State Street update: City, Crestline host status meeting on Wednesday

City Public Works and representatives of the contractor, Crestline Construction, will give a project status update and listen to concerns, according to Gary Lindemyer, project inspector with public works.

The city will provide information on important dates and on the planned construction of public restrooms at Third and State streets.

Work will start soon on the restrooms, for which the city has budgeted $220,000 from the Urban Renewal budget.

The city and contractor will also discuss the possibility of continuing sidewalk work through the summer.

“The way it is now, we won’t finish the curb and gutters west to Sixth Street,” by June 1, the contractual deadline completing the work, Lindemeyer said.

“The contractor is only allowed to have minimal activity during the summer months, and we have always interpreted minimal activity to include curb and gutter and doing sidewalk work, but we want to make sure we get input from the businesses that are affected before we continue that work,” Lindemyer said.

“No streets would be closed, and we’re looking at working on a block at a time and only one side of the street at a time,” during summer curb and gutter work, he said.

The alternative is to delay until after Labor Day the installation of the curbs, gutters and sidewalks from Third to Sixth.

“The plan is to continue the work through the summer at this point but we will see what feedback we get,” Lindemyer said.

The city is scheduled to complete curb, gutter and sidewalks on Front and Oak Streets, and on State Street from Front to Third by June 1, along with the first of two layers of asphalt. Depending on the weather, the crews will start pouring asphalt in mid-May.

Lindemyer also said that all State Street parking will be available during Blossom Festival weekends, starting April 12.

He said the city parking lot on the south side of State between Front and First streets will be available in the summer. Crews are busy installing storm drains on the lot, which has been used for storage of pipes and heavy equipment used in the project.

“Our goal is to get the trenching done so we can get the big equipment off the site,” Lindemyer said. “Mainly what’s left is the final (stormwater) connections at each end of the lot,” he said.

The linear “joint” trenches that have dominated excavations along State Street are “80 percent done,” Lindemyer said. The joint trenches are for dry utilities such as electronics and fiber optics.

When the project is done, all overhead wires on State Street will be gone.