City seeks to have Chardon Road redone

Willoughby Hills is currently bidding for annual street rehab, sewer rehab and Cleveland market projects.

The city is using its new online bidding platform, Bid Express, which is going over well, according to City Engineer Pietro DiFranco

“We received the agreement from ODOT for phase two of the Route 6 resurfacing, and we also received the survey for the Rogers Road slope repair,” he said. “We’ll be working on that design and hopefully up to bid soon.”

DiFranco received the pre-construction invitation from ODOT for next week in regard to the slope repair. The rest of the resurfacing for Route 6, also called Chardon Road in that area, is currently planned for May of 2024.

“It’ll be designed this year and constructed next year,” DiFranco said.

As one of the main routes in the community, Mayor Andy Gardner said the Chardon Road resurfacing project has been in partnership with ODOT for a long time.

“They actually wanted to do the whole length of Route 6, from Kirtland to Bishop (roads), but the city pays for the engineering and a 20% match, so that would’ve eaten up way too much of our road budget, so we asked them to break it up,” Gardner said.

One of the resident complaints addressed with the Chardon Road project were the many bumps along the way, particularly on the eastern section of the road. Those have since been fixed to make the route smoother.

In 2021, the city completed the engineering for Chardon Road and paid its share for the work done in 2022.

“Next year, we’ll do the engineering and pay our share for work that will be done in 2024, which will be the west end,” Gardner said. “In two years, hopefully we’ll have all of Route 6 redone.”

River Road is on schedule to be done in a couple of years, from the Gates Mills border to the Willoughby border. In addition, both Chardon Road bridges have work schedule to be done in the next two to four years.