Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - After months of being closed due to the massive reconstruction project through Allentown, the City of Buffalo officially re-opened the intersection of Allen Street and Elmwood Avenue to vehicular traffic on Monday.
According to Department of Public Works Commissioner, Nate Marton, the last portion of the Allen Street project from College Street to Wadsworth Street is estimated to take 6-to-8 weeks, which puts the city at mid-October when it wants to be fully out of that area and have the project officially completed.
"The full reconstruction of the whole Allen Street corridor and this intersection has taken longer. It's a full reconstruction, not your typical mill and pave where you're just taking a little layer off the top and putting new paving down. This is digging down, getting those utilities, the infrastructure improved. From a long-term standpoint, this is the right move for that street," said Marton during a press briefing on Monday at City Hall.
As of right now, everything along the Allen Street corridor is open with no detour signs for any of the stretches. According to chief engineer of the project, Nolan Skipper, the final detour will begin in the next week or two between College and Wadsworth.
"From there, once that block is completed, we'll do final paving from the stretch from Elmwood to Wadsworth, and then right behind it, we'll do final striping from Delaware to Wadsworth, complete with a final landscape installation in the fall planting season as well. That kind of wraps that project up as a whole," said Skipper during Monday's press briefing.
Skipper adds when the strip of Allen between College and Wadsworth closes, the city will make upper College a two-way street so people won't have to make a U-turn on Allen Street. Meanwhile, lower College Street will function as is, a one-way into Allen Street.
This project along Allen Street is almost complete after running about six months behind schedule. Skipper says the target substantial completion was for the end of 2022 with final "punch list items" set for 2023. He says now those final items are set to wrap up by the end of this year.
"Part of it was the phasing, we had to split this project into two phases," Skipper said. "Phase I took a little bit longer than we thought, just getting into the full reconstruction nature. We were originally thinking about 4-to-6 weeks per-block, the initial couple blocks took us more like 8-to-12 weeks. So that Phase I put us a little bit behind, and then we rolled right into Phase II. We've been making good progress on Phase II now that we're here."
As for the funding for the project, Skipper says the City of Buffalo did not go over the $14 million total budget. He further adds each Phase was nearly split down the middle at $7 million.
When it comes to the intent of the project and why it may have taken longer than anticipated, Marton says upgrading the infrastructure of Allen Street was key to making this a longer-term solution than just a minor fix.
"We won't need to go in unless something catastrophic happens underground, but we won't need to go back and improve that infrastructure. We've replaced that in its entirety, and have built up to a new road," Marton detailed.
"From our standpoint, that kind of a project is preferred, as opposed to a mill and pave, and then have to go back and figure it out to fix something, budgets and funding are difficult. Ideally, we'd like to be able to do every street like that, but that funding is just not available. So from my standpoint, our standpoint, get that work done. We want to be as aggressive as we can and go as fast as we can. This one had a little bit of a slight delay, obviously, but the project is worth it at the end of the day."
When it comes to the design of the project, Skipper says it allows businesses along the Allen Street corridor to have some flexibility with its daily operations.
"Essentially the design is a flexible design, where the bollards can be moved back-and-forth to remove parking as necessary. The businesses that are already taking advantage of that expanded space, they've moved the bollards towards the travel lanes, and have set up their sidewalk cafes. That was kind of the intent was more space, a flexible space," Skipper explained. "Maybe in the winter months, you bring that parking back. In the summer months, you have businesses be able to take advantage of that from sidewalk cafes and whatever they might want to set up at shop on the space out there."
While the Allen Street reconstruction project is in its final stages, the impact has been felt along the corridor with some businesses struggling to get people in and operating as usual to thrive. Skipper says there are some lessons that will be learned from this project, especially when it comes to communication and clarity, in terms of what projects like this entail once started.
"We tried to do our best to get out in front of this and have people understand what full reconstruction means. It's difficult though," he said. "Until we were there, I don't think people really fully understood how we'd be tearing up that whole roadway and right in front of them for such a while. With that said, though, I know we have a number of businesses in that first space that we did that are now using the outdoor space for sidewalk cafes, expanded areas. Once we were able to get past that point, we have seen businesses take advantage of that infrastructure."
Marton says he has walked up-and-down that stretch of Allen Street recently, and has heard some feedback from the businesses as construction wraps up. While he says there is some relief knowing the project is almost complete, he feels a full sense of relief will be realized when the project is done and crews are completely out of Allentown.
"Opening this up and getting that traffic flowing, we'll have a little bit of coordination when we do that final paving and striping, but to get our major work done, to get traffic action back at that intersection, everybody's happy to see that."
More from Monday's press briefing is available in the player below:
