by Geoff Fox
Heavy equipment has been tearing up the asphalt at the former site of the Hancock Truck Stop for the last few days as the site is prepared for construction of a new plaza.
Site Superintendent Steve Wright of Cassnik Contracting said this stage of the project will take about two weeks to complete.
Right now, crews are pulling up the pavement and then use it as backfill. They will then lay new concrete.
Wright said there would be new padding and a new foundation laid.
The footprint of the new travel plaza will reach from the road to the tree line in the back.
To make room, some of the vegetation on the old truckstop site has been removed.
Wright said the entire project would take a total of 30 weeks to finish with an end date some time at the end of March or early April of 2022.
Once completed, the travel plaza will include an IHOP, Burger King and Little Caesars. Despite rumors of the pizza company’s departure from the future travel plaza, BFS Spokesperson Hayley Graham confirmed by email that Little Caesars is still planned as one of three eateries in the plaza.
A bulldozer from Cassnik Contracting pushes pavement onto pile. The pavement is being pulled up and used as back fill before a new bed of concrete is laid for the new travel plaza at the east end of town.
