Progress was announced Monday as a major street in Rhinelander is under going a multi-year nearly $18 million dollar upgrade.
The city began upgrading Stevens Street north of the downtown and eventually will re-do all of it to the Highway 17 bypass.
Project Engineer Mark Barden says good progress has been made...
"...There will be striping tomorrow, we have a little more concrete work to finish up on Thursday. The intent is, weather dependent, to have Stevens Street open from Frederick Street through Timber(Drive) with the Timber intersection open by Friday...."
Barden says property owners had been notified to not drive over the concrete work, but that ban has been lifted. Barden says final paving will wait until next year...
"...We went through this with the downtown. We only put in the binder course of asphalt. We wait until next year to put down the surface course. What people are going to see out there is an asphalt wedge that goes up to the curb. There will be water in the streets because it doesn't have access to the inlets. It's not a design flaw, it's exactly how we plan on doing that..."
Barden says they won't finish the paving until next year as the like to have the work settle for a time to see if there are issues that need to be fixed before they put the final paving down.
The downtown Rhinelander 'Streetscape' rebuild was underway in 2016 and 2017 and has finished. The work being done is an entire rebuild of Stevens St., north of the downtown from sidewalk to sidewalk, including the underground utilities.
