First Impressions completes South Columbus Street ramp, stairs

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Any­one using South Colum­bus Street in Sun­bury over the past sev­eral weeks has noticed a First Impres­sions Lawn & Land­scape crew work­ing near the old rail­road over­pass that now serves as part of Preser­va­tion Park’s Big Wal­nut Trail. The crew has been installing a con­nec­tion from an exist­ing side­walk on the west side of Colum­bus Street to the trail, mak­ing it safer for pedes­tri­ans to get from one side of the over­pass to the other.

When the house and extra lot on the south­west side of the over­pass were sold last year they were not inside the vil­lage; they were, instead, land­locked Berk­shire Town­ship prop­erty that had never been annexed.

Nei­ther prop­erty had a side­walk; the exist­ing South Colum­bus Street side­walk ter­mi­nated at the south­ern edge of the empty lot. As part of annex­a­tion and sewer tap nego­ti­a­tions the vil­lage agreed to install a san­i­tary sewer tap for free; the new owner agreed to install a side­walk as far as the saved tap fee would allow and the vil­lage paid for the remain­der of the side­walk to the north edge of the property.

That cre­ated another prob­lem. Sev­eral hun­dred feet on new side­walk also com­ing to a dead end, and pedes­tri­ans still hav­ing to step out on the road­way to get to the oppo­site side.

Vil­lage coun­cil mem­bers agreed that some­thing needed to be done, at least as a tem­po­rary fix, and stairs con­nect­ing with the Big Wal­nut Trail seemed to be the best solu­tion. Pedes­tri­ans walk­ing north along the west side of South Colum­bus could use the stairs to access the trail, cross over the road on the trail, and con­tinue north using side­walks on the east side of the street.

“From my under­stand­ing (Sun­bury Con­sult­ing Engi­neer) Wes Hall designed the stairs, and then Preser­va­tion Parks wanted an ADA ramp,” said First Impres­sions Senior Man­ager of Design and Sales Jon Stier­hoff. “The handrails are treated wood capped with a two by eight, with an iron pipe detail as a rail­ing. The grade is within fed­eral ADA spec­i­fi­ca­tions — it rises 2.5 feet over 30 feet – so it’s wheel­chair accessible.”

The switch­back ramp sur­face is a hard-packed gravel, the same sur­face used on the Big Wal­nut Trail. Because Preser­va­tion Parks owns the rail­road over­pass and has hinted that it may be removed or revamped at a later date coun­cil mem­bers elected not to install costly con­crete stairs and a ramp that might have to be removed in the not too dis­tant future.

“The sur­face packs to a vir­tual con­crete like sur­face, so it will be fine for wheel­chairs,” Stier­hoff said. “The hill­side will be seeded with a fes­cue blend and meadow mix with some peren­nial rye mixed in to sta­bi­lize the soil. Straw mat­ting will be put down until the hill­side veg­e­ta­tion takes root.”

Because 15 trees were removed dur­ing the project instal­la­tion, Stier­hoff said the vil­lage would plant some ever­greens as a buffer.

First Impres­sions Lawn & Land­scape Com­pany and its sis­ter firm, Mulch 1st Land­scape Sup­plies, are located 725 North Kint­ner Park­way, in Sun­bury Indus­trial Park. The two com­pa­nies com­bined have 50 employees.

Stier­hoff said First Impres­sions does design-build land­scape projects and land­scape main­te­nance con­tracts through­out Cen­tral Ohio, roughly 60 per­cent res­i­den­tial and 40 per­cent com­mer­cial. Accord­ing to its web­site, First Impres­sions spe­cial­izes in snow removal, land­scape design and instal­la­tion, retain­ing walls and patios, irri­ga­tion sys­tems, water fea­tures, mow­ing, fer­til­iza­tion pro­grams, and more.

“We’re pleased to be work­ing in the vil­lage of Sun­bury, close to our home facil­ity,” Stier­hoff said. “We have capa­ble and pro­fes­sional employ­ees who can do all sorts of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial land­scap­ing work, and it’s always a plea­sure to do busi­ness with local people.”

First Impres­sions Lawn & Land­scap­ing is on the Inter­net at < firstlawn.com >, phone 740–965-6486; Mulch 1st Land­scape Sup­plies is at < mulch1st.com >, phone 740–965-6482.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 29 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.