Linda Schrick walks past the ongoing construction outside her house on the corner of Denver and Ash streets in Boulder City.
Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009 | 1:49 p.m.
Construction at Denver Street has been underway for about a year while a developer replaces water and gas lines.
A local developer digging up Denver Street said he hopes to finish roadwork there in a month. One neighbor said that's a year too long.
Just west of Linda Schrick's historic home on the corner of Denver and Ash streets, Denver trails up a hill to three tiered, dirt lots.
Mike Giroux hopes to sell those residential lots to homebuilders, so a year ago, his contractors took to necessary improvements on the dirt road, which leads to houses on higher hills.
For a year, tractors have dug to extend sewer and water lines to reach the prospective new houses, and the project has dragged on because of bad maps and broken pipes.
The work now is right outside Schrick's tree-shrouded door. Sometimes tractors block her garage so she has to park on the street, which makes her nervous, she said, because her home has been burglarized three times in the last year.
The street's garbage is collected outside her garage, and sometimes tractors block Boulder Disposal from picking it up, causing it to spill and attract coyotes.
Schrick said Giroux never knocked on her door to let her know about the construction or offer help with the inconveniences.
Giroux said he understood her frustrations.
"It is just a tough situation," he said. "I understand how people feel inconvenienced. It's not our fault the water line we have to hook into is in the middle of the street. You've got to have a work area."
Giroux said city drawings were inaccurate, and digging revealed a Southern Nevada Water Authority pipe that even the agency wasn't aware of. Contractors needed extra permitting to work around the pipe.
"Any time you work in an old part of town, utility work can be challenging," he said.
Scott Hansen, director of public works, said the city's development agreement with Giroux expires in April, but the city seldom enforces that strictly.
He said it's in Giroux's best interest to finish as quickly as possible, but construction often takes turns that require time.
Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].
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