Get ready for another Fourth of July parade detour next summer.
The second half of the Grand Boulevard resurfacing and storm sewer installation project is scheduled to begin in April 2012, which will shut down the boulevard to through traffic from Memorial Circle to 31st Street for seven months.
On Nov. 28, the Brookfield village board voted to agree on the cost-sharing agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) for the $5.16 million construction project.
Brookfield will receive almost $3.4 million in federal grant funding through IDOT, with the village on the hook for the remaining $1.77 million. The village’s share of the work will be paid for through a combination of money taken from the general operating fund, water and sewer fund and motor fuel tax receipts.
The construction contract will be awarded in early 2012 with work expected to commence in April. While Grand Boulevard will be closed to through traffic, it will be open to local traffic during much of the construction period, said Village Engineer Derek Treichel.
“The intersections of Garfield, Jackson and Monroe we’ll try to keep open as long as we can, especially for overnight parking,” Treichel said.
And because the street will be ripped up during the summer, the route of the Fourth of July parade north of the circle will need to be re-routed. In 2009, when the south half of the street was resurfaced, the parade route south of the circle was shifted to Prairie Avenue.
A key element of the project will be the installation of a new storm sewer running the length of Grand Boulevard from 31st Street to Eight Corners and the installation of a new storm sewer on Monroe Avenue from Grand Boulevard to Prairie Avenue.
While Treichel said he can’t quantify exactly what the benefit of the new storm sewer will be to alleviate basement flooding during storm events, the new sewer will take some of the pressure off the existing combined sewer system.
“It will take all the drainage for that section of Grand and Monroe off the combined sewer system and will improve the efficiency of the combined sewer in that part of town,” Treichel said.
However, he added, “The combined sewer is still undersized for the area it serves.”
Monroe Avenue from Prairie Avenue to Maple Avenue will be completely reconstructed, said Treichel, and the roadway will be widened by 2 feet on each side of the grass median between Park and Prairie avenues. The median will be reduced in width in that location from 14.5 feet to 10.5 feet and will not affect any trees, Treichel said.
West from Maple Avenue to Grand Boulevard, Monroe Avenue won’t need a complete reconstruction.
“We’ll only replace the base course [of concrete] where the sewer is being placed,” Treichel said.
Along the entire length of Monroe Avenue from Prairie to Grand, work crews will install new curbs, gutters, driveway aprons and handicap-accessible sidewalk ramps at intersections.
Also on the south parkway of Monroe Avenue between Park and Elm avenues, crews will create a bioswale to reduce storm water runoff from going into the storm sewer.
The bioswale won’t be a grass parkway but a shallow depression planted with native species that are resistant to being submerged. The plants will grow to a maximum height of 2-3 feet, said Treichel. Beneath the surface will be 24 inches of crushed rock, which will simultaneously help drain and store storm water and filter pollutants.
Any standing water after major storm events should drain away within a day, Treichel said.
“Standing water will be there 24 hours or less,” Treichel said.
Meanwhile on Grand Boulevard, work crews will reconstruct a 14-foot-wide section of the street where the storm sewer will be installed. Otherwise, the street will simply be resurfaced. Deteriorated sections of curbs and gutters will be replaced.
Intersections on Grand Boulevard will also be reconfigured to match those south of Memorial Circle. The curbs at the corners will be bumped out, shortening the crosswalks across the wide roadway and protecting the parking lane on each side of the street.
