Valhalla Drive sewer project winding down

Valhalla Drive sewer project winding down

The installation of new sanitary and storm lines on Valhalla Drive, a project started in January will soon wind down.

All homes along Valhalla Drive between Siegfried and Lohengrin places were connected to the new street city sewer main by Friday, March 23, according to Valhalla Drive resident Tom Colacioppo, who had words of high regard for the contractor and personnel working on the project.

The project is expected to have a final cost of around $1 million and should be done by summer, said Craig Chin, a NYC Department of Design and Construction spokesman. The project includes a new 24-inch and 12-inch sanitary and storm line upgrade, Chin said.

Community Board 10 had long made the project a major budget priority and was glad to see that it was progressing towards completion, said CB 10 district manager Kenneth Kearns.

“Community Board 10 is gratified to note that the Department of Design and Construction, through its contractors, has completed Vahalla Drive sewer work, and will shortly embark upon resurfacing,” Kearns said. “This will bring to the people of Valhalla Drive a new drainage system that will prevent future flooding, thus improving the quality-of-life for residents of that street.”

The DDC is planning to take a month long break to ensure that all of the connections to the individual homes on the block are working properly, and then will be back in about a month to resurface the street, which had been dug up during the construction, said Marcia Pavlica, president of the Country Club Civic Association.

“I think things are going well with the Valhalla Drive sewer project, and overall, the people are pleased,” Pavlica said. “I think it is amazing when you see these large pieces of equipment working around gas lines and obstructions in the ground like boulders, and you can see that the men operating the machinery really know what they are doing.”

The project replaced a six-inch sewer line in the street and a number of haphazard private sewer connections to homes that were installed by various contractors over the years to the homes on what had been a private street, Pavlica said. Valhalla Drive was left out of a major project in the late-1980s and 1990 that installed new sewer mains throughout much of Country Club because it was not made an officially chartered city street until 1991, Pavlica said.

Now some residents of the block would like to see one or two speed humps installed on the block to slow down drivers who may turn onto Country Club Road and then use Lohengrin Place and Valhalla Drive as a shortcut to Stadium Avenue, Pavlica stated.

“We run parallel to Country Club Road and people use Valhalla Drive as a detour,” Colacioppo stated. “People think this route is quicker, and maybe a speed hump or two would make them think twice.”