Main Street on schedule to open next month
Published 10:19 am Friday, October 3, 2014
North Main Street will soon be open, according to city officials.
Construction workers will begin to pave concrete this week on Main Street from First to Eighth Avenues. If all goes well, the roadway will be reopened in November, according to Public Works Director Steven Lang.
The roadway is just part of the overall North Main Flood Control Project, which is set to wrap up next July. Lang said a majority of the project’s construction has been completed and workers will finish landscaping and other touch-ups this spring.
“There’s just a lot of planning that’s involved with a 10-12 month project like this, and it’s important the contractor stay on course the entire schedule to meet the deadline,” Lang said. “It all starts to come together as you have to meet deadlines.”
The project was designed to create Austin’s new “invisible wall” along the downtown portion of the Cedar River. The wall is a series of aluminum stop logs that can be stacked up to three feet past the high-water mark from the record 2004 flood.
The wall will be about 7 feet higher than North Main Street’s current elevation, according to Lang.
To account for the difference, North Main Street from the Austin Municipal Pool to Eighth Avenue will be raised about two feet.
The permanent wall will be constructed two feet higher than that, and the invisible wall will make up the difference.
The project will wrap up once city officials finish paperwork regarding a $5 million grant from the Economic Development Association, but work should be done next summer if workers can keep on schedule.
“Nothing is guaranteed that it’s all going to come together,” Lang said. “But we’ve got a plan to finish.”