Posted Sunday, August 27, 2017 12:00 am

A major six-month sidewalk and repaving project, costing approximately $800,000, will start Tuesday, Sept. 5, in downtown Jasper, upgrading access and drainage

Mayor David O’Mary and other officials announced the project Wednesday. Officials gathered for a contract signing that day with Elliott Bulls of Bulls Construction Group, LLC of Birmingham. Engineer Robert Nelson of Nelson Engineering in Gardendale and senior inspector Steve Caldwell, working on behalf of Nelson, were present, as was Councilman Sonny Posey.

O’Mary said as far as need, “you only have to walk down these streets and see these sidewalks,” noting some are uneven and pavers have been removed.

“It’s really going to change the appearance for the better,” O’Mary said.

Nelson, the project engineer for the work, said the work will take place on Second, Third and Fourth Avenues. Second and Third Avenues flank the east and west sides of the Walker County Courthouse, awhile the east side of Jasper City Hall is home to Fourth Avenue. The breakline will be where those streets start to interconnect with 18th Street.

Work will also be done on 19th Street, he said.

“We’ll be tearing out on both sides of the street,” Nelson said. “We’ll actually be tearing out all the existing sidewalk and put back new sidewalk and curb, and try to provide new and additional (Americans With Disability Act) accessibility. We can’t take of all the physical barriers but we are trying to eliminate as many of them as we can.”

Officials said as the sidewalk work is completed on each street, the city will immediately move in to mill up the old asphalt to match the curb lines and pave it. The paving of the four streets as a separate but related project — and, in that case, 18th Street will be included.

Nelson said, “All the curbs have been broken up and filled in over the year with asphalt. They’ve been here for 50 or 60 years.” He said doing the work this way will match the curb and the pavement.

Second Avenue will be the first work done, he said, followed by Fourth Avenue and then Third Avenue. Work on 19th Street will start at the Los Reyes area and move west to the final work on that street coming back to Fourth Avenue.

The sidewalk construction will cost $553,000 under the Bulls contract, Nelson said. About $400,000 in grant money was obtained through Transportation Alternatives Money (TAP) from the Alabama Department of Transportation.

O’Mary said the matching funds likely will come from the General Fund.

The paving contract is about to be let for bids, which will be an additional cost. O’Mary said the city is allocating $1 million for overall paving in downtown, with this section involved in the project likely to take about $200,000 to $300,000 of that money. Bonds were sold about three months ago to raise money for the paving.

Nelson said Bull has given 180 days to do the work, noting the work will be extremely slow, in part due to efforts to help keep downtown businesses operating.

“As he does the work, he is going to try to keep access to the businesses and create as minimal disturbance to them as possible,” he said. “There will be some disturbance. We’ll have concrete trucks. When they are milling the roads, they will have to block the streets.”

Bull is hoping to get completed sooner than six months, Nelson said.

“It is in the contract package he cannot interfere with the Foothills Festival. He has to vacate the area and make sure everything is cleaned up in advance to the Foothills Festival. We realize there will be other events this time of the year. They have to work around the city’s schedule.”

O’Mary said it would cause inconvenience for businesses. “We have several eating establishments in downtown now,” O’Mary said. “You may have to walk across some type of crosswalk or whatever.”

However, he said the inconvenience will be one of short duration. “The finished project is going to be worth it,” he said, noting special events will not be cancelled.

The mayor said Jasper Main Street will also place more trees in downtown after the project is completed, which will add to the atmosphere. He said the trees may not immediately follow the project. “There may be a little gap,” he said.

O’Mary said the project will make the downtown more accessible for the disabled and enhance beautification. “We all know that has value as we try to grow this city,” he said.

The mayor also said the streets downtown have been paved so repeatedly that “a curb really has no value in dealing with water flow.”

The new curbing should flow better to the drain points, he said.

Asked about the Jasper Civic Center area, which floods severely, O’Mary said the council will probably receive at the next work session an engineering plan to “totally revamp” of the drainage area at the civic center. The plan will likely cost $500,000 to $600,000, he said, noting that the council preliminarily is leaning toward the project.

“I would be surprised if that is not put out for bid in the next 60 or 90 days, for sure,” he said, with Posey in agreement. “And then there will be work upstream to divert water from the central drainage, and that takes some of the load.” He said Doctor’s Branch flows from northeast to southwest, with Posey saying it comes through Gamble Park.

“Will it fix everything in the way of flooding? There will be some times where you will still see some floods, but it will eliminate most of the problems,” based on engineering reports, O’Mary said.

He also said constrictions downstream can impact the flow upstream, and he wants to look at ways to clean out areas in the south end of town, to allow water flow to come easier to a tributary of the Warrior River.