Largest resurfacing project in years to touch 8 streets
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Progress comes with inconvenience, and traffic flow interruptions and temporarily closed roads could be the norm in the near future on Atmore’s residential streets. But only for a relatively short time.
During their Monday, April 8, meeting Atmore City Council members awarded a contract for a resurfacing project that is expected to take “three or four weeks” and ultimately put new asphalt on eight city streets.
Mobile Asphalt Company submitted the lowest ($631,315) of four bids received by the city. The paving contractor’s base bid was $608,329; an “added alternative bid” of $22,986 was tacked on to cover change orders or unexpected problems that could crop up during the paving.
“It shouldn’t take all that long,” Mayor Jim Staff said. “The only one that will take some time is Church Street. I would say that, from start to finish it should take them about three weeks. It may not even take that. Once they get cranked up, they really get at it.”
Staff said the contractor is currently conducting a resurfacing project on Interstate 65, a job that has been slowed by rain, and has been unable to furnish a start date.
“We asked them for a start date, but they’ve got that interstate project going on, and the rain has pushed it back,” the mayor said. “They told us we’re next in line, just as soon as they finish that one.”
Project Manager Jeremy McMath pointed out that the most recent municipal resurfacing project of any relative size was undertaken nearly four years ago. This one will be even bigger, he added.
“It has been three-and-a-half years since we did the last resurfacing project,” McMath said. “On that project, we put down somewhere around 4,200 tons of asphalt. On this one, we should put down right at 5,000 tons, so it’s a bigger project.”
Paxton Reiss of Andalusia-based Civil Southeast, the project’s engineers, told the mayor and council that the bid covered new pavement for Oak Hill Avenue (from Main to Peachtree), Howard Street (from Alabama 21 to Short Street, then Short Street to Swift Mill Road), and Church Street (from Ala. 21 to Medical Park Drive).
It will also include 2nd Avenue (from Church St. to U.S. 31), 1st Avenue (from Pine to McRae), along with Brookwood Road and Forest Hill Drive (to its junction with Rockaway Creek Road).
Staff pointed out that the paving work would include the milling of Church Street “all the way down,” and council member Susan Smith asked if the Brookwood-Forest Hill Drive work would include widening and striping.
“Brookwood will be striped, with a center line,” Reiss answered. “But the width of the pavement that is there now is what will be resurfaced.”
In the only other Monday business, the council re-appointed Voncile Stallworth and Chapman Maxwell to three-year terms on the city’s zoning board.