Concrete Strike Slows Progress on Totem Lake Connector
Published on February 09, 2022
Christian Knight
Neighborhood Services Coordinator
cknight@kirklandwa.gov
(425) 587-3831
Several other projects halt and wait for resolution
KIRKLAND, Wash. – Kirkland’s Totem Lake Connector contractor is planning to suspend work on Feb. 11 until concrete is available again due to the ongoing concrete drivers’ strike.
“We have progressed to the point that we need to pour concrete in order to place any of the additional steel for the bridge,” said Jason Noelck, Kraemer North America’s project manager for the pedestrian and bicycle bridge’s construction. “As of the end of this week, we’ll be on an indefinite pause until the strike concludes or until there’s another source of concrete.”
That does not mean, however, that all progress has halted on the Totem Lake Connector. Back in Duluth, Minn., ironworkers are continuing to fabricate and store the pedestrian and bicycle bridge’s steel components.
In Kirkland, the project management team is continuing to make use of the time—proactively responding to anticipated supply-chain delays and testing the bridge’s deck lighting.
“There’s actually two positive things I can see here,” said Aaron McDonald, Kirkland’s senior project engineer tasked with managing the Totem Lake Connector project. “No. 1: It will allow our material supply-chain to catch up to our work. Also, if resumption of construction gets pushed out to spring, it’ll alleviate some of the risks associated with transporting supplies and materials during winter driving conditions.”
When concrete is available again, Kraemer North America will be ready to pour almost immediately. That’s because the contractor built much of the bridge’s forms for concrete while concrete has been unavailable.
“We’re ready for concrete,” Noelck said. “We just don’t have concrete.”
But the concrete will probably not be ready for the Totem Lake Connector for as long as a month after the strike has ended.
“We will not be first in line for concrete,” McDonald said. “The mega projects in the region will probably get it first.”
All of this will delay the Totem Lake Connector’s completion date. But no one is sure by how much. This is also true of several other capital projects the City of Kirkland is currently managing.
At David Brink Park, for example, the contractor is waiting on concrete to build the stairs that will connect the meandering sidewalk to Lake Washington. The City does not know yet how long this will delay the park’s re-opening.
On Northeast 132nd Street, the Kirkland Fire Department has been responding to community members from its new fire station, Fire Station 24, since mid-January. But some of the fire station’s more peripheral features are not yet complete. These include the concrete sidewalks, curbs, gutters and a concrete pathway.
On Northeast 120th Street, a Kirkland contractor is oh-so-close to completing a project that will improve the purity and the flow of the stormwater that enters the Totem Lake wetlands. Its last remaining work items: concrete sidewalks, curbs and gutter.
And in downtown Kirkland, a pair of Central Way crosswalk improvements at Main Street and Market Street remain in suspension due to the strike. The contractor, NPM Construction, has started building the concrete bulbouts that will shorten the crossing distance from one side of Market Street to the other. But the bulbouts are missing their main ingredient: concrete.
The strike is also threatening to delay another batch of improvements that haven’t yet begun, such as projects that will improve pedestrian safety at a Finn Hill crosswalk and two other projects that will improve traffic flow at intersections in Totem Lake and Juanita.
Regardless of these setbacks, the City is determined to make progress on all of its projects, whether they are in construction or about to be in construction.
“We don’t know when the strike will end,” McDonald said. “But we know it will end. So we are focused on getting each of our projects prepared for when it does.”
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