43
Downtown drivers, beware: Federal St. project to begin
Other ongoing downtown projects have closed a bridge and part of Phelps Street.
YOUNGSTOWN — It’s about to get a little more challenging for those driving downtown.
A $474,684 improvement project to West Federal Street between Fifth Avenue and South Phelps Street is going to begin next week.
With the project comes a parking ban there, effective Wednesday, said Charles T. Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public works department.
As the project progresses, there will likely be lane restrictions at times — with the current parking spot locations needed for moving traffic, Shasho said.
The street will remain open to motorists during the project, expected to be finished by August, Shasho said.
This work will begin while two other major projects in downtown, and another near downtown, are causing traffic congestion at times.
The city doesn’t have the ability to postpone the West Federal Street project, Shasho said.
About 70 percent of the project’s cost comes from the state. With the state funding comes a deadline of mid-September from the state to get the project finished or lose the money, Shasho said.
The city already received an extension on the deadline from the state, and another wouldn’t likely be approved, Shasho said.
That doesn’t leave the city with the option of further postponing the work until the bridge and Phelps Street projects are done, he said.
“It’s an inconvenience, but it can’t be helped,” Shasho said.
The West Federal Street project includes the removal of 25 percent of the medians, and nine of the 22 trees in those medians between Fifth Avenue and Phelps Street.
Also, that section of West Federal will be paved for the first time in about 20 years, and parking spots added in and near that area.
The largest of the three downtown improvement projects is to the Spring Common Bridge. It is one of the main entrances from the city’s West Side to downtown.
That $5.2 million bridge project, being handled by Mahoning County, is expected to be done by November, but be reopened to traffic by about July. It’s been closed to motorists since January.
The bridge connects Mahoning Avenue, over the Mahoning River, from the West Side to Fifth Avenue and West Federal Street. That’s the west beginning point of the West Federal improvement project.
Near the project’s eastern point, the city is continuing to replace a collapsed brick sewer line on South Phelps Street. That street remains closed to traffic between West Boardman and West Front streets. It’s been closed since February.
Traffic on West Front is restricted to one lane in each direction, but that work should be done in about a week, Shasho said.
The city has worked on the 110-year-old sanitary and storm sewer line between West Federal and West Front streets since the fall.
That entire stretch of South Phelps Street will be paved in mid-May and reopened to traffic by then, Shasho said.
The final cost of the Phelps project isn’t known, but it should be at least $250,000. [The city has already paid $137,238 for the work between West Federal and West Boardman streets.]
Also, the Ohio Department of Transportation is spending $2.4 million on an improvement project to the Market Street bridge, a short distance from the West Front Street work site.
The state project has reduced traffic to one lane in both directions about one-quarter of a mile south of the bridge to Pyatt Street. The project is expected to be done by September.
skolnick@vindy.com