If you drive past the future site of the Vista Technology Park on Route 85, it is tough to get a good look at what’s happening behind the two large hills blocking the construction site.
Enter the development zone, and it’s clear to see that there’s plenty of progress being made.
During a recent tour granted to The Spotlight, officials with the construction company in charge of work at the site detailed their plans heading into 2012.
“A lot of the earth work is going to be done in the next month and a half to two months,” said Jonathan deForest, the executive vice president of BBL Construction Services. “That will pave the way for the utilities.”
Crews are focusing on a 3/4-mile road that will allow access to future development on the 1.4 million square feet of mixed retail and office space. Work must be completed on that road to allow for utility lines to be run to the back of the park.
Utility improvements will also be done along Route 85 in the front of the park.
“This will be an active site right up through July of next year,” said deForest.
At a recent meeting of the Bethlehem Industrial Development Agency, IDA members approved tax abatements for the first three projects at the site: a supermarket and two banks. Members are preparing to add “clawback” stipulations to those deals, which will allow for the tax breaks to be rescinded if tenants do not meet certain requirements, such as a failure to make agreed payments, or to meet requirements for length of operations at the site.
Joe Nicolla with Columbia Development, the developer at Vista, also informed IDA members that he was preparing to move forward with a next wave of potential applications for tenants at the site.
Work was delayed at the Vista site earlier this year as approvals from the town for the project were secured. At the Monday, Nov. 7, IDA meeting, there was also discussion of work on the access road at Vista stretching past the initial deadline of July and into August.
One hurdle for crews will be the winter months and the potential for delays should Mother Nature fail to cooperate with the construction schedule. Cold temperatures, more than snow, could be the biggest problem.
“If you get snow, you can push it off when you get ready,” said deForest, who added that the snow winds up insulating the ground. “It would be more damaging to have extreme cold temperatures and ice everywhere than it would be to have snow on the ground.”
After an early blanket of snow in late October, crews have been taking advantage of warmer temperatures at the beginning of November, as heavy construction machinery is visible with every turn.
“There are 40 to 50 people here every day,” said deForest, “and there’s a lot of people who are poised and ready doing other trades.”
Away from the main access road, which will connect to Route 85, cranes move dirt from a location at the front of the site, which will be one of the first spots for construction of a building at Vista.
Another positive for crews has been a lack of surprises when it comes to the everyday work at the site.
“Environmental, wetlands, archaeological, there are really no mysteries here,” said deForest, who credited a thorough planning process. “Everybody’s done a lot of work to get to this point.”
The Vista Technology Park is zoned for 20 percent retail space, with the rest of the park designed for research and technology companies. Nicolla told IDA members at their most recent meeting that the amount of retail at the site would likely be well below that 20 percent figure.
