Fall River's new city engineer eager to assist with 'project of a lifetime'

FALL RIVER — The city’s new engineer, Dan Aguiar, spent 28 years working in the private sector, but says that he always knew he’d complete his career working at One Government Center.

It just happened a little sooner than expected.

“I have had a schedule for my life — from getting married, to having kids, buying a house — to the year of when I wanted to do things. But up until now, other than the passing of my parents, my life has been on course,” said Aguiar sitting in his small office on the fifth floor of city hall.

“But the opportunity came along, and the planets kind of aligned,” said Aguiar.

There were transitions going on at SITEC, the engineering company he’d worked for since graduating college, and then Mayor Paul Coogan made him an offer.

“The mayor sat me down and said with everything going on in the city it really is an exciting time for development and he really needed somebody,” said Aguiar.

Aguiar, 52, grew up in Fall River, attended Bristol Community College then UMass Dartmouth with a civil engineering degree in 1994. (His younger brother is School Committee member Kevin Aguiar.)

A Dartmouth resident now, Aguiar is married to his high school sweetheart and they have two children.

All as planned.

'The city has so much potential': What Fall River's new city planner sees for the future.

No stranger to the city

In 2008, because of the business he had drummed up locally thanks to his history with the city and his reputation as an engineer, he opened a satellite office for his firm at the corner of Purchase and Bedford streets across from Government Center.

A fixture at Zoning Board of Appeals meetings, Aguiar said he produced about 80 percent of items for the board to address and helped clients wind their way through the permitting process.

Coogan said he wanted Aguiar for the job “because he brings two things right away: He has tremendous knowledge in engineering, and second, his familiarity with Fall River and the projects going on."

Aguiar said he knows he has the skill sets to accomplish the job, and acknowledges a learning curve on things like managing a municipal budget, but said he’s getting a lot of assistance from city staff.

“I came from a world where I was paid to produce permits, plans, you know get things done. We don’t actually produce things in this building. We are more of a review authority so it's definitely different. But you need that same knowledge and skill set to do this job well,” said Aguiar.

Costly errors: Sorry, Fall River, when it comes to trash, you're doing it wrong

‘Project of a lifetime’

Aguiar jokes that he can’t take credit for some of the development projects that lie ahead for the city, but he will be involved the inception of them.

“To me, the biggest project in the city’s future would be the Route 79/Davol Street project. I’ve heard about [it] for years and years and watched it on the peripheral on what was happening. I would look at models and saw plans, but now that I’m involved with working with MassDOT, it's slated to go out to bid in the next couple of months,” said Aguiar. “We had a meeting last month and we were glad to hear that date.”

What's happening with Route 79: The Route 79/Davol Street rebuild is starting soon. It will change Fall River's waterfront.

Aguiar said they were given the timeline from the state agency. The multi-million-dollar project is set to go out to bid for design work in early fall.

The city went through a sea change after the so-called spaghetti ramps were taken down and now the second phase of the project will see the removal of the elevated portions of Route 79.

Aguiar explained that the roadway removal will open up 19 acres of developable land and just down the way from the new South Coast commuter rail set for completion in late 2023.

Train update: MBTA officials say Fall River's part of the South Coast Rail is 'ahead of schedule so far'

“It’s happening, believe it or not, it's happening,” said Aguiar. “This is a triple win for the city. So basically, from The Cove restaurant all the way to Veterans’ Memorial Bridge, what we know as Route 79 is going away and all interior land will become the city’s property to have developed.”

Aguiar said he doesn’t know any other city that is being given new land along its waterfront, that will provide access to surrounding neighborhoods to the waterfront with the development of pedestrian ways that presently do not exist.

He explained that after the project is completed Davol Street will be at ground level with a swath of land for development in-between.

“To me it's beyond a project of a lifetime,” said Aguiar. “It’s practically creating another neighborhood.”

Road to recovery: This former Olympian was seriously hurt in a crash. Four months later, she's running again.

Creating new regulations

“Part of why I’ve been brought in is to help create new regulations or modifying our antiquated regulations. To be honest, I probably know them better than anyone because I made a living using those regulations. I know the deficiencies, the city knows the deficiencies and it’s a rather large undertaking,” he said.

Aguiar and other city staff will start the process of revamping the city’s building regulations with the 19 acres that will be freed up after the completion of the Route 79 project.

“We’ll have a specific zoning by-law for that land to make sure that it gets developed in the manner that we want it to be done, both for use and for construction standards. Once that gets done, then we can look at the zoning laws as a whole, including site plan review and subdivision regulations to help increase what we are requiring developers to do. Right now, we are just counting on developers to do it the right way.”

Jo C. Goode may be reached at jgoode@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism and subscribe to The Herald News today!

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River hired new city engineer who will work on Route 79/Davol St.