By Barry Owens
“See that telephone pole? The tower will sit right there,” developer Mike Loveland said last month as he surveyed the plot of cleared ground that in coming years will house dozens of town homes and a residential tower.
By late last month, most of the vacated houses on the land had been demolished and Loveland said construction could begin this month on the first phase of the project, 13 new town homes on the corner of First Street and Rutan Avenue.
The first visible sign of progress is likely to be the excavation of one lane on First Street, adjacent to the College Hill Elementary school yard, for the running of utilities. Construction of the first phase is expected to last up to 10 months.
“We’re hoping for a mild winter,” Loveland said.
That will be followed by the second phase, which will include the construction of more townhomes and a tower across Rutan Avenue and which is expected to be complete by 2009.
He was explaining all of this from the Parkstone Information and Design Center, newly opened at 324 Victor Place. (The center this month will host an open house especially for College Hill residents on Nov. 10, 1-4p.m.)
The center offers maps of the development layout, as well as a look at what a typical town home will look like on the inside.
Workers were putting the finishing touches on the kitchen cabinets, but the granite counter tops had been put in and new furniture from nearby Traditions had been arranged in the “living room.”
“Did you see the elevator?” Loveland said, steering a visitor toward what looked like a closet door. A wood paneled elevator car, complete with buttons, was inside.
“Not working,” he said. “Obviously.”
Correction: In the printed version of this story published in The Commoner in November, the wrong time was given for the open house for College Hill residents, which is set for Nov. 10, 1-4pm. The time was corrected for the above version.
We regret the error.
