By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — On the week before Thanksgiving, a landscaper from the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) worked with a Wyman & Simpson construction crew to put into place the granite steps for the town’s new amphitheater.

The blueprints for the amphitheater called for a natural-looking seating arrangement with granite as the primary material.

The pre-holiday push to complete that stage of the project is one of many for Wyman & Simpson, the general contractor for the Bay of Naples Bridge and Causeway project because the construction crews and state workers will leave the Naples site, take a wintertime hiatus, and be back in time for the fairer weather.

According to the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) Resident Engineer Craig Hurd, the project is wrapping up for the winter with a resume date of April — give or take a week.

“They will be there for another two or three weeks; and then, they’ll come back in the spring when weather gets better,” Hurd said.

“Anything we would do in the summer would be staining the bridge.

The (Causeway Restoration) Committee wants to stain it more like a grey-brown color.

The request is that the stones on the bridge will be painted so it appears to be grouted, Hurd explained.

“The stones on the bridge will look like the granite blocks, but like they will be grouted,” he said.

“That job is weather depending. It has to warm up first,” Hurd said, adding the completion date for the project is sometime this summer.

Other springtime tasks include restaining the boardwalk and surface paving portions of Route 302.

Now, as the chill takes the air, there are quite a few items to check off the work list.

“We are just building a little more stones in around the end of the bridge,” Hurd said.

“We are grading so that the roadway matches the sidewalks. We are blending it all together,” Hurd said.

“And, just cleaning up for winter,” he said.