Campground gets an upgrade

Things got pretty heavy in Sisters last week with the delivery of the new precast concrete restroom/shower building to Creekside Campground.

Three lowmax tractor/trailers, each carrying a 75,000-pound section of the building, rolled into town at 10 a.m. and, by 5:30 p.m., workers had hoisted the sections off the trucks and swung them into place over the new foundation and stubbed-in plumbing, precisely hitting their mark with all three sections.

The restroom/shower building, manufactured by CXT of Spokane, Washington, and trucked here to Sisters, is the big brother of the City's other new restrooms at Clemens, Fir Street, and Village Green parks. The buildings are constructed to provide ease of assembly, ease of maintenance, and indestructability, making them extremely cost-effective in the long run.

The building comes fully equipped with toilets, sinks, showers, and light fixtures. Plumbers will be hooking up the bathroom fixtures to the in-ground water and sewer lines, and electricians will hook up the lights and hand-dryers.

The capacity of the building is almost double that of the old building, as well as being completely ADA accessible. Both the men's and women's sides have three stalls rather than the previous two. The showers have increased from two to four and will accept either quarters or tokens. There will be a paved ADA path from the restroom to the ADA campsite. The restrooms face Creekside Park and showers face the campground.

The three trucks were able to maneuver through the trees in the campground without having to remove any trees, and no trees were damaged in the installation process.

A giant crane was waiting to offload the sections and place them on the foundation. The crane had to have extra metal weights piled on its platform to keep it from tipping as it lifted each 37.5-ton section into place. The delivery and placement job took 7-1/2 hours to complete, with the first section in place by 1:30 p.m.

Nicole Abbenhuis, public works operations coordinator, surmised Sisters must have a guardian angel because there was no snow and the ground wasn't too soft for the weight of the trucks and crane.

The old restroom/shower building was removed in mid-March, and a variety of materials were salvaged and will be repurposed. Roofing material, insulation, can-lights, ceiling vents, and wood beams will be used in several new City storage sheds being built by the public works department. Items such as hand dryers, heaters, and a water heater will be kept as back-ups, and two hand-held showers are being donated to Habitat for Humanity. Shower benches, hooks, and automatic door locks will be able to be reused in the new building.

The final price tag on the new building is about $280,000, half of which will be reimbursed by a grant from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD). That is $20,000 less than the original estimate.

Public Works hopes to have the new building open for use during the annual Easter egg hunt on Sunday, April 16, held in Creekside Park and Campground. It will then be closed again until the official opening of the campground on May 1.

Community Development Director Patrick Davenport will be seeking a formal resolution of support from the Sisters City Council to submit a grant request to OPRD to help fund upgrading the approaches on either end of the covered footbridge crossing Whychus Creek between the campground and Creekside Park.

The slope of the approaches is currently too steep for wheelchairs to use. If the grant is secured, the City would be able to install an ADA-accessible path (wider and smoother than the current path) all the way from the ADA parking spot in the park along Jefferson, through the park to the bridge. On the other side of the bridge, the more gradual approach would hook up to the ADA path to the restroom/shower building in the campground and through to the ADA camping site.

The grant application is due May 1, with a presentation made in Salem, and notification of grant awards in August 2017. The project is estimated to cost $60,000, with the City required to cover 20 percent of the cost ($12,000) and the grant covering 80 percent.