Municipal – DuBois & King, Inc.

Commercial District Plan

DuBois & King worked with the Town, local businesses, and the public to amend Jericho’s Commercial District Zoning Regulations. Using a variety of public engagement techniques, hands-on evaluation of existing conditions, and coordination with stakeholders, the team collected input to aid in developing regulations that the Town can rely on.

D&K worked closely with a diverse group of stakeholders to identify a unified vision for the District. The District’s regulations will shape the look, feel, and function of the Town’s commercial district while reflecting the contemporary land use standards and desires specific to the community.

East-West Activity Center Master Planning

DuBois & King developed a master plan with the Town of Danville, Northeastern Vermont Development Association, area businesses, and the public. The plan’s objective is to capture the momentum of the recently completed Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, US 2 reconstruction, and a surge in new local merchants and arts venues to make Danville and West Danville accessible to a greater variety of visitors and residents. Focusing specifically on wayfinding improvements to new human-powered transportation and recreational amenities and redevelopment of the Danville Train Station building, the project was a community-focused effort to encourage trail users and others to linger longer and enjoy the scenic area, recreate, and engage local businesses while promoting nearby points of interest. D&K engaged stakeholders through public meetings and activities; project websites; booths and community events; inventory, evaluation, and mapping of recreational amenities, landmarks, and infrastructure within the East-West Danville corridor; and preparation of a master plan, along with steps to accomplish the plan’s objectives.

Main Street Action Plan

Hyde Park maintains the classic look, feel, and land use context of a small Vermont town. DuBois & King assisted the Village with development of a plan to highlight Hyde Park as a passive and active recreational destination. The Village of Hyde Park is located on the recently reconstructed Lamoille Valley Rail Trail within 10 miles of Vermont’s Long Trail, and is home to the 653-acre Green River Reservoir. The Village is interested in encouraging more visitors to frequent the area and evaluating opportunities to improve Main Street’s hardscape amenities, wayfinding, multimodal facilities, and utilities. The plan evaluated ease of use for alternate forms of transportation throughout the Town, local points of interest, aesthetics, streetscape improvements, landscape architecture, and socioeconomic data, including land use context and property values to inform the Village’s action plan.

Click the link to visit the project website: https://www.connecthydeparkvt.org/

Norwich Reservoir Dam Removal

The Norwich Reservoir Dam was a run-of-the-river, cyclopean gravity dam located on the Charles Brown Brook. The dam formerly impounded a reservoir, but had has no function and caused significant negative impacts to the brook and to downstream reaches. DuBois & King developed removal design to meet the objectives of restoring AOP and the natural functions of Charles Brown Brook through the reach occupied by the obsolescent dam and infilled impoundment.

The reach of the brook above the dam silted in and became a wetland, such that no aquatic organism passage was possible. As a part of the removal design, the project team chose to remove the high-nutrient silt in the impoundment. Services included topographic survey, wetland delineation, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, geomorphic assessment, regulatory coordination (with the Army Corps of Engineers, State Dam Safety Program, and State Wetlands Program), and community outreach.

Wentworth Village Common Covered Bridge

Under a compressed time frame and uncertain budget, D&K provided civil-structural and permitting services for a project that replaced a severely deteriorated circa 1909 truss bridge with a covered bridge for pedestrian and other recreational traffic. The closure of the truss bridge redirected school children accessing the bus stop and others on foot onto the unprotected shoulder of NH Route 25.

Shortly after the closure, the client found a freely available covered bridge in the middle of an active demolition site in Bedford, NH and directly contacted D&K—with no clear schedule or available budget—to evaluate the structure for reuse and design shoring for transportation to the Wentworth site in a matter of a few weeks. Initial challenges included: the covered bridge had to be removed with no cost or inconvenience to the demolition contractor/owner; at 106 feet, the covered bridge was 10 feet longer than the bridge it would be replacing; due to the bridge’s design, non-destructive disassembly was not feasible; and no cranes of sufficient capacity to lift the covered bridge were available on short notice. D&K evaluated techniques to strip the bridge down to the appropriate pick weight for the available cranes; devised and implemented a design-build contract to utilize NHDOT municipal bridge aid funding to redesign the existing abutments; and designed cost-effective rehabilitation and modifications to allow for new loading conditions, exposure to the elements, and an increased hydraulic opening.

In addition to replacing a historically accurate covered bridge and providing a protected river crossing, (the truss bridge originally replaced the only covered bridge in the Town’s history) the project reused a 106’ all-timber structure that would have otherwise been landfilled. The bridge is designed for a 50-year service life. Located in the center of the Town, the bridge serves as a focal point for a municipal park and will serve additional planned outdoor recreation traffic including snowmobiles, human-powered winter recreation. The project received a 2018 Engineering Excellence Award by the American Council of Engineering Companies, New Hampshire Chapter.