Sewer construction to cause closures at 20th and Connecticut

(From the City of Joplin)

Sanitary sewer construction efforts are gearing up on East 20th Street, as part of an overall program that includes the rehabilitation/replacement of approximately 328,000 linear feet of sanitary sewer main and associated manholes across the tornado impacted areas.

A project starting this week, with approximately one mile of pipe replacement, will create various lane closures to the west of 20th and Connecticut and to the north through 18th and St. Louis, 15th and Massachusetts and across Murphy Boulevard, so that the new pipe can connect to the existing trunk line in Murphy Boulevard Park.

The biggest impact to travelers and local residents is expected to occur initially when the north side of the intersection of 20th and Connecticut Avenue is closed entirely in order to facilitate work on deep sanitary sewer lines. Detours will be provided during the anticipated week-long closure, weather permitting. The work in the vicinity of the 20th and Connecticut intersection should be completed by mid to late July, if weather permits.

Work along 20th Street includes relocating the sewer main from underneath pavement to the greenway north of the street. “This is being done to lower future maintenance costs, improve the safety of those performing maintenance, and to reduce the burden to the City and its tax payers for costs and nuisances associated with manhole lids in driving lanes,” said Chris Parker, sanitary sewer engineer with the City.

“Also, with the 20th Street overpass bridge opening in late summer, the City staff wanted to complete this portion of work first in order for drivers to experience as long a period of uninterrupted travel as possible, before future construction projects on 20th Street begin in 2017,” Parker added.

Allgeier, Martin and Associates, Inc. is the design engineering firm and Rosetta Construction is the contractor for this portion of work on 20th Street. The $1.1 million project is funded through the Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery program from HUD.
With $83 million worth of infrastructure work planned in the recovery area over the next few years, City staff are working closely with contracted engineering firms and construction companies to diligently schedule and stage numerous projects so as not to create congestion and traffic delays in any one part of the area. In addition, the funds from CDGB-DR are provided through a reimbursement process, so the City has to have funding in place for the work to be completed, and then file for reimbursement dollars for the project.

“There are many people at the table representing various stages of work that goes into any one of the multiple infrastructure properties,” said Troy Bolander, Director of Planning, Development and Neighborhood Services. “Planning the staging of each construction phase and determining the funding resources takes much collaboration and coordination. All of this takes a great deal of time, but we’re to the point that the public is going to see a lot of construction over the next few years.”

To learn more about the various projects, and to track their progress, the public can access a dashboard with all projects listed along with the locations, scope of work, costs and timelines by going to www.joplinmo.org/cdbg-dr



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