Landscaping to include 39 trees, 70 shorter plantings
Dave O’Neal, project superintendent for the new Hy-Vee grocery store in Jefferson, said last week that putting the walls up would be entertainment. After 42 years of building Hy-Vees, O’Neal knew what he was talking about. He reports cars lined up along the street watching the process of erecting the prefabricated wall panels.
Each 8′ X 18′ prefabricated concrete panel weighs 7 tons. It will take about 200 panels to complete the job. The panels are being trucked to Jefferson from Minnesota, O’Neal said. They’re attached to the footing with anchor plates, and then attached to horizontal girders at the top.
According to O’Neal’s schedule, the walls will be completed by the end of the week.
O’Neal shared details of the landscaping planned for the site. Included are 14 Shademaster honey locust trees, five Heritage River birch trees, eight Eastern redbuds and 12 thornless cockspur hawthorn trees. The honey locust trees and the birch trees will be 6-10-foot saplings when they’re planted, with projected growth 45-50 feet. Redbuds will grow to 20-30 feet and the hawthorn trees will grow to be 15-25 feet tall.
Additionally, there will be 40 shrubs and 30 grasses.
The landscaping, along with putting sod where needed, will be done yet this fall, O’Neal said. “Hy-Vee does this with every store. We always do landscaping. We like our stores to look nice,” he said.
