By Brian Trompeter
The former Faith Baptist Church building at 301 Center St., S., which served as a temporary police station during construction of the department’s new headquarters, will be razed soon.
The Vienna Town Council, which had opted against trying to renovate the six-decade-old building with a leaky roof, on Oct. 2 voted 7-0 to award a $327,609 contract to The Berg Corp. to remove asbestos from the building and then demolish it.
A pre-demolition survey conducted by JSK Environmental LLC detected cancer-causing asbestos in the building’s floor tiles, drywall, drywall joints, floor and sink mastics, and door caulking throughout the structure.
Town officials received eight bids for the project, but discarded the lowest one – a $125,000 offer by Demo King – because the company did not have a bid bond.
This quasi-insurance measure, which protects the town, “was not an oversight the town could overlook or waive,” said Town Attorney Steven Briglia.
Council member Howard Springsteen, who handled plenty of contracts during his long career as a logistics manager with the Fairfax County’s Department of Vehicle Services, said the town could not do such projects without bid bonds.
Vienna to Apply for Millions in VDOT Funds for Trail Projects: Vienna Town Council members on Oct. 2 voted 7-0 to allow the town’s Department of Public Works to apply for millions of dollars in Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Transportation Alternatives funds, which would be put toward a pair of major trail projects.
If VDOT approves the funding (which requires a 20-percent local match), those moneys would become available in 2025, when the projects’ design process would begin. Town officials will apply for:
• $1.9 million for Locust Street trail improvements, which were recommended by the Maple Avenue Multimodal Study. The town would implement trail upgrades along the Locust Street right-of-way between Center Street, S., and the Washington & Old Dominion Regional Trail. This area is located just north of the Vienna Community Center and the Waters and Caffi athletic fields and south of Vienna Elementary School and a stand of woods.
Town officials wish to widen the existing path to 10 feet in order to serve pedestrians and bicyclists. The initiative also will address drainage issues at the low-lying site, which tends to accumulate standing rainwater after storms and become unusable for pedestrians.
Mayor Linda Colbert was pleased that the town was making progress on this project, which she said was a “long time in coming.”
The existing trail is “a bit small for the kind of use we see there,” added Andrew Jinks, the town’s transportation engineer.
• $2.9 million for a project that would build sidewalks along both sides of Mashie Drive, S.E., between Hine and Echols streets, S.E., plus a missing sidewalk connection along the frontage of 203 and 205 Mashie Drive, S.E. The initiative also will include curb, gutter and drainage improvements.
Split Council OKs $1.25 Million Contract for 3 Sidewalk Projects: On a split 5-2 vote, the Vienna Town Council on Oct. 2 approved a $1,250,315 contract with Bright Construction Group to build three sidewalk projects in the town, using moneys from the Maud Ferris Robinson Charitable Trust.
The projects (the rounded-up costs for which include 10-percent contingency allowances) include sidewalks on the:
• South side of Lawyers Road, N.W., between West Street, N.W., and Windover Avenue, N.W. ($247,572).
• North side of Tapawingo Road from Plum Street, S.W., to Park Street, S.E., ($568,722).
• West side of Beulah Road, N.E., between Church Street, N.E., and Ayr Hill Avenue, N.E., ($434,022).
That last project was the source of the split vote. Council members Ray Brill Jr. and Howard Springsteen, who cast the two nay votes, worried about the loss of about a dozen mature trees and the need to construct a sizable retaining wall because of an embankment.
The current Council will be long gone by the time smaller trees replanted along the route begin to rival the size of the ones lost, Springsteen said.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” he said. “If we cut those trees down, by the time we replant those trees, we’re all going to be dead and buried. Those trees are not going to grow fast. Why don’t we just shift the road over 8 feet. I’m not in favor of taking out these 12 major trees.”
But public-works officials said Beulah Road, N.E., needed sidewalks along both sides because of heavy traffic volume. Shifting the road’s alignment would entail complications, such as utility relocations, town staff said.
“I’m sure it’s not actually that cheap to change a road,” agreed Council member Charles Anderson, saying it would cost “millions and millions of dollars [because of] all that curb and gutter.”
Council member Nisha Patel said Beulah Road does have sidewalks on both sides until about Ayr Hill Avenue, N.E., where all pedestrians have to cross in order to reach a paved walkway again.
“It is not easy,” she said of crossing Beulah Road. “People fly down that road.”
Vienna Town Council OKs Budget Carry-Forward Items: Not every project gets completed by June 30, the end of the town of Vienna’s fiscal year, so some items need to be carried forward to the next year.
The Vienna Town Council on Oct. 2 unanimously agreed to roll forward $376,380 worth of contracts from fiscal 2023, including items for paving ($147,240), cell phones ($30,490), laser-fiche services ($29,900), pavement marking ($26,400), picnic benches ($26,060), hazardous-waste cleanup ($23,630), business-startup processes ($19,680) and repairs to a carbon-monoxide detector ($16,360).
Other rolled-forward contracts pertained to a sign-laminating machine ($15,350), Code Create Vienna ($14,160), a town survey ($12,900), economic-development blog posts ($5,750), shelving ($4,780) and rental of a camps bus ($3,680).
Town officials ended fiscal 2023 with a $400,000 surplus and, in accordance with policy, put half of that into Vienna’s unreserved-fund balance (aka, rainy-day fund).
The Council agreed to put the other half of the surplus toward an insurance-budget shortfall ($45,000), an employee class-and-compensation study ($25,000), janitorial service for the police station ($25,000), tennis-court resurfacing ($15,000), furniture ($15,000), mailings regarding the new zoning code ($8,000), a sign machine ($45,000) and $22,000 remaining for miscellaneous other items.
“We have financial abundance and we want to use it wisely,” said Finance Director Marion Serfass.
