GONZALES — City of Gonzales staff and Granite Construction employees met with the residential and business community last week to discuss the process of repaving Alta Street over the next several months.
A meeting occurred at 6 p.m. at City Hall on Oct. 18 to involve residents and business owners in the phases of the large repavement project.
According to Public Works Director Harold Walgomott, the City and Granite have a construction meeting every Wednesday and by Thursday noon there will be information sent out to the public on the progress of the pavement project.
The $5.2 million project will run from 10th Street to the Gonzales Cemetery. The funding for the project is partially coming from the Monterey County Measure X that was approved in November 2016.
“We are going to take out the base of the road, grind it back up, put some concrete in it and make a base with the exact same stuff that’s there right now,” said Walgomott. “So we’re actually recycling and reusing what we’ve got.”
Along with the improvements to the Alta Street pavement, the City was looking for input on the detours of the Alta Street project. Due to Alta Street being a high-traffic area that allows product trucks to bring produce and products in and out, the project is aiming to last about four months, November to February, with the possibility of running longer depending on weather.
To speed up the process, the north and south ends of Alta Street will have work done at the same time. Traffic will experience detours of cars taking 10th Street and there will be signs for trucks on Highway 101 telling them to take Fifth Street exit. The detour will cause no parking on the south side of Alta and Belden streets.
“The first section we are going to try to do is one of the larger sections,” said Steve Walter, Granite Construction project manager. “We are going to try to go from 10th Street all the way to Gonzales River Road. At the same time, we want to try to take another section down between Constellation Winery driveway and one of Dole’s driveways.”
One driveway will be open for Constellation Winery and Dole during the project. At Constellation, the south driveway will be open and the north driveway at Dole, letting northbound traffic through on the opposite side of the road. Once that area is finished, construction will move to the area between Constellation and the Cemetery.
The estimated start date for the Dole and Constellation pavement work is Oct. 30, but Walter says it will probably be sometime during that week, not necessarily that exact day.
In charge of design for the Alta Street pavement project is Harris and Associates from Salinas with Patrick Dobbs, the city engineer.
