Friday, March 2, 2007
Installation of a new waterline will disrupt parking and traffic on parts of Massachusetts Street downtown this spring and summer, but the work should be wrapped up by early fall.
City staff, downtown business owners and an outside consulting firm decided Thursday morning on a timetable for the construction to present to the city commission.
According to the plan, work would begin in mid-April to install the waterline on Massachusetts Street from North Park to 11th streets in hopes that section would be finished by the weekend of commencement, which takes place May 20.
A pedestrian waits to cross Massachusetts Street near Seventh Street last Thursday afternoon. Waterline construction on Massachusetts Street began in late-May and is planned for completion by mid-September.
Immediately after commencement, work would begin on Massachusetts Street from 11th to Ninth streets. The city hopes to be done with this section by early September, in time for the start of the football season.
The project is a continuation of the waterline replacement that limited parking and traffic on Massachusetts Street from Seventh to Ninth streets last summer. The project began in other downtown areas two years ago.
Philip Ciesielski, city utilities engineer, said the city and downtown business owners were pleased with the pace of last year’s work.
“We are really hoping to just recreate the success we had last year,” he said.
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The project is a continuation of the waterline replacement that limited parking and traffic on Massachusetts Street from Seventh to Ninth streets last summer.
Ciesielski said the waterline being replaced was more than 120 years old. He said the new lines would make it easier for businesses to install fire sprinkler systems.
Tom Wilkerson, owner of Jayhawk Spirit, 935 Massachusetts St., said he understood the need for a new waterline, even if it would hurt his business this summer.
“We’ve watched the last two summers, knowing our turn was going to come,” he said. “We’ll weather this little storm and hope that our patrons still come down and seek us out.”
Bob Schumm, owner of Buffalo Bob’s Smokehouse, 719 Massachusetts St., has led downtown business owners in their negotiations with the city about the waterline project. Last summer’s construction took place directly in front of his restaurant.
He said his sales last summer took a 30 percent dive when the construction began, but they recovered as the summer progressed to a level about 10 percent lower than usual. He said he would probably feel an effect this summer as well, though no work would be done on his street.
“What happens to downtown happens to all of us, good and bad,” Schumm said.
The plan will go before the city commission Tuesday for approval.
Kansan staff writer Matt Erickson can be contacted at merickson@kansan.com.
— Edited by Kelly Lanigan
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