As temperatures begin to slowly creep upwards and spring break nears, a lot of eyes will be on the construction in Uptown as part of the ongoing Sedona in Motion transportation plan.
Jason Woods, project manager for Eagle Mountain Construction, said overall things are going well.
“The uptick in traffic and visitors to Sedona has made things more challenging,” he said. “That, combined with the stage of the project, has made traffic control options limited, which unfortunately made driving conditions through town tough there for a few weeks. Now that the majority of the [State Route] 89A corridor has pavement and concrete work is near completion, traffic flow can move as it was intended for the most part.”
Woods said the biggest delay they’ve faced was the inability to start building the new Schnebly Road roundabout at the same time as they did the Jordan roundabout. This was a four-month delay completely out of Eagle Mountain’s control that had a major impact on the schedule, he said. Their crews were able to make up most of that time with “hard work and putting in the extra time needed.”
The plan all along has been to have the majority of the more involved aspects of the project completed prior to spring break.
“Our crews really put an outstanding effort in order to get things ready to pave in short order, especially after the last rain damaged quite a bit of grade that had to be fixed,” he said. “For the most part major paving and concrete is 95% complete in the 89A corridor. There are two areas left — one at the base of Apple Road and another small section of asphalt at the west side of mid block left. We will do those after the spring break rush dies down.”
In terms of feedback during the construction phase, Woods said it’s been mixed and that he encourages merchants and residents to come out to their weekly Monday morning meet-ups. By doing so, everyone can get accurate information directly from them.
“Comments have overall been really positive, especially from merchants that we are fortunate to meet with,” he said. “Most negative comments seem to be in regards to the design itself which we don’t have much to do with. The negative comments I’ve seen have been on social media and those outlets. Unfortunately those places tend to run rampant with untrue assumptions.”
Crews are wrapping up some paving on the Schnebly Road connector and finished the Jordan roundabout last week.
“Over the next few weeks we will be working on the median wall and landscape in select areas, but are trying to limit the disturbance,” he said. “All of this work will extend for the next few months but will not have near the impact of the concrete and paving work.”
