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Work on the Hillcrest Drive Reconstruction Project is set to get underway next month with lane closures planned immediately on Hillcrest Drive between 20th Street and Hillcrest Heights.

Director of Engineering Micah Siemers said work on the initial phase of the project, construction of the main offset alignment and the 20th Street intersection, is scheduled to begin Monday, April 5th, weather permitting. Siemers said the lane closures are necessary to facilitate a drainage pipe installation at the site.

"We had initially hoped to keep these lanes open throughout the majority of the project, but unfortunately, the way it is designed, as an offset alignment, is creating some drainage issues during construction," Siemers said. "We have to get water between the new road and the old road to drain back to the east. To do this, we’ll have to close Hillcrest Drive to traffic for up to two weeks to facilitate installation of temporary drainage pipe."

Siemers said the installation could be complete sooner, however.

"Two weeks is the worst case scenario," he said. "We hope to get it opened back up sooner than that."

Siemers said the project start could be delayed if rain is forecast for the week of April 5 or the week before, however, in an effort to keep the lanes open as much as possible.

"We don't want to close the road down and not be able to work," he said. "We will do everything we can to keep them open as much as possible."

Siemers said that once the pipe is installed and the lanes reopen, Hillcrest Drive will remain closed between 20th Street and Shawnee Avenue, with traffic detoured on 16th Street to Shawnee to access Hillcrest further south.

The $2.2 million project, approved by voters in the 2013 Half-cent Capital Improvement Project election, involves reconstructing Hillcrest Drive from the Caney River to just north of 20th Street. The new alignment will transition to the existing roadway just north of the Caney River on the south end of the project and just north of 20th Street on the north end of the project.

The new roadway will consist of two 12-foot-wide drive lanes with six-foot-wide asphalt shoulders. Turn lanes will be provided at Shawnee and 20th Street.

Construction is expected to take close to a full year to complete.