Hamilton residents bracing for ‘a very busy construction year’

City already working on Eaton Avenue, which will be closed for three weeks.

This year will be a big year for road construction, and underground utilities, which Hamilton Mayor Pat Moeller summed up as: “an incredible amount of miles and dollars.”

Millions of dollars will be spent in 2024 on what Hamilton Director of Engineer Rich Engle said will be “a very busy construction year,” impacting citizens and the traveling public in many corners of the city.

Engle told City Council on Wednesday about the copious construction projects happening around the city, including the Eaton Avenue work between Park Avenue and the Two Mile Creek bridge. This project will first include replacement and repairs of the storm sewers along this stretch of road.

“When the public works crews investigated the storm sewers on Eaton Avenue, they found some deficient pipes between the storm sewer and the catch basins, which must be replaced,” Engle said. “Unfortunately, it requires complete closure of Eaton Avenue.”

The project will be about three weeks long starting Monday and includes closing Eaton between Webster and Rhea avenues.

Engle said this will be “a complete closure, block by block,” and detours will be posted. The closures will have a direct impact on Hamilton City School District’s Wilson Middle and Hamilton High schools and Kettering Health Hamilton hospital.

The work is necessary now as the resurfacing of Eaton Avenue is scheduled for after the storm sewer work later this year.

Once Eaton Avenue is completed, they’ll focus on resurfacing NW Washington Boulevard. This resurfacing project will occur between Eaton and Cleveland avenues.

This project also includes widening the three intermediate intersections to add turn lanes for eastbound and westbound traffic. The widening project involves closing westbound traffic of NW Washington Boulevard during this project to provide the contractor room for construction activities, Engle said.

This project impacts the Hamilton Freshman School campus.

The Tylersville Road reconstruction project began earlier this month with the first of two phases. Hamilton Enterprise Park Drive to Gilmore Drive is closed to through traffic. Phase 2 will be from Gilmore Road to Gateway Avenue.

The project, which is expected to be completed by the end of October, will reconstruct the road to a higher design standard as it’s been “in terrible shape” for several years, Engle said.

Construction

The project will see the road torn up and rebuilt to accommodate heavier truck traffic accessing the industrial businesses in Hamilton Enterprise Park, which includes some big-name Hamilton companies, like 80 Acres, VinylMax, Synergy Flavors and corrugated packaging manufacturer Saica.

The only solution is to tear it up and rebuild it with proper sections of base and asphalt pavement.

Bilstein Bridge, which is at the border with the city of Fairfield, is a $2 million project set to begin in early April and wrap up by December. The project is on Bilstein Road, which changes to Holden Boulevard on Fairfield’s side of the border.

“Right now, we’re going through some reviews and processes that CSX has to approve,” Engle said.

The bridge is an overpass for the CSX railroad tracks and will impact Fairfield High School. Hamilton notified the district of the project, which will be led by Sunesis Construction. The rehabilitation project is expected to wrap in December.

Other projects for this year include:

■ Resurfacing of the Fairway Hills subdivision will be planned for later this year. The paving is coming after the water main construction project, which is now complete and providing new water services to the area. The concrete work for curb, sidewalk and driveway approaches is underway. The milling and paving portion is still to be scheduled this summer.

■ Likely to begin in May is the Millville Avenue water main and concrete repair project. There will be an occasional complete closure of Millville Avenue, and a notice of timelines will be sent out later this spring and summer. Though it’s a different contract, this project does include concrete curb, sidewalk and driveway approach repairs. Resurfacing of Millville Avenue, which includes Donna Avenue, will happen next year.

■ The 2024/2025 concrete repair and resurfacing program will be bid out later this year, and will utilize a combination of grants that total nearly $1.75 million. Other funding sources include the city’s street levy and infrastructure renewal, and storm and property assessments. There are nearly two dozen streets involved. The concrete work will begin this year and paving will occur in 2025.

■ Repaving of several Hamilton roads as part of the 2023/2024 concrete repair and resurfacing program will continue with repaving of several roads later this year. The contractor is working on concrete curb, sidewalk and driveway approaches on Bender Avenue, and installing new catch basins on NW Washington Boulevard.

■ ODOT is resurfacing Ohio 128, known as Pyramid Hill Boulevard in the city. The road is west of the Great Miami River and south of the Columbia Road Bridge.