Residents wondering when those orange barrels will finally disappear from “Old” Grand Avenue, have no fear—the street should be open by the end of the month.
Crews will begin paving the road this week, says Schofield Public Works Administrator Mark Thuot. The $978,000 Wisconsin Department of Transportation project will get its road striping on Aug. 26, Thuot says, capping off nearly a year of construction on the road connecting Grand Avenue where it splits with Bus. 51 to Schofield Avenue.
What took so long? The reconstruction is two separate projects. Schofield had a state grant to update the utilities under Grand Avenue, and had to use the grant before December 2015. The DOT was slated to resurface the street in 2016, so they were hoping to align the two projects as close as possible.
The DOT originally slated the resurfacing to be bid in July, which meant the project wouldn’t have started until August, further angering residents. Schofield officials lobbied to get the bid date moved back to May, allowing the project to start in June, Thuot says.
In the meantime, they’ve gotten plenty of calls about the road project. “It has been torn up for a long time,” Thuot says. “Everyone is anxious to get that road into fully functional operation.”
