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CLD Consulting Engineers, Inc. |
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Manchester, NH A Local Engineering Firm Reflects Upon its 25 Year History By David W. Gates, P.E., L.L.S. As CLD Consulting Engineers, Inc. celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2001, we look back at our history over the last quarter century. 
The three original principals of CLD were Daniel J. Costello, P.E., Martin R. Lomasney, P.E., and Paul A. deNapoli, P.E. All three were senior employees of Hayden, Harding and Buchanan, a Boston-based consulting engineering firm that provided civil/mechanical/electrical engineering services to a mostly governmental agency clientele throughout New England.During the mid-1970s HH&B was sold to Peabody Engineering, based in Stamford, CT. Peabody Engineering was the manufacturer of Peabody Galleon dump truck bodies, as well as being the manufacturer of a number of engineered products. The three founders of CLD decided to leave HH&B at that time and establish a firm devoted solely to engineering services. One of HH&B's major clients was the City of Manchester, where HH&B was responsible for a number of environmental projects, including the original Wastewater Treatment Plant in Manchester, a number of pumping stations associated with the sanitary sewage collection system, and several large stormwater separation projects, including the enclosure of Christian Brook, which drains a fairly large watershed in the northeastern section of Manchester. Dan Costello was heavily involved in the design and construction of the environmental projects, Martin Lomasney was the Project Manager for the Wastewater Treatment Plant design and construction, and Paul deNapoli was providing design support for the structural elements in all of those projects. So, Manchester became a logical base of operations for Costello, Lomasney & deNapoli, Inc., since professional services and relationships had already been established by the three principals in the Manchester area. When the three principals established their new firm in Manchester, it was logical for them to serve the same type of clientele that they had been involved with at HH&B. Initially, the services tended to be oriented towards governmental agencies in the highway, bridge, and environmental engineering service areas. Initially, Costello, Lomasney & deNapoli, Inc., operated out of a large Victorian house on Salmon Street in Manchester. That area of Manchester, east of the Amoskeag Bridge and on the East Side of Elm Street, has developed into a neighborhood primarily occupied by professional offices of various types. The office space at the Salmon Street location soon became overcrowded and the firm relocated to an office on Stark Street in the downtown area of Manchester. By 1982, the Stark Street location became overcrowded and the firm moved to larger quarters at 101 Middle Street occupying the lower level of a 2-story office building at that location. As the firm continued to expand the Middle Street location became overcrowded and there were severe parking problems in that neighborhood that by 1985 became somewhat intolerable. Costello, Lomasney & deNapoli, Inc., sought other space in the downtown Manchester area, and settled in at the current space at 540 Commercial Street in the Amoskeag Millyard. CLD was one of the earlier non-industrial tenants in the Millyard, and the space we currently occupy had to be extensively renovated to accommodate the office use as opposed to the heavy industrial use that the building had been subjected to from the time it was built until 1985. As indicated above, the early projects of CLD were associated with highway, bridge, and environmental services. In recognition of the fact that such services require a significant length of time to carry through the proposal, contract development, and initial organization of the work phases, it became necessary for the three principals to reach out to other service areas to produce an appropriate cash flow that would support a growing engineering services organization. Accordingly, several of the early projects for the firm involve services to area industrial clients. Those services tended to concentrate in Structural Engineering and the Environmental Engineering areas. One of the first challenging engineering design assignments undertaken by CLD involved the rehabilitation of the clock tower of the Manchester City Hall. When the building was constructed in the 1840s, wooden, steeple-like ornamental elements capped the clock tower. Over the years, the wooden elements deteriorated and they were removed, leaving stumps or stubs of them around the clock tower. CLD was offered a design assignment to replace those and restore the clock tower to its original appearance. Another unique structural assignment in the early days of the firm was the design of the foundations for what was known as the Tensile Structure, which was a fabricated fabric roof utilized in the initial Riverfest activities in Arms Park for bands or orchestras performing for the Riverfest crowds. That tent-like structure had been developed by Chemical Fabrics Corporation (ChemFab), which at that time was running a weaving plant in the adjoining building which is now the University of New Hampshire, Manchester Branch. The major early project was the development of the downtown interchange for Interstate Route 293. Prior to 1983, it was not possible to enter downtown Manchester or the Amoskeag Millyard from Interstate Route 293. Travelers either exited at the Queen City Bridge or the Amoskeag Bridge and moved north or south along the existing streets to the downtown. An essential part of the redevelopment project, now known as the Center of New Hampshire, was providing the access at Granite Street. The City of Manchester retained Costello, Lomasney & deNapoli, Inc., to design and monitor the construction of that project. It included a rather unique off-ramp from the northbound I-293, the widening of Granite Street between the Merrimack River Bridge and the Granite Square, and the construction of the southbound on-ramp from Granite Street. That project involved a cantilevered bridge deck on a cantilever wall that was anchored to the bedrock and with unique bedrock anchors. This anchor application was thought to be the first application of that technology to a highway facility in the United States. The project won an award from the Consulting Engineers Council due to its unique engineering aspects. Early projects also included small highway design assignments for the New Hampshire Department of Public Works and Highways, now known as the Department of Transportation. One of them was Route 114 in Goffstown and the other was a section of Mammoth Road in the Town of Hooksett. The past 25 years for CLD has been a period of fairly constant growth in the number of employees and the gross billings. The initial 1985 space at 540 Commercial Street has been expanded twice to accommodate the growing staff population. We have also opened two branch offices in the last few years; one in York, Maine and one in Norwich, VT. We are very proud of this significant milestone and look forward to celebrating it in various ways throughout the year, with both our clients and our employees. |
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CLD Consulting Engineers, Inc. 540 Commercial St., Manchester, NH 03101 p: 603.668.8223 f: 603.668.8802 e: info@cldengineers.com w: www.cldengineers.com |
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