Next week is a BIG week in the Historic Folsom Revitalization project, where we will see the first shed roofs removed.
Removing Shed Roofs
On Monday and Tuesday night, starting at 8 pm, the contractor, Teichert, begins removing all shed roofs in the 800 block, starting with lights, flag pole hardware and signage. The work is to be done at night, when businesses are closed, so there is as little disruption as possible.
The shed roofs will be down by morning and business will open at their normal times.
Special attention has been given to business hours in the 800 block so businesses that open early in the morning will be the first to be worked on.
Removing Sidewalks
On Wednesday night, starting at 8 pm, Teichert starts removing sidewalks on the 800 block. Sidewalk removal will take 2 nights. When businesses open Thursday, a temporary entryway will provide access to each business.The total time elapsed for sidewalks to be removed to completing the new sidewalks, is about two weeks.
Shed Roofs To Be Removed
The businesses that will have shed roofs removed are:
- Dorotheas ( 801 )
- Hop Sing Palace ( 805 )
- Sutter Street Grill ( 811 )
- ShaNei Oriental Rugs ( 813 )
- The Lighting Palace ( 815 )
Work in the 600 and 700 Blocks
Sewer line work in the 600 and 700 blocks should be completed by the end of next week. Once the sewer lines are completed, work on the storm water system commences.
The contractor expects underground work to be completed in both blocks by September 3. Once underground work is completed, the heavy equipment will leave the street.
Shed Roofs in 600 and 700 blocks
The week of September 13 is schedules for shed roofs and sidewalk removal in the 600 and 700 blocks. As in the 800 block, the total time required for sidewalks, from demolition to completion is about two weeks.
This whole project is retarded. There was nothing wrong with Sutter Street the way it was.
It is certainly a mess right now, but when you say there was nothing wrong means you don’t understand what was wrong. Try for example, those particular trees have a lifespan of 60 years and they were very close to it. They were planted in less than 2 feet of dirt. If you got up close to them, you would have seen they were very sick. If one of them fell, it could have wiped out more than one building. If there was a fire in the street, the fire trucks would have had great difficulty getting to a place they could do something about it.
The sewers under the road are close to disintegrating.
The shed roofs are rotten and they are destroying the building walls.
If you are quick, you can come down and see the dirt and grass growing on top of them and you can see the wood rotting. After they come down next week, go look at the front of the buildings where they were and you’ll see the damage they were doing.
The sidewalks are uneven and dangerous and if something wasn’t done, the guy who sues cities and takes all their money could easily have done the same here. Without a major redesign, it would have been very difficult to be ADA compliant.
The street was dying, just as it was in the early 1960’s when they did a revitalization that took the street from the way it is right now (wide) and put in the median. That revitalization brought the street back to life.
I liked the median and the trees too, but it was a waste of space and it wasn’t historic, but if you were born after 1963, or you arrived in Folsom after that time, then the median is all you know. The changes are difficult, the merchants are hurting, but if they can survive the next 14 weeks, the street will be much better and so will they.
A lot of people put in a lot of time and effort into this and while not everyone agrees, I believe this will be good for Folsom. It is like a house – you can live in it forever without doing any work on it, until it slowly falls down around you, or you can renovate it and give it a new lease on life. That is what they are doing here.
The aim is not to made it modern. The aim is to keep the historic character. If that wasn’t the goal, the project would never have been approved by the watchdogs who make sure that all changes meet the historic standards.
The really hard part is that it looks like a complete mess right now, but I challenge you to come down and be in the street and support the merchants and find out what’s really going on.
Most of the construction will be completed in 14 weeks.
By Christmas, you will either be able to say “doesn’t this look great” or you could say “Alan Gray is a dummy who didn’t know what he was talking about”
I hope I’m right, not because I want to be right, but because I love Folsom and I want to leave it better than I found it.