Wick Avenue project will be a model for others, city officials say

By David Skolnick | September 16, 2016 at 12:10a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The $4.4 million improvement project on Wick Avenue will be the model for future work on Youngstown’s main corridors, city officials say.

“It’s a look we can try to duplicate in other areas,” said Mayor John A. McNally.

The project along Wick Avenue from Wood Street to McGuffey Road will take a year to complete. The work will start about Sept. 26, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public-works department.

Officials with the city, Youngstown State University, Youngstown CityScape and stakeholders on that stretch of road – including the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, the Butler Institute of American Art, St. John’s Episcopal Church and the Mahoning Valley Historical Society – had a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday.

The project includes paving, burying utility wires, widening sidewalks, new lighting, replacing a sewer line, replacing two waterlines with one, reducing the three-lane road to one in each direction with the middle being a turning lane, and new signs.

“It will be a transformative project for our city,” said Sharon Letson, CityScape’s executive director.

“It will be transformative when the city looks to do other corridor projects. I hope we’ve raised the bar for city projects.”

The project will cause traffic tie-ups, and at times portions of the roadway will be closed.

“That’s part of the deal,” YSU President Jim Tressel said.

“There are going to be some street stoppages, but we’re going to get through it.”

In the end, “it’s going to be a spectacular thoroughfare,” he said.

The first phase of the project will be to replace the waterline between Wood Street and Rayen Avenue, Shasho said.

The waterline replacements from Wood Street to McGuffey Road will be done in a month or two, followed by replacing the sewer line, which will take about two months, he said.

That underground work as well as moving the utility poles, between Rayen Avenue and the Madison Avenue Expressway access roads, will occur regardless of the weather conditions, Shasho said.

Next spring and summer, the road resurfacing and sidewalk improvements will be done, he said.

“It’s going to look amazing,” Shasho said. “It will be an infrastructure system that will last 100 years.”