San Marco residents and business owners are bracing themselves for a challenging few weeks as they prepare for more detours and partial and total road closures for ongoing construction for the Lasalle Street pump station.
District 5 City Councilmember Joe Carlucci hosted a town hall meeting at the Balis Community Center on Thursday, March 27 to give Haskell representatives an opportunity to inform attendees about the closures, field questions and address concerns.
As construction for the pump station shifts into its second phase, Haskell will need to install a 72-by-48-inch pipe beneath the intersection at San Marco Boulevard and Lasalle Street, which will require the closure of that intersection. Ahead of that, residents can expect a partial road closure to begin in April and last three to four weeks with the total intersection closure occurring immediately after that in May for approximately six to eight weeks.
“We’re going to be working two crews for double shifts, six days a week to try to push this through as quickly as possible, to return this back to the level of service that you guys expect,” said Joe Kantor, Haskell project development director, during his presentation. “Once this closure is complete, we’ll have that major trunk link across the street to the pump station and you’ll start to realize those benefits of increased drainage.”
Kantor and his team members noted that road closure signs will be temporarily installed well ahead of the construction zone to discourage through-traffic from coming down that corridor and police officers will be on-site to direct drivers during peak traffic times.
Detours Ahead
A high-level map detailing the intersection closure also shows various one- and two-way detours for residents, businesses and through-traffic. Directing traffic away from the intersection, the main detour will be a two-way route from San Marco Boulevard at Riviera Street to Hendricks Avenue by way of Landon Avenue, then coming out onto Nira Street.
The local detour for businesses and residents in the immediate area surrounding the intersection will be a one-way route along Lasalle Street, Cedar Street, Larue Avenue, Riviera Street and River Road.
Kantor noted that access to businesses will be maintained, and signage installed to inform drivers that area businesses are open during construction.
Following Kantor’s presentation, several people shared significant feedback with Carlucci and the Haskell team, including fears about the planned detours down residential streets, questions about how the closures could impact access to their homes or businesses and frustrations about damage some said has been caused by the construction.
Katie McNeal lives on Landon Avenue, and is very concerned about the detour down her road.
“People are driving very dangerously,” McNeal told Carlucci and the Haskell team. “…Our street is a residential street, but it’s 30 miles per hour. I need this speed limit to be decreased, at least for the duration of this project, to either 25 or 20 miles per hour, I need temporary speed bumps and police presence, otherwise someone is going to get seriously hurt with this detour with the amount of traffic that can be sent down Landon Avenue.”
Carlucci said he was in total agreement with the installation of speed bumps, either temporary or permanent, for the residents on Landon Avenue, who, according to McNeal, had already begun the process of requesting permanent speed bumps for their street.
“We will 100% pull that out of the gauntlet that it’s in [and] we will pay for permanent speed bumps, my office will pay for permanent speed bumps on your streets,” Carlucci said. “Depending on where it’s at in the process, it doesn’t actually take that long, to be honest, so I would love it if those could get put in in a week.”
Though many are concerned about the impact this temporary closure will have on their businesses and lives, meeting attendees acknowledged this is a critical project for San Marco and residents are anxious to see the pump station come online.
Following the meeting, Carlucci said he was encouraged by the input gathered from the community.
“I heard a lot of great feedback tonight,” Carlucci. “I like that because then, we’re at the beginning stage of it, so to speak, so we can still make those changes to address their feedback before their issues actually become reality.”
