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Town finds streetscaping a rough road
Project trips over what's underground
Friday, Nov. 20, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by REID SILVERMAN
Streetscaping work continues on Fenwick Street in Leonardtown and may continue into the spring.
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The streets of Leonardtown have been torn up for months by a project that ran into unexpected trouble, but the end should be in sight soon, according to a state highway official.
The project is called streetscaping, and similar work is just getting started in Lexington Park. Robert Murphy, Maryland State Highway Administration's construction engineer for Southern Maryland, said Tuesday he hopes the Great Mills project goes without the problems that have plagued the one in town.
Streetscaping a road is not easy, Murphy said. Building a new road or expanding one is simpler.
Corinthian Contractors is doing the work in Leonardtown. Rustler Construction is working in Lexington Park on Great Mills Road from Coral Drive to St. Mary's Square.
"There's as many problems here as any other streetscaping" project in the state, Murphy said of Leonardtown's project. With any streetscaping project, where utility lines are hidden under pavement, anything could come up while the road is torn up and sidewalks are replaced.
"It's the most fun" for contractors, "because every day you put a shovel in the ground, it's a whole new day, it's a new project," he said.
"It would be too easy to blame the contractor," he said of the work in the town. "They have been very good working with us." The project should have been finished in October, but "we're not that far off the schedule being finished," Murphy said. Corinthian was awarded the construction contract in March 2008.
If the weather stays warm enough to lay down asphalt, the Leonardtown streetscaping could be finished by the end of next month, Murphy said.
Leonardtown Mayor J. Harry Norris III (D) said Wednesday it was his understanding that work on Fenwick Street toward St. Mary's Ryken High School would continue into the spring.
As work got under way in Leonardtown, some old storage tanks were found inside asphalt under the road, which required new environmental permits before they could be removed. A telephone line held up 250 feet of storm drain installation on Fenwick Street. A planter wall in the median on Washington Street started shifting and had to be replaced and sewer lines were hit that weren't marked, Murphy said. "Leonardtown is the perfect storm," he said. "The major problem with streetscaping is the unknown."
"I think the problem was the staging of the work," Norris said. Instead of doing it in stages, work was under construction all at once. "At one point everything was in an uproar. It has been very disruptive and detrimental to the businesses" as parking spaces were temporarily lost, he said. A few parking spaces were permanently lost to meet Americans with Disabilities Act walkway standards.
When it's done, however, "it'll pay off for the town," the mayor said, as traffic will be slowed down and underground utilities will be upgraded.
At the project on Great Mills Road, a buried 42-inch pipe has already been found. The St. Mary's County Metropolitan Commission took no ownership of it. It might have been a storm drain, said Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D).
"It's going to be a good project," said Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D) of the Great Mills Road streetscaping. "It's a little more than a facelift."
Murphy also said the $1.4 million bridge work on Budds Creek Road in Clements can be finished by the end of next month if it stays warm enough and the supply of asphalt doesn't run out.
The road expansion on Chancellor's Run Road is now ahead of schedule, Murphy said.
The $55.3 million project is scheduled to be completed in the winter of 2011.
Road to be closed
Fenwick Street in Leonardtown will be closed at Courthouse Drive to Washington Street from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 23. This section of road will also be closed on Tuesday, Nov. 24, from 9 a.m. until noon. Traffic will be detoured onto Courthouse Drive.
