Downtown construction project manager Corey Merrigan, who works for Con-Struct, is pleased with how work is progressing.
“I think we’re ahead of schedule in the overall picture. If we can keep the sun shining (progress will continue),” he said today.
Overall, good weather is essential as workers prepare for the paving of Blocks 2 and 3 (J to K and K to Lincolnway) on Sixth Street.
Mainline (the traveled portion of the street) paving is set to happen next Thursday and Friday if the weather cooperates. After the mainline paving has time to cure, the paving of parking areas in those blocks will follow.
“We should have the mainline and parking area for those two blocks completed by Aug. 1,” said Shawn Cole, Nevada’s building and zoning administrator.
Workers were continuing to lay the rock subbase on Sixth Street today.
This week also saw the start of construction work on the first sidestreet, J Avenue, from Sixth Street through the intersection of Fifth Street (pictured below).
Cole explained why that work was started before the other blocks of Sixth Street were completed.
“Our original schedule and plans were thrown awry when we came in to do Block 3 early,” he said.
As residents may recall, with businesses already struggling because of the pandemic, it made sense to do Block 3 early so those businesses wouldn’t have to deal with the pandemic this year and construction next year.
Cole said they started on J Avenue this week to try to get the sidestreet work back on schedule. He said workers would also be moving the brick stockpile (pictured below) to Block 2 to open more parking spaces in Block 1 for people needing to get to businesses on the west side of Block 2.
The reason for moving work into the intersection of Fifth Street, Cole said, is to correct an infrastructure issue that affects Central Presbyterian Church.
Back when the church remodeled, they added sump pumps for their basement, but there weren’t good collector lines for those pumps.
“One thing we try to do, as part of this extensive project, is fix other infrastructure issues that we can.”
