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A surveying crew put stakes and flags up on Landed Gentry’s Maple Field development on Maple Avenue south of Talbott Street early last week to mark utilities placement. An excavator was brought on site, crushed stone placed for a driveway at the southern end and a small inventory of green pipe was left. Orange silt fencing marks the property’s north and south boundaries.

Brian Gentry told the Weekly News Friday that Welch Brothers Construction is the contractor, able to schedule the work, that the delay from August was limited contractor availability and supply shortages. He is optimistic that “by the end of the year we should be pretty well in shape.” A sidewalk running the length of the property on Maple Avenue ought to be in by then, he said. The sidewalk will continue north to Talbott Street, along the town’s park border.

Workers will be on site daily, Gentry said. Observers will see the equipment in use and the crew putting in pipes and conduits and placing the street before the year is out, Gentry projects. “It will probably be late spring for new houses being completed and on the market,” he said.

Gentry declined to comment on the letters from Reclaim Hedlin Field seeking Gentry’s selling of the property. The Bricklin law firm sent his companies letters in September and October, respectively, for the group working to purchase the property for a community ballfield.