City prepares to replace downtown sewer main

The city may be in the height of season now, but staff is preparing for a major downtown construction project once the summer begins.

At Saturday’s meeting of the Coalition of City Neighborhood Associations, Senior Utilities Engineer Bryce Kauffman outlined plans to replace a 30-inch force main. The pipe transfers wastewater from a lift station on Gulfstream Avenue to the city’s treatment facility on 12th Street.

Although funding for the project has not been approved — a hearing on that is tentatively set for next month — the city is already working to make sure residents are aware of the construction’s impact. 

Most of the project will involve directional drilling, which largely allows crews to avoid major disruption to traffic where the pipe is being installed. Still, there are several points where road closures are expected.

Those points of closure include a portion of Gulfstream Avenue south of Main Street, Gulfstream and Cocoanut avenues, Cocoanut Avenue between First and Second streets and Cocoanut Avenue and Fourth Street.

The city, working with environmental engineers Greeley and Hansen and contractor Halfacre Construction Co., hopes to begin and complete the project in the offseason.

“The plan is to go to the commission in April,” Kauffman said. “Hopefully after that, we can start in June or July and be done by Thanksgiving.”

An attendee at the CCNA meeting asked whether the city would be replacing the aging force main with a larger one to address the additional infrastructure needs slated for downtown. Mike Knowles, an associate with Greeley and Hansen, said the city studied the planned construction and determined a larger force main was not necessary.

“For this area, the existing pipe size is sufficient,” Knowles said.

Kauffman said the new force main comes with a roughly 50-year lifespan. 

A second phase of the project is planned to eventually replace the force main north of Fourth Street, as well.

The city plans to continue its community outreach leading up to construction once details are finalized.

“We’re going to contact the downtown condo association,” Kauffman said. “We’re working on a paper to give out to the people, so they know this is coming.”