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Campbell & Ft. Lowell Project

Posted by Josh on Thursday May 13, 2010 6:14 pm

Sandra Miller from the Richland Heights East Neighborhood atended last night's Campbell & Ft. Lowell pre-construction open house and took the following notes.

The City of Tucson news release about the project is available as a PDF file using this link.

Mike Stilsky, the City of Tucson Construction Project Manager, did most of the talking. Two of the construction guys were also there, one was a Falcone brother, and maybe the other as well.

Mike is the person to contact with questions. His number is 837-6636.

The Falcone Brothers came in with the low bid ($2.1 million). They have done a lot of work for the county and got positive reviews, but this is their first job for the city. There is a large monetary incentive for them to finish on time (in 9 months). They said they usually finish early, but admit that this is their first job at such a busy intersection.

The streets will be taken down 16" (all paving and some underlying dirt will be removed). Tucson Water will be putting in new water lines (they don't want their 50 year old lines under a newly paved street). There will also be new traffic signals to accommodate the wider streets, and temp signals will be used during construction.

The work will be in 3 phases. Phase 1 is the west side of Campbell and the south side of Ft Lowell. This will include the water line replacement. Tucson Water will be starting at Martin and Ft Lowell on Monday. This phase is scheduled to go from May to August.

Phase 2 is the east side of Campbell and the north side of Ft Lowell. This phase is scheduled to go from August to November.

Phase 3 is the middle of both streets. This phase is scheduled to go from November to February, 2011.

During all phases there will be 3 lanes available for traffic, one each direction and a left turn lane.

The City purchased the NW corner lot (where Nico's used to be) for the project, and that is where the construction company will store their equipment, and they say there will also be room there for the workers to park their personal cars so as not to take parking from the surrounding businesses.

Every Thursday at 9:00am, starting on May 20th, there will be a project meeting held at this lot. It is open to the public.

Neighbors expressed concern about cut-through traffic (RHE was especially vocal), and business worry about loss of customers. There are about 200 businesses that will be affected. We plan to get a list of those businesses and distribute it to our neighborhood, encouraging people to frequent the businesses during the construction. We don't want to see a bunch of empty store fronts 9 months from now. A place to start making such a list is campbellavenue.com.