State Street Garage Update- December 7, 2012

The next Public Meeting to discuss progress and planning for the State Street Garage Expansion is scheduled for Thursday December 13, 2012 at 5:00 pm at the East Tennessee History Center on S. Gay Street.
Work on the garage foundation has gone well so far. For a number of reasons we are a little behind on our construction progress but we hope to make that up in short order.
Union Avenue will be down to one lane beginning Monday, December 10, 2012 and the entrance to the garage, as well as that entire level of parking, will be closed for approximately one week. We will open it back as quickly as possible and are hopeful it will not take that long, but to be safe we wanted everyone to use caution here.

The Christmas Parade is tonight along with First Friday and the Jingle Bell 5K Run/Walk is tomorrow (Sat.) so we have a lot going on. In addition the Tennessee Theatre has a Broadway show in town so we hope everyone will use caution and plan for a little longer time to insure safety in this area. We will have flaggers at all closure points and also warning signs. We will likely have a lane closure around the entire parking structure in the near future so please be aware of that.

Our plans at this time are to begin some work around the escalator soon and to completely remove the escalator early in January 2013. Before that happens we will build a temporary stairwell along the HT Hackney parking lot that will end at the elevator which will be remain available for use throughout the project. Folks at HT Hackney have been great to work with and we are very thankful for their support of this project as we are with all of our other partners. A KUB transformer will also be moved and upgraded at this time in that same area. Our plans are to have the overpass constructed and open in March 2013.

Road closure timing has also changed some and we are now planning to close State Street first, probably around the middle of January 2013. A large crane will move in to place the precast concrete for the garage deck. This will be a massive undertaking. From 7 to 15 trucks will arrive per day bringing 8 ft by 60 ft sections of precast concrete to be used for construction. Work will be performed primarily during the day and possibly on some Saturdays. We hope to reopen a lane of traffic along the closed roads nights and weekends.
The work on State Street will take about a month and then will proceed down Union Avenue to Central Street. Central Street will then be closed for about a month with the same timing, that is we hope to have a lane open nights and weekends. We will finish up, then on Clinch Avenue in March.
This schedule insures that the overpass is in place and State Street is functioning as it was before all of our events in the spring.

I hope to see you tonight and at the Public meeting next Thursday.
Thanks for your interest in Downtown Knoxville and in the State Street Garage Expansion Project.