After just over two months, Director of Environmental Services Vaughn Daniels said Pell Avenue should be open for through traffic by the end of next week.

“Hopefully, we’ll open the road next week,” Daniels said. “They are now doing the concrete, which includes the curb and gutter.”

Daniels said the Blakenship Construction had been able to make good progress since construction started approximately two weeks ago. And, while Daniels said the project should have started by mid-April, the construction company had gotten delayed with projects in other cities due to the weather.

“The contractor had a delay in some other jobs he was working on because of weather on other cities,” Daniels said. “Honestly, that really benefited us because school was still in and we were able to get stated after graduation and the university was out.”

After the concrete work is finished, Daniels said the construction company would then put in the inlets, finish up the sidewalks and then move on to laying the asphalt.

“By mid next week they’ll have asphalt down, and then they’ll do touchups as far as the sides and the dirt work putting the right a ways and getting the grass planted,” Daniels said. “We’ll get all that set and be ready to open by the end of next week if all goes well.”

Daniels said the rain had affected the repairs some during the two weeks they had been working.

“Some days they were able to get work in and others they didn’t,” Daniels said. “The rain has played a role in us not being able to complete it. Take for example last Thursday when we had the hard rain, they had to stop and that delayed the concrete work.”

Daniels did say, however, that the pipes causing the leakage, which first created the crater causing a shift in the road levels, had been fixed and would hopefully not be an issue in the near future.

“Both the big pipes which run across the street, those were replaced and all the concrete work, retaining walls have been replaced,” Daniels said. “The rear has been replaced. It’s just a matter of getting the sidewalks and asphalt down before we can open the road back up to the general public.”