Saturday, January 24, 2015
By ROBERT CONNELLY
rconnelly@vindy.com
CANFIELD
The replacement of the U.S. Route 224 bridge over state Route 11 will begin in early March.
The project originally was slated to start in the fall of 2014, but was pushed back until the spring. The work will be done by A.P. O’Horo Co. of Youngstown at a cost of an estimated $5.4 million. The project is expected to run from March to October and mirror the bridge project in Boardman at U.S. Route 224 and Interstate 680 that was completed last year.
Brent Kovacs, a spokesman for the Ohio
Department of Transportation, said the project will stop the week before, the week of and the week after the Canfield Fair. “Raccoon Road will be completely open for the fair, but 224 over 11 will be restricted to one lane in each direction,” Kovacs said.
Construction will widen Raccoon Road for a dedicated left turn lane with a straight/right turn lane. Now there is a right turn lane and a straight/left turn lane at Raccoon Road and U.S. Route 224.
Crews also will add a dedicated left turn lane onto the southbound Route 11 ramp at 224. Now there is one left turn lane, a straight/left turn lane and a dedicated right turn lane at that light.
Once finished, that means there will be two dedicated left turn lanes, a straight only and a dedicated right turn lane.
Craig Myers, Canfield Fair Board president, said the board has known about the project “for some time.” He said the board always works with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Mahoning County sheriff and ODOT for traffic control and will get the word out about alternative routes. The fair is Sept. 2-7 this year.
“If there is an issue, we will just have to do a better job of getting signage out,” he said. “There’s several alternative routes, and, depending on different parts of the day, you try to get [fair patrons] in in different ways.”
Businesses near the interchange are worried about customers coming in over the next few months.
Diane Laudo works at Curiosity Shop, 584 E. Main St., in a strip mall that features a lot of small businesses. The business has been in Canfield for 14 years.
“I have a lot [of customers] that come up from 11, 11 southbound, a lot from Boardman,” she said. “It’s going to definitely impact us, I’m sure.”
In the same strip mall is Zenobia, which offers Middle Eastern cuisine. “It’s going to affect the area a lot, especially when they do the bridge — oh my gosh — it’s going to be tough business,” said Izdihar Mansour, the restaurant’s owner.
She said she has had the business for six years and her customers come from all over the Mahoning Valley and even from Pennsylvania. “It’s going to be hard,” Mansour said.
Miner’s Tractor Sales Inc., 611 E. Main St., sits near the interchange and has had to make changes to its inventory that motorists can see while driving past. That’s because the landlord of the property has given some space to the construction effort, causing Miner’s to take down its cement sign that motorists could see.
“It’s my busy time, and I know we’re going to lose business,” said owner Nichole Miner. She said the company has been there for seven years, but a tractor sales company has been at the location for 30 years. She had to move used vehicles for sale to the rear to make way for the upcoming construction.
“I have tractors out back I can’t even showcase,” she said. “Come March, all my landscapers aren’t going to be happy — and that’s my busy time.”
Miner also noted that it already is difficult to get out of one of two driveways in the business’s parking lot. As construction progresses, ODOT crews will use one drive for the first phase and the other one during the second phase.
In the next building over from Miner’s is Zenith Systems, formerly known as Geller Electric. Dan Booth said it won’t affect the business much because it has electricians come into the office and then go meet with customers. He said since workers are paid by the hour, workers stuck in traffic would cost more since they would have to work longer hours.
“When we were trying to get out of here, it took two lights’ [time],” he said. “It’s going to be like Canfield Fair 24/7.”