With the North Third Street Improvement Project undergoing finishing touches, the City of Wilmington will begin a new pair of projects Wednesday to address flooding on streets downtown.
Motorists can expect traffic detours, but businesses will remain accessible, said a bulletin from the city.
In the longer of the two projects, crews will work into mid-April to replace the drainage system at the intersection of Front and Walnut streets, next to Cape Fear Community College. A release from the city said Walnut Street will close between Front and Water streets for the first part of the task. Later in the project, the intersection of Front and Walnut will close.
In the second project, expected to run through mid-March, workers will replace the drainage system at the intersection of Water and Ann streets, next to Chandler’s Wharf. That intersection will remain closed for a majority of the period, while Ann Street between Water and Front streets will close for a lesser portion.
“Both (drainage system replacements) will alleviate flooding in the vicinity and protect the integrity of the street during heavy rains,” the city explained in its release.
“The timing of both projects is intentionally occurring during the least busy time of year for downtown merchants,” the city added. “The city is reaching out to affected merchants in a number of ways to keep them informed.”
City employees, not contractors, will perform the work, funded through the city’s operating budget.
City spokesman Dylan Lee said Monday the entire stormwater maintenance budget for fiscal 2012-2013 is $3.4 million. That funds maintenance of the city’s entire public drainage system, including open drainage components like ditches and ponds and closed systems like those now under construction downtown.
Click here for more information on the city’s stormwater system.
In other news, the city is finalizing the $10.4 million North Third Street Improvement Project with some clean-up and landscaping. The 18-month undertaking overhauled the thoroughfare with a new layer of asphalt, new water and sewer lines, new lamp posts and buried power cables to rid from sight the wooden poles and lines that used to hang overhead. Meant to create a North Third Street considered more inviting and aesthetically pleasing to the public, the project stretched from the road’s intersection with Market Street to the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.
