The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

August 23, 2012

Street projects keep coming

City spending grant money

By Courtney L. Saylor Herald Staff Writer

SHARON — As one road crew this week makes improvements along Chestnut Street in downtown Sharon, another is prepping to start resurfacing Highland Road across town next week.

The projects are among several being paid for with about $2.4 million in grant funding.

City Manager Scott Andrejchak said Highland will remain open to local traffic, though it may have to be closed temporarily in sections as the work proceeds. It should take about a month.

Combine Construction will redo the road with about $500,000 in grant funding secured through the Mercer County Metropolitan Planning Organization.   

The city also scored an $80,000 Automated Red Light Enforcement grant that will replace all the traffic lights on State Street from Buhl Boulevard to Irvine Avenue, Andrejchak said.

Those projects come after several orange cone-filled months for Sharon motorists as Aqua Pennsylvania replaces lines under East State Street and Norfolk Southern Railway put in new crossings at several downtown intersections.

“It’s been a long summer. It’s been frustrating, obviously,” Andrejchak said.

And the construction isn’t over.

“We have a lot happening,” Andrejchak said.

That includes PennDOT removing and replacing faulty asphalt next month on Stambaugh Avenue and seeking bids to renovate the downtown parking garage with a $507,000 grant originally earmarked to build a pedestrian bridge across the Shenango River.

A $460,000 Housing and Redevelopment Assistance Grant initially intended for the now-stalled Lofts at City Centre is paying for new lights and sidewalks on Chestnut and repaving of a couple of parking lots.

Revamping State Street with an $800,000 Townscape grant secured in 2004 will take into next year.

“We’ll probably have one more winter season with the existing apparatus,” Andrejchak said.

He said the project, which includes new curbing, sidewalks, lighting and other features, will be let out for bid by the end of summer.

Moving forward with the streetscaping has been a priority for Andrejchak since he was hired last year.

“It shouldn’t have taken that long,” Andrejchak said of the delay, noting that it still likely would have taken two or three years to finish. “It really doesn’t help to go back and point fingers.”

Andrejchak said the process can be lengthy for the upgrades depending on where the money comes from, proximity to utilities, traffic studies and securing easements. There’s a lot of steps to go through that adds up to stacks of paperwork.

The city has met with Aqua about the water company’s plans to replace a number of pipes throughout the city in the coming years and Andrejchak said the city is looking to piggyback on that to get those roads resurfaced at the same time.

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