Much has changed at the Westport Weston Family Y’s 32-acre Mahackeno campus just north of downtown since Feb. 5, when our Y’s volunteer leaders, staff and construction partners were joined by dozens of Y members and supporters to celebrate the official groundbreaking ceremony for the 54,000 sq. ft. facility that, come late 2014, will serve as the Family Y’s new home.
A chilling breeze through bare trees has been replaced by the warm winds of spring that ripple through the light green of new leaves. Two-story high piles of topsoil, wood chips, and dirt and gravel have grown, shrunk, moved around as heavy-duty machines do the work of sorting and sifting and screening and crushing their way through some 7,300 cubic yards of material.
A view of the southeast corner of the new Y; to the far left and rear is where the Wellness Center will be situated.
The sloping hillside within which our new Y will be located has been dug out, sculpted and shaped. Thick walls of concrete are rising from the ground, released from their scaffolded forms. A sky-high crane lifts the forms and sets them down again, as workers fashion their bracework of rebar to be encased by yet more wet cement poured from the heavy spindles of the cement trucks.
Three months into the building project directed by Turner Construction, work on our new Y proceeds, its pace quickening as the work list expands. Progress continues every work day; safely, ahead of schedule, and (we’re happy to report) currently under budget.
Some key dates ahead: The masonry that will enclose the exterior walls will be added starting around June 7. A week or so later, around June 16, the steel girders that will form our new, two-level Y will begin to be erected by two very large cranes.
From an overlook along Allen Raymond Lane on the north side of the building site, visitors on our weekly guided tours are now able to truly “imagine the possibilities” — See that crane over there? It’s in the shallow end of our 10-lane lap pool… See those workers? They’re setting rebar under where Y members and guests will enter the main lobby… See that low wall jutting outward toward the brook, then along it, then back again, like a giant-size bay window? The bare dirt that bay window now encloses will, come late next year, be the carpeted floor of our beautiful new Wellness Center, with its picturesque views of the brook…
Click through the photo gallery above to see more photos, taken Monday, May 13, and read the captions for more details. To see renderings of the interior spaces, please click here for a pdf of images.
Or see for yourself by signing up for a tour, held each Wednesday at 12:15 pm. Groups are limited to 10 people; contact Susie Haydon at shaydon@westporty.org or 203-226-8981, ext. 106. To find out more about Building What Matters, our campaign to fully fund and construct a modern and sustainable new Family Y, please click here.
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To view a brief video about our campaign for a new Y, including an animated, virtual tour of what the inside will look like, please click on the image below.
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