Well we have seen significant change in our community, our country and the globe in the last two weeks, unprecedented change. This change has impacted all of the City’s construction projects except one so far, the “North Shore Reconstruction Project”.
As many of you may know, this project is an MDOT project meaning that both communities received state or federal funds to reconstruct the road. MDOT holds a contract with the contractor (Milbocker) and each municipality holds a contract with MDOT. While this may sound convoluted to some, it’s been the way for a long time. With that said, MDOT is very hands off with a significant portion of the project specifics and allows the communities to rebuild the road to the needs of the community. By all means, projects like these are a joint venture to utilize state and federal funds. Therefore, the state has jurisdiction over the contractor officially and MDOT has made a determination state wide that all MDOT projects meet the qualifications of critical infrastructure. This opinion isn’t shared by all municipalities. The City of Grand Haven and the City of Ferrysburg have been in constant contact with MDOT and have had numerous conversations regarding the necessity to continue this project.
With all that background information hopefully clearly conveyed, be aware that the contractor is scheduled to continue working on this project at this time. Of course this could change at any moment and please don’t be concerned if it does. The contractor would be required to secure the site and continue to make it safe during any required shut down. Any changes in this will be quickly communicated to everyone.
The construction schedule, as planned currently is as follows:
- Week of March 23 – 27
- Milbocker started construction of the retaining wall located at North Beach County Park. They also tackled a few smaller retaining walls in the Ferrysburg portion of the project
- Week of March 30 – April 3
- Milbocker will pour the concrete curb and gutter near the north end of the project on either side of the road. They will also pour a couple of the concrete driveway approaches in that section. Milbocker will then begin removing the full depth pavement (asphalt and concrete) from that portion of Piney Point from North Shore Drive to about 250’ east of North Shore Drive, or to near the top of the hill. They will replace what they remove with gravel like they did on North Shore Drive. This will likely take them the rest of next week.
- Week of April 6 – 10
- Milbocker will move back to North Shore Drive to prepare driveways. They are not going to work on the concrete driveways until after the 1st course of asphalt is down. They may remove along the edge, but they will not remove the entire concrete driveways until they are ready to pour them. They will, however, be removing and preparing the asphalt driveways. This is to prepare them to be paved immediately after the base course of asphalt. The remainder of Piney Point will be milled and removed shortly before paving which is still planned for the week of April 20.
- Week of April 13 – 17
- Milbocker is still planning on working on driveways in preparation of asphalt.
Driveway Reconstruction
When the concrete driveways are reconstructed, no traffic will be allowed on the driveways for up to seven (7) days. Those driveways that are asphalt will remain asphalt. Again, those will be paved when the road is re-paved. The asphalt driveways will remain gravel in the interim.
Traffic Control
The site will begin to have lane closures and shoulder closures again. These closures should be much less intrusive as they are working on the side of the road. Please use caution as you traverse the construction site.
Paving
The current predictions continue to be that Milbocker’s paving contractor, Michigan Paving, will be on site April 20th to begin paving operations. This, of course, is very weather dependent and now COVID-19 dependent. Our current weather pattern should keep us on that schedule.