The seven street trees mistakenly cut down along West Beaver Avenue last week were worth an estimated $5,500, State College public-works Director Mark Whitfield said Wednesday.
But the cost to the contractor responsible for fixing the damage is likely to be greater than that, he said.
‘This was very costly to the contractor,’ Whitfield told StateCollege.com.
A landscaping subcontractor working under Pittsburgh-based Baiano Construction Co. committed the error, according to the borough. Baiano is the primary contractor responsible for the nearly $1 million Fraser Street realignment project, at the Fraser Street-West Beaver Avenue intersection.
Construction there began in earnest on Monday. On Friday, a subcontractor identified by the borough as Kramer Tree Service was to prepare the site largely by clearing a number of borough-owned trees.
But the subcontractor misread plans provided by the state Department of Transportation and cut down not only several Fraser Street trees targeted for elimination, but also seven trees that were supposed to stay, Whitfield has said.
Those seven were on the 100 block of West Beaver Avenue, on the north side of the thoroughfare between Saint’s Cafe and South Fraser Street.
Whitfield said Baiano Construction will have ultimate responsibility for making sure the trees are replaced. While the construction is technically a PennDOT project, Baiano is required to disclose to the borough the names of its subcontractors.
Baiano has not yet responded to phone calls from StateCollege.com, though Whitfield said the company has not expressed any resistance to its obligations. A reporter’s messages left for a Kramer’s Tree Service listed in Mifflintown and a Kramer Tree Service in Berwick were not immediately answered on Thursday. It was not clear whether either of those similarly named businesses was involved in the Beaver Avenue mistake.
Whitfield did not know the exact location of the tree service involved.
He said the borough will tell Baiano what tree replacements it wants along the 100 block of West Beaver Avenue — and where to place them — without paying anything for the work. The borough Tree Commission is expected to discuss what types of trees would be most suitable there.
The replacements are likely to be less-drippy, more shade-giving types of trees, borough arborist Alan Sam has said.
More thorough details are included in earlier reports, linked below.
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