been tearing out," project manager Tom Frare said with a smile. "Now we're building."

Frare

Project manager

Concrete footing is a big step

New bridge is officially going up as crews pour 200 cubic yards of concrete

PATRICK CONDON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Saturday, April 6, 2002

OLYMPIA -- Work crews poured the first concrete for the new Fourth Avenue bridge on Friday, capping years of discussion and a year of feverish planning since the Nisqually Earthquake.

"It's exciting to us," said Jay Burney, who is overseeing the project for the city of Olympia. He has been working on new bridge plans since 1999. "It's the fruits of what we've been suffering through."

Friday's work involved laying a concrete footing for the west end of the bridge, where the bridge will empty onto Olympic Way.

The hole dug into the ground for the footing contains 10 narrow pilings, each of which burrow about 60 feet into the ground, providing the bulk of the support for the bridge.

At the top of the pilings rests the wide concrete footing, which distributes the weight onto the pilings and also will anchor the rebar -- metal bars that help stabilize the structure.

"This isn't the pretty part of the bridge," said Tom Frare, the project manager. "This is the functional part."

Cement trucks started arriving about 8 a.m. and immediately began moving the concrete through a pumping truck that hoisted a giant mechanical arm above the footing site and poured the concrete, first into the 10 pilings and then into the empty footing itself.

In all, about 20 trucks were set to deliver about 200 cubic yards of concrete into the pilings and the footing.

It was the first step in months of work to come on the bridge, which is scheduled to open to pedestrians in October 2003 and to cars in July 2004.

But it was a feeling of great satisfaction to the managers who've been shepherding the project along.

"Up until this point we've been tearing out," Frare said. "Now we're building."

On the Web:

- City of Olympia: Fourth Avenue Bridge

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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