Augusta closing Commercial Street for paving

Commercial Street in downtown Augusta, on Friday. Starting next week, a section of the street between Bridge and Winthrop streets will be closed for paving work. Kennebec Journal photo by Joe Phelan Buy this Photo

The main section of Commercial Street in downtown Augusta will close for about two weeks — starting Monday — so crews can pave the street and wrap up an approximately $1.4 million reconstruction project begun last year.

Workers from contractor Sargent Corp. began the work on Commercial Street, which includes rebuilding the street and creating wider sidewalks and more decorative streetlights, last year but ceased before completing final paving when temperatures dropped.

On Monday, they’ll return to put down a final layer of pavement and wrap up the other few remaining pieces of the project, according to Matt Nazar, city development director.

The main section of Commercial Street, between Bridge and Winthrop streets, will be closed to both traffic and parking while the work takes place.

However Nazar said the closure isn’t likely to disrupt the downtown businesses too much, both because the adjacent Water Street is now two-way, since it was changed from one-way traffic last year, and because downtown isn’t that busy because social distancing rules enacted in response to the spread of the coronavirus.

“Weather dependent, it should take about two weeks,” Nazar said of the work.

Then, on the week of April 27, the other section of Commercial Street, between the northern end of Water and Bridge streets, will be closed, and the road surface there will be ground up and repaved.

Parking during both phases of the project will be available on Water Street and in downtown parking lots, as well as in the city parking garage off Dickman Street.

The work included the Greater Augusta Utility District installing new water, sewer and stormwater piping underground. That portion of the project was funded by the utility district, not the city.

The cost far exceeded initial estimates, in large part because when the project was begun last year contractors were so busy with other jobs and lacking workers in a then-tight labor market bids for the work came in higher than the project’s budget. The Commercial Street project was budgeted at about $825,000 but the cost was expected to be about $1.4 million.