Dalmatia firm honored for Susquehanna River walls in Sunbury

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A photo of the Sunbury riverfront project appears on the cover of Civil Engineering News magazine. The photo was captured by the Lewisburg Studio. John Gardner/The Lewisburg Studio

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January 25, 2013

Dalmatia firm honored for Susquehanna River walls in Sunbury

By Francis Scarcella The Daily Item The Daily Item Fri Jan 25, 2013, 04:12 PM EST

SUNBURY — A Dalmatia company won the People’s Choice Rocky Award for a series of walls at the Sunbury riverfront.

Paxton Precast was the local manufacturer who supplied the pre-made blocks for the project, which included 17,000 square feet of Redi-Rock walls to help stabilize the banks of the Susquehanna River, halt erosion and prevent flooding into the nearby downtown area.

In December, Redi-Rock, an international company in Charlevoix, Mich., placed a photograph of Sunbury’s riverfront on the cover of its 2013 calendar, which was distributed to more than 2,000 people worldwide. Now, one of those picture has made the cover of Civil Engineering News magazine.

Thanks to the photography skills of the Lewisburg Studio, Lewisburg, officials at Redi-Rock voted unanimously to feature Sunbury on the calendar.

Redi-Rock, which manufactures the pre-made rocks that support Sunbury’s floodwall, was so impressed with the efforts of the city, it used a picture of the project on the front page of the calendar. Redi-Rock also used the photo to illustrate the month of June.

Representatives from Paxton Precast were presented with the People’s Choice award on Sunday in Clearwater Beach, Fla., at the 2013 annual meeting for Redi-Rock manufacturers.

“Paxton Precast is very deserving of this award. They do excellent work, and the Redi-Rock walls at the Sunbury riverfront are a testament to that. The city of Sunbury has been very complimentary of the dedication and hard work Paxton Precast put into this project, so we were thrilled that the public chose this project for the People’s Choice award,” Redi-Rock spokesperson Lindsey O’Connor said.

“We’d like to congratulate everyone involved in this project including the city of Sunbury, the contractors at HRI Inc., who did excellent job installing the walls, also, thank you to the photographers at Lewisburg Studio who captured some awesome shots of the project,” O’Connor said.

Paxton Precast representative Betsy Wisniski released a statement saying: “It was great that Redi-Rock gave the award to this project. The fact that the walls already went through a flood and came out without any damage really showed the durability of the blocks. It was a team effort to get the project done, and we look forward to working with the city of Sunbury in the future.”

Lewisburg Studio owner John Gardner said he was thrilled with the recognition.

“This is great,” he said. “We are proud and excited.”

Gardner said when his studio was contacted about the photo shoot, he and Josh Everitt only had a short amount of time to prepare.

“We had a week,” he said. “But the weather didn’t cooperate with us, so we really only had two days to shoot it.”

City officials also were thrilled with the honor, especially Councilman Jim Eister, who spearheaded the $11 million riverfront project.

“This is another plus for the city of Sunbury,” he said. “We are happy to have so many people see the city and see the completed project.”

City officials were unsure how many bricks were used in the project, but they cost about $125 each.