He said because the road is so populated with homes and businesses and they need to work around those, they don’t expect the project to be complete until October 2019.
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“If there needs to be a closure while they do some work directly in front of a business or on their driveway we’ll coordinate with each business as we go through there, to do it at a time that’s not disruptive to them,” he said. “Consequently we can’t move real fast through a lot of this because there will be a lot of little pieces as we go.”
In some spots along the narrow stretch between West Chester Road in Olde West Chester and Interstate 75 the road already almost touches front stoops, but the engineer’s office says there is room to expand it to four lanes.
Schwiederman said there will be two northbound lanes and one southbound with a turn lane in between. When the crews arrive in June they will start widening the bridge on Cincinnati Dayton Road and then move into widening the east side of the road from the bridge north to Station Road.
Marc Henn, president of Harvest Financial Advisors, said all the business owners are looking forward to the project — despite construction chaos — because they know the finished product is going to be a much more inviting Olde West Chester. He said the pocket park, decorative street lamps, sidewalks, trees and possibly benches will give the area a homey feel, much like Olde Montgomery in Hamilton County.
“The business owners along the street here have been involved in wanting to really have a nice looking Olde West Chester for people to come and visit…,” Henn said. “There’s going to be a lot of things beyond just expanding the road out of this construction that we get to enjoy, I guess the aesthetic value in what the finished product is going to be.”
After the St. John’s Festival in August, Station Road will be closed to replace the bridge there and continue widening the east side of the road. Crews will pause in the fall to complete utility relocation and resume in earnest next spring, according to the engineer’s office.
County Engineer Greg Wilkens said they originally planned to have crews work overnight but switched gears on that idea.
“There are still residents living there, and that’s pretty disruptive,” said County Engineer Greg Wilkens. “We were looking for input, and I think the input that came back is that’s pretty disruptive, even though I think from a construction viewpoint it would have been a little quicker.”
Construction hours can be from 7 to 9 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 to 9 p.m. Sundays. Lane restrictions are not allowed between 7 and 8:30 a.m. or 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
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The project is commencing ahead of schedule because right-of-way acquisition was easier than anticipated. The county spent $381,500 acquiring property for the project.
Javed Iqbal, who just bought Halls Carry-Out about a month ago said the previous owner did not warn him about the construction that was about to happen. He said it might be difficult during construction but on the other hand he might be able to siphon some business from two other liquor stores in the area, because people might not want to fight the construction to get to them.
“I always think positive you know,” he said. “I think maybe it is going to help me for whoever doesn’t want to go farther because… you never know.”
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