Blakely retaining wall headed for major upgrade

Borys Krawczeniuk, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·3 min read

May 3—A contractor will replace a badly decayed stone retaining wall along Main Street in Blakely this summer.

The Lackawanna County commissioners voted Wednesday to award a $2,159,281.35 contract to Fabcor Inc., of Jessup.

The wall stretches about 500 feet between Main Street's intersections with Bridge and Hill streets, county Engineer Frank Summa said after the commissioners meeting.

Six homes sit on land held up by the wall, said Larry Lukasik, county roads and bridges director. At least one may be as close as 20 to 30 feet from the wall with the others 60 feet or farther back, Lukasik said. The project will require installing steel piling temporarily to hold up the earth while Fabcor builds the new wall out of pre-manufactured concrete blocks, Summa said.

"There's going to be an ornamental railing fence across the top of it all the way down," Lukasik said.

Lukasik said he's kept an eye on the wall since becoming director in 2008. A portion collapsed around 2010, which required contouring to stabilizing the earth.

"If you drive past, you'll see there's some sections of the wall still standing but a lot of it has collapsed," he said.

He said he planned to do the job for about $1 million, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed construction and sharply increased the cost.

The work should take about two months and be done by the end of the year, assuming construction materials are available, Summa said.

Blakely Borough Manager Christopher Paone, 40, said the wall, probably built almost 100 years ago, started becoming a problem before he was 10 years old.

"The dirt just keeps falling down" and makes the Main Street sidewalk "basically impassable," requiring the borough to clear it, he said.

The work must be done before the homes are seriously threatened, Paone said.

In other business Wednesday, the commissioners:

—Agreed to formally apply for state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grants for six projects. The projects, all previously announced, and the grant amounts are: Abington Redevelopment II, a medical and neighborhood commercial project, $1 million; the Keystone College Education and Innovative Learning Center, a three-story addition to the college's library, $2 million; ReStream Energy, a proposed alternative energy plant in Jessup, $1 million; 105 Corner Street Project, Dunmore, a parking lot to support a proposed office and apartments complex, $500,000; Lakeside NEPA, a substance addiction treatment center in Scranton, renovations and 34-bed expansion, $1 million; and the Covington Retail Center, a 40,000-square-feet shopping center in Covington Twp., $500,000.

—Agreed to reallocating the unused $984,576 of a $1.5 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital grant for the Wright Center to the county Department of Health.

—Approved an application to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for $419,999 for intermediate punishment treatment programs.

—Approved contracts for foster family monitoring with Families United Network Inc. and for juvenile detention with Bucks and Chester counties.

—Awarded a $114,00 contract to Wodock Construction LLC, of Kingsley, to create handicapped accessible restrooms at the Joe Terry Civic Center in Scott Twp.

—Agreed to allocate a $1,028,628 grant to NeighborWorks Northeastern Pennsylvania for its Aging in Place program, which hires contractors to alter senior citizens' homes so they can keep living in them as they age.

—Agreed to allocate $897,799 to the Agency for Community Empowerment of NEPA to fix issues that prevent energy-saving weatherization of homes. The issues including replacing old wiring and insulation and repairing roofs.

—Awarded a $63,900 contract to geographIT, of Lancaster, for technical support of the county's geographic information systems.

—Awarded a $15,500 contract to Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., of Redlands, California, for geographic information system maintenance for the county Regional Planning Commission.

—Declared May as Mental Health Awareness Month in the county.

—Proclaimed May 5 as National Correctional Officers and Employees Day in the county.

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9147; @BorysBlogTT on Twitter.