By Marianne Holman
Almost 5 million pounds of concrete was poured into the two gaping holes on Orem?s State Street early Friday morning.
One of the largest continuous pours of concrete in the area, the 122 truckloads of concrete will be the foundation for Midtown Village, a new retail, entertainment and residential development set to revitalize downtown Orem.
?The residents in the valley have heard us talk about Midtown Village for three years,? said David Runnels, marketing director of Midtown Village. ?So today was a huge day for us because there is something magical about being able to see structure rise out of the ground the way it did today.?
While the foundation for NuSkin?s building was under 2,000 cubic yards, the total for the Midtown structure will be about 4500 yards.
The pour consisted of 4.8 million pounds of concrete ? all in one continuous pour ? with 1 million pounds of steel re-bar reinforcement.
The amount of concrete laid is equivalent to four and a half miles of sidewalk, 2 feet deep in most places and nearly three and a half feet thick in some areas.
?Just to watch that amount of concrete going down in that period of time was just amazing,? said Greg Soter, president of Soter Associates Inc., an advertising agency in Provo.
The concrete was laid in a ?matt foundation? or ?raft slab? that will allow the concrete slab to ride on the dirt like a raft on water, allowing it to give with the movement of the building if needed in an earthquake.
In order to prevent problems with traffic on State Street, the pour started at 4 a.m. and ran until about 1 p.m. But traffic wasn?t the only problem builders were worried about.
?There are a lot of risks involved with a pour this big,? said Mark Sheanshang, senior project
manager for Big D Construction in a press release. ?You account for inclement weather, use artificial lighting in the early-morning dark, direct traffic, and a hundred other things. This is the biggest pour I?ve ever done, but it?s nothing to overlook.?
The Midtown Village project is expected to take two more years to be completely finished, but the first of three portions in the development are expected to be finished and operating within one year.
Plans for the Midtown Village development include retail stores, entertainment options, professional offices and residences.
?You have a lifestyle of convenience around a mix of uses all in one area,? Runnels. ?The residential people will be able to press an elevator button and come downstairs and eat at a restaurant, do their shopping, get their dry cleaning done and do their banking. They will be able to do pretty much most of what they would do if they had to get in a car and drive somewhere ? all on sight.?
Not only are the intentions of this new development to create a gathering place for local residents, it is an opportunity to revitalize the high crime area of the city.
?It will bring some revitalization to State Street,? said Jason Bench, a Orem City planner. ?It will bring retail and people down to State Street, people will maybe actually walk along State Street.?
The project is expected to cost $75 million, with a majority of that cost going back to the Orem community through land costs, construction materials and the construction itself.
Most of all, developers are interested in giving something to the community to have for years to come.
?As a developer of the project, we certainly look at projects with the intent of earning a living, but this project has become much more than that to us,? Runnels said. ?It?s something we?ve identified as being a large contribution to a great city, and so we have a lot of emotion invested in this project, a lot of sweat, a lot of sleepless nights.?