Bridge construction is under way on Frederick City’s continuing Monocacy Boulevard project.
More than 100 sections of concrete are being assembled to create a bridge that will extend Monocacy Boulevard north from Hughes Ford Road to Gas House Pike, eventually connecting to the Schifferstadt Boulevard cul-de-sac.

Bridge construction is expected to be completed in the summer of 2012. The city will then upgrade Gas House Pike from where the bridge ends to east of the Monocacy River.

The three-arch, 285-foot-long bridge over Carroll Creek and its flood plain will be the longest in the city, according to transportation planner Tim Davis.

The article also includes this awesome aerial shot of the construction area:

An aerial view of the bridge construction site over Carroll Creek at the end of July shows Gas House Pike at right. Staff photo by Sam Yu.

[...] scheduled for an early 2012 launch in Frederick, near the chef’s original dining destination, Volt . Tentatively called North Market Kitchen for its address at 331 N. Market St., the 10,000-square foot space will be a combination 200-plus seat dining room, specialty store and exhibition kitchen with multiple stations serving pasta and charcuterie made in-house, a raw bar, cheese counter, patisserie and rotisserie.

Voltaggio says he’s modeling the business on Eataly, the sprawling Italian-themed food emporium in New York. “Primarily a restaurant,” North Market Kitchen will “also be an amenity for transient diners and downtown residents,” says the chef, who plans to stock the shelves of the “rustic-industrial” venue with some of the ingredients he uses at Volt. The ambitious project calls for lots of staff. Voltaggio says he’ll be hiring “40 to 50 cooks to make this happen.”

More jobs and more food = good news.

(via Frederick Tourism)

It’s amazing to think that the 112-year-old building went from this:

To this:

The Frederick News-Post has a video tour of the new center and you can take a look at the Center’s blog to see more about the renovation.

Thanks for the interest! Right now we’re still building the store. We hope to have our grand opening in the Spring of 2011.

I drive by the construction site just about everyday and it looks to be humming along. They already have the skeleton of one of the buildings up. It’s crazy to think we’ve been talking about this for 4 years.

The City of Frederick has applied to Google to be considered for an ultra-high speed broadband network trial. Google is planning to launch an experiment to make Internet access better and faster for everyone. They plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Their networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home and workplace connections. They will offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Learn more about the program and Frederick’s application. This would be huge if Frederick won, fingers crossed.

The $107 million project has been in development since 2005 and will open in phases, according to the State Highway Administration.

SHA cleared the following today:

• the Md. 85 exit through the new interchange;

• East Street, from I-70 to South Street;

• a new ramp from eastbound I-70 to the northbound Md. 85 exit and East Street;

• a new ramp from southbound East Street and the Md. 85 exit to eastbound I-70.

After the holidays, sections of Monocacy Boulevard will be opened and ramps will be swapped. By spring 2010, the entire project should be complete and open to the public, said John Huchrowski, an SHA assistant district engineer.

Also here is some video of the ribbon cutting with Governor O’Malley.

Hi. I have two tips for you. One, the old Maxwell Place leasing office (On North Market right before you get to Carroll Creek, by the fire station/All Saints street) is going to be a Subway. I’ve been walking by there every day and seeing them renovating it, and last night they had the huge (ugly) Subway signs up. Interesting.

I checked subway.com and sure enough, this was listed in their locations …

Opening Soon!
69 South Market Street
First Floor
Frederick MD 21701

Stephanie also mentioned that La Docle Vita is “closed for renovations” until November 23. Thanks for the news Stephanie!

“We call it the ‘Golden Mile Gateway.’ That’s something we’ve been hoping would happen,” said planning commission member Gary Brooks at Monday’s meeting.

The project will include a 16,861-square-foot shopping center and a 3,194-square-foot, free-standing bank structure.

I’ve harbored a pipe dream of buying the old barracks and turning it into a pizza place. I would’ve called it Jail House Pizza, since there was a little jail cell in the basement (at least there was a long time ago when I went on a school field trip there).