Old dirt out, new dirt in.

Bulldozers and their operators like to move dirt! So they make mountains out of the old dirt and haul it away and then bring in new dirt and smooth it out. It all has to do with the kind of dirt it is and which kind is best under the foundation. We all know that Texas gumbo is not good for much! In the foreground there is dark brown gumbo. In the middle of the picture and on the right side, nice light brown dirt has been brought in and smoothed out for the community room/office building and one of the four story apartment buildings (right side). The yellow bulldozer to the right of the blue bin is working on the area for the other four story apartment building. To the right of the bulldozer is another mound of dirt to be hauled away. Beyond the apartment building footprints, the parking area has also been worked on. Today the cold front blew in. The crew worked until mid-afternoon in the cold but then called it a day! One of the perks of being an office volunteer is having a front row seat on the building progress.

Dirty work continues!

The digging/scraping/pushing dirt crews were out in full force on Wednesday, November 22. It was pretty noisy! The first picture shows the "footprint" of the new community room/office building. Picture was taken from west end of Building C looking toward Cecil St. The second picture shows the "mountain" of dirt - note bulldozer that has climbed to the top of it - that has been made. (The area in picture one is just on the other side of the mountain of dirt.) In the foreground, the machine operator is working on the space for the west four story apartment building. Also, note black fabric dirt retaining fence on the left side of picture two. You can see Building A in the background on the left and Buildings C and D in the background on the right.

Activity Begins!

Cliff Thuot (l), project manager, and Al Landeche, job superintendent, check out the bulldozer clearing and leveling the property in preparation for foundation work. After several months of work, the pieces of the puzzle have come together and the construction project for the new Hospitality Apartment buildings has begun!

GREAT NEWS!

Hospitality Apartments has a building permit from the City of Houston! After months of planning, tweaking, following up, praying, being frustrated etc., we have it! The power and communications lines that were remaining even after the poles were moved are gone. The replatting of the property to include the utility easement has been done. The refigured construction contract (due to the delay, the bid was refigured) has been signed. Hurray, hurray!

As soon as there is something to take a picture of, weekly pictures of construction progress will be posted. But for today, the construction committee is ecstatic that the permit is in hand!