Road Construction Will Resume This Month
Despite the health concerns that have kept most people in their homes lately, we will start seeing road construction and utility crews return to the North Loop soon.
This time, 1st Street North—which didn’t see a lot of disruption last summer, will go through months of work.
Starting April 13th, crews from CenterPoint Energy will open up the street between the railroad bridge and 8th Avenue to replace an underground steel gas main that’s reached the end of its useful life. It dates back to the mid-50s and will be replaced with a larger main made of plastic material that will allow for the same amount of pressure but with larger capacity.
The work will be done in sections, in hopes of allowing two-way traffic to continue on 1st Street throughout, but parking on the street will be restricted. When this phase is finished, crews will move over to the other side of the railroad tracks and dig up 1st Street between 2nd Avenue and Hennepin, likely in early June.
The entire street is among those scheduled to be resurfaced in the North Loop this summer, which is why utility crews are doing the underground work in the spring; they didn’t want to dig through brand new asphalt.
Critical infrastructure work has been deemed essential during the concerns over COVID-19, and in fact, some other projects such as Hennepin Avenue downtown are ahead of schedule because of the lack of foot and vehicle traffic.
If you’d like to receive regular updates on the project via email or text, CenterPoint will provide them to those who sign up online.