Overview:
MassDOT is reconstructing two critical retaining walls at Five Points in Athol to prevent roadway collapse into the Millers River. Jim Fafard of ET&L Construction said that work on both the Bridge Street and Crescent Street walls remains on schedule for completion later this fall. While Chestnut Hill Avenue remains closed, the entire project is expected to finish by August 2027.
ATHOL – The Mass Department of Transportation project to improve what is known locally as Five Points is continuing on schedule, according to Jim Fafard of ET&L Construction, the contractor on the project.
Work is progressing on reconstruction of the retaining walls, one of which supports Bridge Street, and the other for the ground beneath the eastern end of Crescent Street.
Large boulders that were part of the original supports had begun to fall out of place, threatening the integrity of the retaining walls. In 2023, then-Public Works Director Dick Kilhart told the Athol Daily News the Bridge Street retaining wall had deteriorated to the point where the roadway was threatening to fall into the Millers River.
Fafard said the project faced a couple of significant challenges.
“Utilities, meaning water and sewer, those were pretty big obstacles to deal with here,” he said. “There’s a lot of rock, ledge in this area. The retaining walls were the next big obstacle thus far; the drilling for all the (steel) piles in place, the H-beams going into the ground 30 feet or more.”
The beams, said Fafard, support the upper layer of the retaining wall on Crescent Street. The same work he said, is being done on the retaining wall on the south side of Bridge Street overlooking the Millers River.
Motorists passing through Five Points now will see a wall of large horizontal wooden beams and secured in place where the new retaining wall for Crescent Street will be built. Fafard said a form, a temporary mold, will be placed in front of the wooden beams and “pour in place concrete wall sections” will be poured between the form and the beams.
Before the concrete is poured, said Fafard, “We have a lot of resteel or, as a lot of people know it, rebar that needs to get tied in place in specific ways. We have bulkhead forms we need to build, we’ve got the forms we need to build on the outside of the wall, and they need to be held together. So, there is quite a process to it.”
Fafard added, “Wall Number One, which is (Crescent Street), we’re probably going to get half of that done from west to east. We should be able to get that poured and in place by the end of this construction season (later in the fall).”
Plans call for work on the Bridge Street Wall – Wall Number Two – to be completed during that same period, according to DPW Director Paul Raskevitz. Fafard said the reinforced concrete retaining walls will be 14 inches thick.
“The idea is to try to have the Bridge Street base coated with pavement, curbing and, for the most part, sidewalks put in, traffic signs and everything,” said Fafard, adding that over the winter, vehicles will able to travel on Bridge Street.
A section of Chestnut Hill Avenue, from the bridge over the Millers River to the end of Crescent Street, said Fafard, will be closed until the project is completed. That means motorists driving from Main Street to Chestnut Hill Avenue beyond the Millers River will be detoured up Bridge Street.
The state is covering the cost of the Five Points project. In 2021, the cost was estimated at $5.5 million. That figure increased to $8.5 million by 2023. The cost now, according the MassDOT website, is just over $9.1 million, the amount bid by ET&L.
Work on the project started in the summer of 2025 with upgrades to water and sewer lines in the neighborhood of the Five Points project. Work on the retaining walls started earlier this year. It’s anticipated that the entire project will completed by August 2027, according to Fafard.