West End Boulevard project reaches finish line in 2023; Lexington Avenue improvements to start soon

As one major street project draws to a close, another begins in Cape Girardeau.

The city’s West End Boulevard project was completed in November with a cost thus far of $4.5 million. The final billing is still to be submitted to Cape’s City Council. City engineer Jake Garrard said it was a good feeling to have the project finished.

“I’m very thankful to the residents for working with us,” Garrard said. “Construction was about a yearlong, and they toughed it out, and now, they just get to enjoy the road.”

The West End project underwent different phases and changes through its yearlong renovation. Garrard said the project’s scope changed once they realized more features needed to be added, such as fixing the sanitary sewer on the north end of the street and including more piping for stormwater.

Garrard said they were also able to clean up ditches around the street as well.

“Instead of the open ditches, it’s now clean, people have slightly bigger yards,” he said. “Then, we were able to add a sidewalk along the western side of the street, so it’s more pedestrian-friendly.”

Garrard said getting rid of the ditches would probably be the most notable improvement to residents living there. He also said the street was cleaned up to make it easier for motorists to drive through.

Since workers have finished their work with the West End Boulevard project, improvements to Lexington Avenue as part of the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) 6 are up next. Cape Girardeau City Council members authorized city manager Ken Haskin to execute an agreement with Nip Kelley Equipment Co. to construct improvements to Lexington Avenue.

Garrard said while Lexington Avenue won’t need the same type of improvements as West End Boulevard, Lexington will still take a considerable amount of time to complete.

“The construction period of the project is planned for 540 days. So, 18 months is a very long project,” Garrard said. “That’s not saying the entirety of Lexington will be torn up for 18 months. They (contractors) will most likely start at one end or the other. They don’t have a firm plan in place yet.”

He said the project will span for about a mile of street, and the contractors will most likely work on sections of the street at a time, like West End.

Garrard described the Lexington Avenue improvements as an “extreme patching project”.

“The concrete is not in the best shape, as all of our motorists and all of our citizens know. We plan to rip out as many of those bad pieces of concrete and replace them, as possible. We plan to change the curb and gutter,” he said. “Once we get the concrete patched up, we plan to overlay it like we did with the section of Lexington just north of Kiwanis (Park) so the whole street will match and have the same aesthetic appeal, and on top of the concrete we’re adding 2 more inches of asphalt pavement.”

He said adding the extra 2 inches should help make future maintenance of the street easier. Garrard said they are also taking traffic into concern while making improvements on the road.

“We’ll get people around, they’ll get people through (traffic) once the project is underway when we plan to work on a specific section, the people directly impacted in that section will be made aware, they will be notified as the contractor gives us their plan,” Garrard said. “We plan to keep the residents along Lexington probably first and foremost notified of what’s going on. But then the motorists in general.”

The improvements will span from Carolina Lane to Sherwood Drive, West Cape Rock Drive to Sprigg Street and sections of Big Bend Road. Garrard said upcoming construction projects include the Main Street construction starting at Cape Rock (TTF5), working on acquisitions for improvements on Independence Street (TTF5) and South Sprigg Street (TTF6).

He said while they’ll be happy to start on those projects, they don’t want to start too early and cause too much traffic.

“We will watch Lexington and these other projects we have going, and we will make sure we are being as efficient as possible with doing our work without just completely shutting down the city with too much work,” Garrard said.

To monitor what street projects are going on in the city, visit www.cityofcapegirardeau.org/infrastructure/street_maintenance.