Main Street: It’s not pretty

By AMY SATTERWHITE / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Officials announced completion of major demolition work in the first phase of the Main Street project and said water line work is planned in the next few weeks. (Amy Satterwhite photo)

Major demolition at the first stretch of the Main Street project was completed this week after crews spent just days actively demolishing streets and sidewalks.

City crews, acting as demolition subcontractors to save public money, were mostly complete with phase one demolition on Main Street between Chancery Street and Court Square by Wednesday.

Plans are for city workers to return to the phase one site only as needed, Public Works director Bill Brock said, adding plans are for city crews to provide more demolition work at Court Square and further east as work progresses toward the downtown fire station.

Work will appear to slow in the near future as crews prepare for upcoming underground infrastructure work, officials said.

“They’ll be up here working, but it just won’t be seen,” Brock said. “It will all be underground.”

Temporary sidewalks have been put in place to allow access to storefronts, and Main Street looked nothing like it used to Friday as phase one was reduced to a mixture of dirt, gravel sidewalks and miscellaneous holes, including the area in front of Cumberland Bank.

Although some speculated the bank might stay open during construction, the main office on Main Street is staying open until Sept. 10, according to a sign posted at the bank’s front door. That confirms what bank officials had previously announced, which was that they intended to move to the Plaza Shopping Center and create a full-service bank there.

As far as upcoming work, Apex Construction site superintendent Frank Randolph said Friday workers are making plans for water line work to begin.

That work is being performed by subcontractor Jimmy Broom, whose crews were on site Wednesday making preparations as the city crews were preparing to scale down their presence.

“Next week, we’ll be doing that water line and getting elevations resolved,” Broom said Friday. “We’re going to lay the water line all the way up to the end of phase one, test it and come back and start laying services so we can swap everything over,” he said.

An anticipated one-lane closure of the roadway on Main Street located out of phase one, east of Court Square to near the downtown fire station, is planned in about two weeks in conjunction with that water line work, he also said.

Construction officials said in a bi-weekly progress meeting Wednesday they were waiting on state approval of a specific gravel for back fill material, and Randolph said Friday he hoped those issues would be resolved tomorrow.

In addition to new water lines, new sewer lines and a new storm system are planned.