Kenwood street project to begin this week

Next week will see the beginning of the next major street project for Siloam Springs, according to a press release from the city on Thursday. Starting Wednesday, July 12, Kenwood Street from Dogwood to Henegar will be closed to through traffic during parts of a $1.2 million project that will widen the street and aim to address drainage concerns in the area.

The first phase of the project will see city crews creating street cuts in order to relocate the sewer lines that run under the street, said Siloam Springs Public Works Director Steve Gorszczyk. After the sewer lines have been moved, crews will turn their focus to moving water lines out of the way.

Utilities will have to be moved because the city plans to install a storm sewer under the new street, which will take up the space currently occupied by the drainage ditches alongside Kenwood Street, Gorszczyk said.

Once the utilities are moved out of the way, city crews will start the process of replacing old pavement with new pavement.

Gorszczyk said that the entire project should take a year, though the exact timeline will vary depending on several factors, including amount of rainfall and snowfall. A snowy winter could delay the project, as workers will be unable to make progress in the snow.

In the meantime, the city hopes to close one block at a time to through traffic, and not close the entire stretch of street. While there are other outlets for most residents along Kenwood, Gorszczyk said there are several cul-de-sacs that will need consideration.

"The idea is not to close the entire stretch of street," Gorszczyk said.

One of main points of the project will be to mitigate storm drainage problems, as flooding issues had been previously observed to the south of Kenwood. The project will change the way water crosses the street and flows away from Kenwood, Gorszczyk said.

In addition, the city hopes that the removal of the drainage ditches will make the street safer for motorists.

"When you drive that street, that's a deep ditch," Gorszczyk said.

Siloam Springs will be completing the $1.2 million project in-house, without using contractors. If the city had contracted the project out, Gorszczyk estimates that the cost would have been doubled or even tripled.

The Kenwood project has been years in the making, and Gorszczyk said the city is finally at a place where it has the manpower, budget and equipment to execute the plans. It took a few years to accumulate all of the necessary equipment for the project, some of which has already paid for itself on other projects, Gorszczyk said.

The city wanted to start work earlier in the year, but efforts were delayed as the city has been waiting for state approval until just a couple weeks ago. City officials are still hoping to get the necessary permissions from a property owner to extend Kenwood to Carl Street instead of its current termination on U.S. Highway 412.

General News on 07/09/2017