Thursday, June 18, 2009

Construction Update

A partial closure of Vine Avenue will occur on Monday June 22, 2009 for utility work. This closure will be from S. Gay Street westward approximately 20 feet. Vine Avenue will revert to a two way designation at that time. I will be posting a map detailing the traffic control plan soon. Click here for a map in PDF format.

Folks parking in the Sterchi parking lot will enter from Walnut Street and turn right onto Vine Avenue. The sidewalks will remain open at all times as the work will occur in the right-of-way. Of course, folks will have to walk around the construction but the pathway will be well marked. Since construction started, I believe most folks have gotten used to this situation as delivery trucks and others have blocked this same area for at least some portion of most days.

This work is necessary at this time because the utility work has proceeded to such a degree that this bit of work is now required. AT&T, gas, water, and electric services all are in the intersection so a good deal of coordination will be required for everything to work smoothly but we have a good plan in place and don't expect any hiccups. As you may recall, we previously worked in this intersection so we know most of what we are likely to encounter.

Unfortunately, we also know we are going to have to use the heavy machinery to go through more of the rock that we have been encountering. This will make for a noisy and busy environment for at least one week. Please bear with us for this phase.

This work is projected to take from two to four weeks.

Valet parking will continue to be available although they may have to move out closer to the the middle of the intersection near our 'We are Open" sign. We realize it will be a bit of an inconvenience for them for a while to have to go around the construction to park but we really have no choice at this time. As best we can, we plan to try to use steel plates so at least one lane can remain open on Vine Avenue from Gay Street after work hours but there will certainly be times when that will be impossible.

The Contractor will make sure that delivery trucks are accommodated as best he can. This may involve his crews actually having to help direct traffic for them but they have committed to that and we are very grateful for their continuing accommodations for us.

I have discussed with KUB the issue of outages and timing of such and they have promised to work with me so I can post on this blog when outages are to occur. Of course there may occasionally be emergency situations but I hope to find a way into that loop as well.

I missed that last construction meeting last week and it is possible that a water shut off last night was discussed there but I did not know about it until yesterday's construction meeting.

We also have a little more electrical work to be done at Jackson Avenue and it will be necessary to build a small jog in Jackson Avenue at S. Gay Street for a week or so. After this work is completed, we plan to push back from Jackson Avenue the construction barricades so folks crossing S. Gay Street at Jackson can better stay out of traffic. I have discussed with both KPD and City Engineering ways to better control traffic at this intersection.

The structural design elements of the road and sidewalk are beginning to come together and we hope to have the final design in a couple of weeks so we can then begin roadway and sidewalk construction.

Although not planned, it is probably going to work out well as most of the utility work in the 100 Block has now occurred so there should be little conflict there as we proceed.

As some of you may have noticed, we are finally hauling off excavated material from the Jackson Avenue parking lot and will probably have that completed today. I understand it was quite a scene when several tandem tractor trailers converged all at once yesterday morning to begin hauling.

Thanks to everyone for their patience on this project, particularly those folks on the south end of S. Gay Street. It has been very noisy and busy there for a few weeks so we appreciate your indulgence.

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