MANKATO — A specific date hasn’t been set for the closing of Riverfront Drive for a major reconstruction project, but property owners along the route will be prepped for the upcoming disruption at a meeting Thursday.
Assistant City Engineer Michael McCarty said the 1:30 p.m. meeting in Old Town is targeted at people who live, work and own businesses or other property along the construction route, focused on day-to-day details of living and working in a construction zone for much of the upcoming summer and fall.
Information of broader interest to drivers and visitors to the historic shopping district will be coming in the next week or two, once a date has been set for the start of construction and the first detours of the 18,000 vehicles that travel that section of road each day. Along with news releases and social media posts, there will be a project website and electronic signs warning people who use the route of the impending start of the nearly $9 million project.
“We’ll put up programmable message boards a minimum of three days before there’s any impact to traffic,” McCarty said.
The project will completely reconstruct more than a half-mile of Riverfront Drive from just north of Main Street to Third Avenue.
City staff are awaiting final approval from state transportation officials to start the project, which McCarty expects to come in the next week or two. Work is virtually certain to start sometime in May and last as long as six months, although it will be staged so that the entire segment won’t be closed the entire time.
The specifics of the staging and detour routes, complete with maps, will be provided when the kick-off date for construction is determined. The Department of Public Works is also working with Greater Mankato Growth to develop signage to get pedestrians and other customers to Old Town shops and dining spots.
People living and working along the route can get more information — and get their questions answered — by attending the 1:30 p.m. Thursday meeting in Room Hu 201-Collaborative Space of the Hubbard Building, 424 N. Riverfront Drive.