​Clayton Street renovations are on schedule

Along Clayton Street, construction crews and blocked parking spaces can be seen throughout the day Mondays through Thursdays.

The long work days have helped crews be two weeks ahead of schedule, according to an Athens-Clarke County press release.

As reported in the Red & Black, the first phase of the renovations started June 18 when crews began digging trenches for the stormwater system.

“They are two weeks ahead because they didn’t find as many unmarked conflicts as they feared in the first block and it went smoothly,” said Jeff Montgomery, public information officer for ACC.

The weather and moving to a Friday morning schedule for repaving “helped save a few days,” Montgomery said.

Even though construction crews have sped up in the timeline, they may be back on schedule.

“I should note that while we are ahead on [the first] block, some changes have been made to the south side of the [second] block, which will make the work on that side a little longer than originally scheduled,” Montgomery said, “so the net result may be closer to the original schedule.”

The third block from North Jackson Street to Thomas Street will occur from Oct. 1 to Oct. 25.

“After a successful pilot project, crews will continue [to] work full days on Thursdays and laying down asphalt to open the roads on Friday mornings for the second block,” according to the Athens-Clarke County website.

A few parking spaces will be blocked on Thursday evenings.

Some controversy has surrounded the renovations, mostly from business owners on Clayton Street.
Back in February, downtown business owners turned in a petition with 37 signatures to the Mayor & Commission, requesting for ACC to split up the construction timelines.

Following the submission of the petition, breaks in the timeline were implemented, particularly to work around football and holiday seasons, which are the busiest times for downtown businesses.

“What we’ve done here is we’ve broken it apart so that the businesses, the people that are going to be impacted the most, will still be able to serve their customers, and we can still do the construction in a reasonable amount of time,” said District 10 Commissioner Mike Hamby at the June 5 Mayor & Commission meeting.

For more public input, ACC will have two public meetings, allowing for feedback on the streetscape design phase of the East Clayton Street Improvement Project. An online survey will also be available for attendees to select “features important to them,” ACC’s website said.

The meetings will be held Aug. 9 from 2 to 4 p.m. and Aug. 13 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Michael Bros. Building Mezzanine on East Clayton Street.

The who project is expected to be completed by August 2020.
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