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Wick Avenue headache should be over by mid-September
YOUNGSTOWN
The Wick Avenue improvement project, that has caused headaches along one of the city’s main corridors for the past 10-plus months, should be finished by mid-September, a few weeks ahead of schedule.
“For a downtown project, it’s gone relatively smooth,” said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works. “We’ve come across some underground utilities that were not on the map or in places not shown on the map. There aren’t good records on them because of their age. Anytime you’re digging downtown, something like this is going to hold you up.”
But the project, which started in late September 2016 and was to take a year to complete, is a little ahead of schedule despite the utility issues, Shasho said.
The work is being done on Wick Avenue from Wood Street to McGuffey Road.
The traffic restrictions have been inconvenient, he said, but will be worth the trouble because the work greatly improves the road.
On Thursday, the board of control approved $195,119 in increases to the project for additional road improvements between Wood Street and Rayen Avenue and a change in the light poles on Wick Avenue.
The total cost of the work is $4,402,890 with Marucci & Gaffney of Youngstown serving as the project’s general contractor.
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.