Construction

Construction projects at the borough's five schools have fallen behind, forcing school officials to delay today's scheduled start of classes by one week. School officials voted unanimously in a special meeting Saturday evening to push back the opening day of classes to next Monday. Building inspectors recommended the delay, saying they needed to test fire alarms and sprinkler systems, school board member Erik Mollenhauer said. To meet the state minimum of 180 school days, students will have to make up the lost days.

On a day recently when the leaders of Cherry Hill's business community were trying to brace themselves for the Route 70 construction, they received a message of doom from one of their own. "At the very worst, Route 70 will be an absolute nightmare," said Steve Ravitz, owner of the Talk of the Town and Shop Rite supermarkets on Kings Highway. "I don't care what's in the (state) contract, if those construction people have to close your driveways down, they will. " A veteran of the Kings Highway reconstruction in the mid-1980s, Ravitz was one of several guest speakers at a "Route 70 Survival Meeting" Sept.

Charlotte Chandler's career as a data-entry operator ended in 1990, when the recession wiped out her job at Swarthmore College. But Chandler landed on her feet. Today, the 32-year-old Chester woman spends her working day standing in the middle of a construction project, flagging traffic through the Blue Route expressway road work on Baltimore Pike near Media. It is not easy work - hot and dusty, and hard on her feet - but she has no complaints. She earns $11.75 an hour, as opposed to the $7.50 an hour she earned as a data-entry operator.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded two grants totaling $6,750,000 to developers to construct a 16-story office tower in West Conshohocken Borough and to renovate an aging shopping center in Plymouth Township. The Urban Development Action Grants (UDAGs) were announced Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Lawrence Coughlin (R., Montgomery), who lobbied for the applications. The grants were awarded as low- or no-interest loans. The loans were applied for through Conshohocken Borough, which qualifies as a low-income community.

With final approval in hand, the developer of the 26-lot Green Point Farms in southwestern East Brandywine Township says he expects to begin construction in a few weeks. The development passed its last hurdle Tuesday when the supervisors approved a $250,000 escrow fund. Green Point Farms will be constructed behind a small existing development at Lenora Lane and Newlin Drive. That development slopes down from the eastern side of Zynn Road just north of Caln Meetinghouse Road. The 49.88-acre Green Point Farms tract was formerly cornfields of the Newlin family farm.

Construction is under way on the second phase of the Commerce Plaza, a 40,000-square-foot addition to the shopping center on Blackwood-Clementon Road in Gloucester Township. The first phase of the shopping center, between Millbridge Drive and Kelly- Driver Road, was completed in October 1985 and includes two restaurants and seven stores in 27,900 square feet of floor space. The 18-acre site also includes a Commerce Bank, a Friendly restaurant and a D'Lites restaurant, which are detached from the other units.

The Borough of Yeadon Zoning Hearing Board has approved requests for variances by two commercial applicants. Both requests - one to build an addition and the other to allow a change in occupancy - were passed by a vote of 5-0 at its Monday meeting. Walter Massinger, the proprietor of an ornamental ironwork and welding business, asked for a variance to permit the construction of an addition in an area zoned neighborhood commercial use. The addition would be partitioned into two areas: 42 feet by 22 feet and 22 feet by 15 feet.

The value of new construction projects rebounded by 9 percent in May to an annualized rate of $246.4 billion, reversing the slump in contracting recorded in recent months, F.W. Dodge said yesterday. Nonbuilding projects, including public works and utilities, dominated May's construction activity, said the Dodge Division of McGraw-Hill Information Systems Co. They rose 30 percent to an annualized rate of $52.9 billion in May over April, led by a nuclear fuel-processing plant in Idaho.

The raccoons are coming. So are the skunks, groundhogs, opossums and foxes. With their natural habitat disturbed by the construction of the Blue Route, the animals have begun invading the back yards of Springfield residents. The first wave of the invasion has been in the township's Rolling Green, Beatty Woods and Spring Dell Farms sections, all of which border the path of the highway construction. As a result, the police switchboard is abuzz with complaints about all sorts of wild creatures, and Michelle Todd, the township's animal-control officer, is as busy as a beaver these days.

When he was 5 years old, there were indications that Wilbur C. Henderson was going to make his mark in the construction business. He did it in grand style. Today, at 63, Henderson is chairman of the board of The Henderson Group, a Sharon Hill-based industrial-development company that manages 11 business parks with more than 5 million square feet of office, commercial and industrial space. But Henderson's career really started in 1928 in Miss Slevin's kindergarten class at the T. G. Morton public school at 63d Street and Elmwood Avenue in Philadelphia.