By Seth Daniel
The Wynn Boston Harbor team visited Charlestown on Wednesday evening and was expected to brief residents on construction progress, upcoming roadwork this summer and job opportunities in one of the first project updates to the community in many months.
The meeting came too late for Patriot Bridge deadlines, but Wynn was expected to talk about construction progress, Sullivan Square roadwork this summer and job opportunities.
“We wanted the residents of Charlestown to hear directly from us about the progress of construction of Wynn Boston Harbor, when area roadwork will start and how local workers and vendors can get more involved with our team,” said Wynn Boston Harbor President Bob DeSalvio. “With steel going up and our project moving into high gear, it is important to keep our neighbors in Charlestown fully informed and up to date.”
The biggest change in the project at the moment is the fact that steel has started rising from the ground, with the first steel beams being set in place in mid-January within the Central Utility Plant (CUP) portion of the building on the northern side of the site. Already, they have completed three-stories of steel beams in the CUP, and contractors had 90 days from mid-January to finish that work.
Currently, Wynn is nearing completion of excavation and the removal of soils, with concrete now being poured routinely in the garage area and steel being prepared for the tower.
By next winter, it is expected that the building will be fully erected and the exterior will be buttoned up so that work next winter will proceed on the inside of the building. This winter was the crucial winter for watching the weather, Wynn Design and Development President Chris Gordon said. With a relatively mild winter so far, the project is on schedule and perhaps ahead of schedule for its June 2019 opening.
Wynn was expected to give an overall tonnage of soils that have been removed by truck and by train.
To date, there has been one complaint on the soil removal, which was remediated favorably.
However, with the end of excavation coming quickly, the comings and goings of so many trucks will soon be over. There will still be several concrete trucks going onto the site, but soil removal trucks will very soon be history.
Another major update is the construction timeline on this summer’s Sullivan Square short-term traffic improvements to be completed by Wynn.
Those changes, which include a reconfiguration of the bus operations at the Station and other traffic remedies, are expected to begin in late summer. It is expected to last less than one year, and a complaint/concern hotline will be established for residents to call. The company will mitigate impacts and pledged to update the community on the traffic changes with frequency. The final part of the presentation was expected to be about job opportunities for those seeking jobs and vendors seeking contracts. The company was going to share ways to find out about opportunities and also how to be vetted by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) to get those jobs.