Drivers were delayed on Broadway Tuesday morning and afternoon for planned bedrock explosions at a construction site at 12th Avenue South.
Blasts were scheduled by Turner Construction, who burrow deep into the rock under the 1200 block of Broadway. The site booked for a 26-story commercial and residential building from Endeavor Real-Estate Group from Texas.
The building will have 64,000 square feet of office space, a ground floor Whole Foods, 5,000 square feet additional retail space, above and below ground parking decks and 313 residential units.
Temporary road closures at 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. will happen every day Monday to Friday until the second week of January. Broadway in front of the site will be closed for about five minutes each time as charges are ignited in the bedrock under the site.
"We're hypersensitive that we affect not only the neighbors, but we affect pedestrians and we're obviously on a really, maybe the busiest street in the city," said project manager Rob Binford. "For that reason we're trying to do everything that we can to minimize our effect on people and traffic."
Crews use nitro glycerin packed deep into the rock to crack the base and allow excavation of the site.
The building was scheduled for a 2019 finish.
