Crews are expected to begin pouring concrete on the northern half of U.S. 54 through downtown Iola this week.
Iola Assistant City Administrator Corey Schinstock updated Council members Monday on the full rebuild project.
For the past six weeks, crews have dug out the northern half of the highway from Buckeye to State Street.
With the new base layer nearly in place — some extra attention is needed at the intersection of Jefferson Avenue — Schinstock said the concrete should begin pouring as early Wednesday. “The rest of the week, I think they’ll be pouring concrete pretty heavily,” he said.
Workers identified a “soft spot” near Jefferson, which will require a bit more base material to be compacted, Schinstock said.
“It’s unstable soil, so they’re over-excavating in that area,” he said. “They’ll probably have to put in a little bit bigger shock rock and pack it a little better to make sure the road stays up. It’s really not as big of an area as I thought it would be.”
Schinstock anticipates finding more such spots as the work continues through the other phases.
Barring any unforeseen difficulties, crews expect to have the north half of the downtown street poured and ready for traffic by mid-August.
The work will immediately repeat for the south half, with the goal of having the downtown portion — including new sidewalks — in place by mid-October.
Subsequent phases will extend to the east, past Kentucky, by the fall of 2027.
In a related matter, Schinstock said a subsequent water line replacement project has progressed beyond downtown, and past the old hospital curve.
The water line work “hasn’t been as smooth as I would have liked, but that’s what happens when you deal with utilities and infrastructure,” Schinstock said.
CAMILLE LAVON, vice president for economic development with Thrive Allen County, spoke about ongoing efforts to remind folks downtown businesses are still open during the highway rebuild.
Her office is slated to hire a new director of economic development in the coming weeks, with that person focusing specifically with Iola’s downtown entrepreneurs.
“They’ll be doing weekly visits, check-ins, with questions about how everything is going, and continuously finding new and hopefully creative ways to make them feel supported while all this road construction is ongoing.”
In addition, Lavon expects to hire one or two interns soon, who also will serve as downtown ambassadors.
