LINCOLN PARK — An "unusually" lengthy water main construction project, which has dragged on for nearly eight months, is almost complete, with crews finally gearing up to finish the job, according to Ald. Michele Smith's 43rd Ward office.
The "never-ending" project, as neighbor Jordan Gary calls it, started May 15, when crews first set out to replace the century-old water main on Kenmore Avenue, Seminary Avenue and a portion of Diversey Avenue in Lincoln Park.
During the first phase of construction, parking was restricted and impacted streets were blocked off while crews replaced the century-old pipes by digging large trenches between the road and the sidewalk.
That phase lasted until mid-August, which is when crews packed up and left the area only to return about three weeks later, the alderman's office confirmed.
"To have them come back three weeks later ... Are you joking?," Gary remembers saying.
Construction equipment tossed to the side of the road on Kenmore Avenue, in a photo taken Tuesday. [DNAinfo/Mina Bloom]
Then, crews tore up Kenmore and Seminary again — this time to replace the old sewer line, according to the alderman's office. From December to early January, Seminary was reduced to a dirt road.
"The speed at which [workmen] can knock down a building and throw up a three-flat condo ... that happens all over this neighborhood. Day One the netting cages go up, and by Day Three the entire building goes up," Gary said. "But this road construction keeps going and going and going."
On Friday, crews officially wrapped up construction on Kenmore and expect to finish work on Seminary within a few days, weather permitting, according to Smith's office, which admitted that a water main project dragging on for eight months is "unusual." Those types of projects, the alderman's office said, typically take three months.
The alderman's office blamed bad weather for the delay. But Gary Litherland, spokesman for the city's Deaprtment of Water Management, said the length of the project was not unusually long for the size of the project.
Litherland said it's typical for crews to work on a water main and then a sewer line, one after the other.
The only thing left to do on the project, he said, is lay asphalt, but that won't happen until the spring because the asphalt plants are closed in the winter.
Replacing the century-old water main and sewer line is part of the water department's larger plan to update water infrastructure in neighborhoods across the city, the alderman's office said.
For Gary and his neighbors, it means the end of an eight-month-long adventure of not knowing what to expect leaving the house.
"When you pull the car out of the alley, you're never sure where you can go," he said. "Every time you come back [home] it's 'How do I get to my driveway today?'"
Once the prject is complete, Gary said he'll have to resist the urge to hang a big banner across the street that reads, "mission accomplished."
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