The Big Pour at Republic

The Bobcat delivers concrete where we can't get the concrete truck close enough

Two concrete trucks delivered enough concrete today to pour the western beam for our deck at Republic Square around the central Auction Oak.  Our contractors were hard at work as you can see in these pictures….

Forms nearly ready for the big pour

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be pulling off the forms around the new western beam and starting to form the much lower and smaller eastern beam, with hopes for pouring it by early next week. ACL Music Festival shuttle riders from Republic will get a first hand view of the work underway on Friday.

Concrete pours into the form (with a little help)

Rain Delay Over for Now

After three days of rain, our contractors are back out on site working on forming the western beam for the deck.  They’ve be working Saturday too and we’re hoping to pour the first piece by Tue or Wed and the second by Friday, which is the first day of ACL!

In the meantime, our new grass on the southern portion of the park is getting greener, thanks to all of the rain (yeah!)  Enjoy your weekend outside!

Veloway Shelter is Complete

With a grant from the Austin Parks Foundation and a lot of  fundraising by the Hill Country Inline Club, there is now a great new shelter at the entrance to the Veloway with benches where folks can put on their skates, take a break between cycling and skating activities.  These photos are from Hill Country Inline members.

Republic-Concrete Beam Forming

Work has began on forming up the concrete beams that will hold the deck around the perimeter.  The western beam will be elevated, sitting on the piers, while the eastern berm will be flush with the ground.  We hope to pour the beams by Wednesday or Thursday.

Meanwhile, White Construction Co. is excavating madly at the courthouse site across San Antonio St and is finding some leftover concrete and rebar piers from the old Intel Shell that they are jackhammering and pulling out in addition to truckload after truckload of soil.  Busy times in and around Republic Square!

Republic – Footings complete!

Our Lansdscape subcontractor, Cleanscapes, has finished  the pouring of the four final piers for our 4,000 square foot deck project at Republic Square.  All told, it took three weeks of work (using very careful approaches) to dig, prepare and pour 22 footings.

The interior 12 footings are 3 foot by 3 foot  by 3 foot holes with a 3 foot by 3 foot by 1 foot square of concrete footing and a 2 to 3 foot 12 or 16 inch diameter tube extending up from the footing.  the 10 perimeter footings are 4 by 4 x 2 feet high footings.  All soil for the footings was excavated by airspade (done by Bartlett Tree Experts) and then pulled out with shovels and trowels by Cleanscapes crews by hand.)

We encountered extensive tree roots and had to move some of the footings, but where we didn’t we wrapped them with burlap and kept them moist through out the process.  Where a root had to be dealt with as part of the footing, we used flexible tubing filled with 2 to 4 inches of soil to encapsulate the root and allow it to grow while not impacting the footing.  An example of one of the final footings poured today is the picture shown below – you can see the root running inside the cage – its in a pipe with soil and then wrapped in burlap for good measure.

We’ve had great help from our designers at TBG Partners, our structural engineers at Structures, Inc. and our construction partners at Spaw-Maxwell, Cleanscapes and Bartlett Tree Experts.
The good news we’ll now start on forming the perimeter concrete beams (above grade) and that effort should go much quicker. I hope.

Republic: 5 footings to go

17 out of the 22 footings for the deck project have now been poured, 5 to go and we hope to pour them on Thursday.

Then, we start forming up the outer berms that will form the outer backbone of the deck.  It will start looking like a deck soon!

Oyster Boot Camp @ Republic

23 people came out for the free Oyster Boot Camp, a trial run of the Austin Oyster Adventure Race scheduled for October 11th.  While I was there, I snapped a photo of the sign for our Auction Oaks deck project.

Folks at the Boot camp did the following:

1) Obtained 24 coffee beans.

2) Biked and took photos of either the Philosphers Rock at Barton Spring Pool or the Mustang Sculpture at UT.

3) Took a picture with a police officer waving at the camera.

4) Gathered 24 pieces of trash at Town Lake or ate the previously gathered 24 coffee beans.

And a few other tasks.  Folks finished up within 90 minutes, the real course on October 11th will run 3-5 hours on average.

More info on the Austin Oyster. Proceeds benefit the Austin Parks Foundation.

Oyster Boot Camp – this Sunday 9/13 8-11 am

Want to check out what the Austin Oyster Adventure Race is all about before your sign up?  Try our Boot Camp this Sunday, 9/13 from 8 am to 11 am at Republic Square Park.  You get a hands-on preview of the event in just a few hours.  The Austin Parks Foundation will guide you – if you are interested – sign up by emailing: info@teamsage.com

The third annual Austin Oyster Adventure Race is Sunday, October 11th at Runtex on Riverside.  Sign Up Here. A portion of the proceeds benefits the Austin Parks Foundation.

Rooted At Republic

Excavation with Air Spade and shovels continues at Republic Square.  Here’s a few photos from today.

This first photo shows a web of roots, but we can still put a pier in the middle that will avoid all of those roots. The second photo shows  a larger outside pier location (hole) that has only a few well positioned roots, already wrapped with burlap. We should be able to pour four or more piers on Friday.

Piers Around Roots

We’ve now poured 7 of the 11 internal piers for the deck at Republic Square and this photo shows how we’re doing it,  we are moving the pier locations to adjust for the roots that we find.  We wrap the roots in burlap to keep them moist and protected.  Once the concrete hardens (tomorrow) we’ll backfill with soil.