With construction now underway at Denver Union Station, I’m happy to announce that, starting today, we’ll have regular updates (at least once a week) of the project here at the DenverInfill Blog through the completion of the project in 2013. I’ve got not one, but two friends with spectacular Glass House views (Abe in the North tower and Rick in the South tower) who have kindly volunteered to take photographs of the project for DenverInfill. This first photo is from Rick and was taken late last week just before the snow storm arrived:

As you can see, excavation for the underground bus terminal (the “bus box”) is underway. Rick spoke with some of the construction workers on the site and learned that the hole excavated for the bus box will be 1300 feet long by 165 feet wide by 25 feet deep. That’s nearly 200,000 cubic yards of dirt to be removed. About 54,000 cubic feet of concrete will be used to build the bus box. Additionally, the workers have started drilling holes for the shoring walls that will surround a portion of the bus box hole. Currently, they are using a huge excavator to remove the dirt and put it into dump trucks which haul it off site. Later, they will use bulldozers to push dirt into a hopper that will feed a conveyor system. Some of the dirt will be stockpiled on site to be used later for backfill behind the concrete walls of the bus box.

Rick also learned that work began last week to redirect water into the bypass water line that was installed on the Union Station side of Wewatta Street last summer. The current water line will be removed and replaced once the bus box excavation is complete. In two weeks, work will start on the new light rail station.

That’s one Union Station update down, about 199 more to go.

MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: As a follow up to this morning’s post, here are two photos from Abe from Sunday showing continued progress over the weekend: