Vehicles of all shapes, colors and sizes should be rolling from one end of Hutchinson to the other along a $30 million ribbon of concrete by the end of this week.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for 10 a.m. Friday (Sept. 28), west of California Street. Traffic barricades are expected to be removed by late afternoon. People attending the ribbon-cutting should park at the Hutch Bowl lot.
Kelly Brunkhorst has served as the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s project engineer on a project that stretched more than 13 months over two construction seasons. On Tuesday, she went over the final list of work that is being completed this week. It was the final weekly update meeting for the project.
Crews with general contractor C. S. McCrossan were still working Tuesday on the pedestrian underpass west of School Road. Work will continue after the highway reopens in that area to complete retaining walls, create the trails to the underpass and restore the Oddfellows Park parking lot west of the SuperAmerica gas station.
Work continues on the final asphalt paving at driveways and street connections. The final layer has been placed on the frontage road in front of the Best Western Victorian Inn.
Crews also were working Tuesday to complete the curbs and gutters, as well as the colored concrete in the center medians. Other workers were sandblasting and grinding the road surface in preparation of adding land striping. The striping and traffic signs need to be complete before the road is reopened.
Sod is still be placed throughout portions of the project that stretched from Fifth Avenue Northeast on the east to Shady Ridge Road on the west. MnDOT’s contract called for the contractor to water sod for up to 30 days after it is placed. The 30 days is expiring for some of the earliest placed sod, so property owners should begin watering sod in front of their homes and businesses, Brunkhorst said.
For more on the reconstruction of State Highway 7, read the Sept. 27 print edition of the Hutchinson Leader.
(Terry Davis is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at davis@hutchinsonleader.com [2].)