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Vine Street work to commence Monday
Vine Street property owner Tim Shinn (left) points to a spot on the construction drawings as he questions City Engineer Garth Hughes about an element of the project during a meeting on the streetscape plan Thursday afternoon at City Hall.
Weather permitting, the final streetscape project of the City of Greencastle Stellar Communities grant will get under way on Monday.
Vine Street -- between Washington and Seminary streets -- is scheduled to undergo a transformation between now and Oct. 1 with new sidewalks and pavement and improved drainage conditions throughout the corridor.
Garth Hughes of Civil Engineering Consultants called it "an exciting day for Greencastle" as he addressed area residents and businesses owners interested in the project at City Hall Thursday afternoon.
"We've waited a couple of years for this," Hughes said. "This is the last piece of the roadway construction puzzle."
The project will begin innocently enough next week with work focusing on the alley that runs east and west south of the post office. That will not necessitate any massive street closings at present.
"We're not coming in here and ripping everything out," Jeff Beaton, project manager for Schutt-Lookabill Co, Indianapolis, assured, noting that after drainage and repaving of the alley is finished, the project will move south to the Seminary Street end of the construction zone.
Beaton projected it will be 6-8 weeks before his crews begin tearing out the pavement, however.
When the street is finally closed, Vine will be shut down from Seminary to Washington, Beaton said. Poplar and Walnut streets, however, will be kept open "for the time being" as east-west routes through the area.
"We're trying to close off the constant flow of traffic trying to go north and south on Vine Street," Beaton said, adding that "safety for everybody, including our own employees, is No. 1 for us."
Rather than close the work zone totally for 4-6 months, Beaton said it is his intent to make the disruption "as minimal to everybody as we can."
Of course, Hughes interjected, "there will still be some inconvenience."
Previously, Mayor Sue Murray pointed to "the challenge" of providing access to the post office, library, apartments, Eitel's Florist and Hammer and Co. CPAs -- all on or around South Vine Street -- during five or six months of construction.
Parking spaces on Vine Street that will be put on hold during construction are seen being replaced by spaces in the old Domino's lot and the new parking lot at Walnut and Indiana streets, which is expected to get its final asphalt coating and striping next week, weather permitting.
Once the Vine Street project is done, however, there no longer will be parking on the west side of the street between Washington Street and the Vine Street parking lot. Parking along there will shift to the east side of the street, along the side of the Masonic Temple, Hughes said.
"We end up with net-zero," Hughes responded to a question about parking spaces lost.
Meanwhile, both Poplar and Walnut streets will temporarily become two-way streets through the work zone -- not immediately, at least four weeks into the project, city officials said. That involves Walnut, from Vine to College, and Poplar, from Indiana to College. At that time, no parking will be allowed along the north side of Walnut or the south side of Poplar in those areas.
As the third of three streetscapes being redone under the City of Greencastle's Stellar Grant program, Vine Street stands to be a challenging effort. It already has encountered delays due to rebidding the project.
The timetable for Vine Street was expected to be identical to Indiana Street last summer. However, the delays have made that impossible.
The contractor must be done by Oct. 1, according to the contract with new sidewalks being finished by Sept. 30. The hope was the project could be complete as close to the start of classes at DePauw University as possible. Aug. 30 had been one target date before the delays in the bidding process.
"Vine Street is a very important corridor linking DePauw to the downtown," Hughes said, "that's why it's being improved."
He explained that the pavement is aging and the sidewalks are crumbling, thus necessitating replacement, while beautification of the corridor will "make it more attractive to help bring people downtown."
The project also should "really improve the drainage for downtown Greencastle," Hughes added.
The initial city streetscape project was Washington Street -- between Indiana and Bloomington streets -- which began July 26, 2013 and was completed in November 2013.
South Indiana Street streetscape work commenced April 12, 2014 and ended last August just as DePauw University students were returning to campus.