FALL 2013

If You Like Slider Puzzles You'll Love This!

The design for the Elliott Bay Central Seawall Replacement is complete. Construction of the foundation for a new Alaskan Way and the re-imagined Seattle Waterfront is moving forward. Soon we get to where the rubber meets the road – literally!

The trick now is the slider puzzle of building all the components in the proper order, while dealing with all the external constraints – like parking, pedestrians, bicycles, permits, space, waterfront business needs, calendar restrictions, hours in the day – the list goes on! Significant portions of the utilities will be going through various levels of relocation and replacement. City crews will do some of the work while contractors will handle other items. Different trade contractors will be working side-by-side, in the same space.

While we have dealt with these elements and more so many times in the past, the combination of 1) the complexity of this project with 2) such a short construction schedule represents something of a “perfect storm” – and provides new challenges every day. We do get (and celebrate) the occasional piece of unexpected good news, such as the telephone provider telling us they have abandoned all their facilities within a whole section of our work area and it’s okay to tear through anything of theirs we happen to run into. Otherwise, this one is sort of a Utility Coordinator’s ultimate slider puzzle fantasy. So many prospects to boost value in the overall project equation (remember policy = implementation?) by thinking creatively and keeping the communication flowing!