The City of Knoxville has provided an update on the ongoing street improvements project.

The improvements that started last month include the area of Main Street from 1st Street to 2nd Street and from 3rd Street to 5th Street. The project also includes upgrades along East Robinson Street from South 4th Street to South 7th Street. The most recent update given by the city says progress is moving along, despite rain events over the past few weeks. Extensive time over the past week has been spent chasing service line connections. This is typical when replacing infrastructure that is older and located in a downtown area, according to city leadership. Many businesses have service lines that cross between other business property before coming out into the street and connecting to the main. This takes additional time in dye testing to determine the locations of these services. As this step finishes up, the mainline sanitary connection is scheduled to be completed by the end of the week. 

The city also included that looking ahead over the next few weeks, the contractor will be focusing on replacement of the sanitary service line connections to businesses. Once that’s completed, storm sewer and water lines will be placed. Knoxville City Manager Heather Ussery asks the community to be patient while construction is being done, because she believes it will be a great end result.

“Construction at any time period can be frustrating and an inconvenience for not only pedestrians and vehicle traffic but also business owners, they are highly affected especially by the ones happening right now. We definitely ask for everyone to be patient. These are improvements that are needed. Especially the aging infrastructure. At some point it has to be done as we work through that just be patient, continue to support our local businesses and the end result will be great.”

For ongoing updates regarding the Knoxville streets improvement project , follow this link.