MANKATO — The roughest segments of two Mankato streets — South Riverfront Drive and Balcerzak Drive — will be undergoing emergency repairs beginning Monday.
Unlike the major reconstruction being done on the Veterans Memorial Bridge, Third Avenue and Highway 22 north of Mankato, the work will be quick and bring much less disruption. About a fifth of a mile of each road will receive a mill-and-overlay where the top layer of pavement is ground off and replaced with fresh asphalt.
The plan is for a one-night fix for the northbound lanes of Riverfront Drive from Marshall Street, just east of Stoltzman Road, to just past Sibley Parkway. Those lanes will be closed from 7 p.m. Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday. Southbound traffic will not be affected, according to city officials.
The work on Balcerzak Drive, stretching from Warren Street to Monks Avenue, will force that section of Balcerzak to be closed to traffic — other than for residents of apartments and other adjacent properties that have no other access points — from Monday through Friday.
The $171,000 in surface repairs were approved by the Mankato City Council in June due to the deteriorating condition of the segments and aims to keep the streets drivable until more substantial reconstruction is scheduled in future years. Riverfront is tentatively slated for a $4.3 million reconstruction from Stoltzman to Main Street, and Balcerzak is expected to be redesigned as a three-lane roadway and reconstructed sometime in the next decade.
Mankato’s Public Works Department generally tries to use crack-sealing and pothole repair to keep a street in acceptable condition between scheduled reconstructions, but that wasn’t possible due to the “urgent maintenance needs” of the Riverfront and Balcerzak segments, according to a feasibility report. With Riverfront, the deterioration was accelerated by the increased traffic that came with the closing of the Vets Bridge for most of this year for a $21 million redecking project.