Progress doesn’t care about our inconveniences – Post-Bulletin

Once positioned on an idyllic, shaded sidewalk, our newspaper's Freedom of the Press bench now sits inaccessible behind a construction barrier.

Our building isn't much better off, barricaded by fences and accessible by a dirt path.

On First Avenue Southeast, where cars once sped by, a construction crane stretches into the sky and 3,200 truckloads of dirt have been removed. Only the railroad remains, unstoppable as ever.

As neighbors of the colossal two-year construction project that will result in a 19-story Hilton hotel, a parking ramp, and upgraded sewer lines, we have front-row seats to the daily spectacle of destruction, creation, and cooperation. Now that the incessant banging on bedrock has ended and cranes have been erected, we've mostly reacted with curiosity -- kind of like those people in the photo.

According to Rick Brostrom, senior project manager at Kraus-Anderson Construction, on any given today there could be over 300 people working on the site. We get to chat with some of those workers, admire their skill, and picture ourselves in their shoes. And we get to bear witness to the slow-motion flood of over 120 million pounds of concrete and rebar pouring into the construction zone over the next year.

Old, unseen elements of our infrastructure have been dug up and laid bare for examination. One editorial board meeting was interrupted by the excavation of an old clay sewer pipe, buried decades ago. That's when it hit us; this work is for the benefit of people we may never meet, the same way we benefitted from whoever laid those clay pipes way back when. The same way that writers from that era hoped their wisdom might travel through generations.

That clay pipe was replaced by a fiberglass-reinforced one measuring 48 inches in diameter. It's a stronger pipe, placed further underground, and it should be workable further into the future than its clay predecessor. By the time those pipes need to be swapped out again, most of us won't be here, but waste will still flow.

"That's our goal, hoping to get 75-plus years out of everything you put in the ground," said Matthew Crawford, project development manager for the city public works department.

Proximity to the project comes with plenty of downsides. We field calls daily from people who've had to circle the block to find a way into our offices. Some simply give up. The finished project will render our street more narrow than it was before and will rob us of some parking spots.

We expected to hear similar complaints from our neighbors at the Parker, 101 E Center St. Instead, they touted the high level of cooperation and communications with Kraus-Anderson. They have their sidewalk back and they give new residents ear plugs as welcome gifts. Aside from that, they're just excited to see what the growth will bring.

The inconveniences and annoyances are the price of progress. Every leap forward leaves people behind, and this is a forward-looking project. First Avenue had to be ripped up, so rather than rip it up again later, Public Works decided to do it now. The parking ramp project has installed footings capable of allowing for a future expansion of the ramp. Knowing how contentious parking is in our downtown and how much growth the city is expected to go through, that's an option they'll likely use.

Sometimes it's good to take a breath and imagine your problems from the vantage point of someone living a century from now. We are all minuscule parts of an inconceivable whole, frustrating itself into the future, footing by footing, pipe by pipe, word by word.

Progress doesn't care how annoyed we are.

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Progress doesn't care about our inconveniences - Post-Bulletin