Bank Street stabilization done

Repaving planned for this month

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District and a local contractor recently stabilized a portion of the Grand River bank in Painesville, with the city planning to repave affected portions of Bank Street in the upcoming weeks.

The corps worked with Neurone and Sons of Warrensville Heights to add “an anchored steel sheet pile wall along approximately 325 linear feet of steep riverbank,” it announced in an Aug. 8 news release. Crews began installation in March and finished by July 31.

The release added that the project cost $3.86 million. The federal government’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will cover 65 percent of the costs, while the remaining 35 percent will be funded by the city.

The project encompassed portions of the river bank running alongside Bank Street north of the intersection with East Walnut Avenue. The release said that the project will bring “long-lasting protection from erosion which threatened public utilities, residents’ access to their historic homes along Bank Street, and the environmental health of the river below.”

“The Bank Street Retaining Wall project is a great example of local government and the Army Corps of Engineers working together for the greater good,” City Manager Doug Lewis stated in the release.

“This section of Bank Street is now stable and our many historic homes in the area can rest easy. We want to thank the Army Corps of Engineers for taking on this important project.”

With the stabilization work done, Painesville Communications Coordinator Kathleen Sullivan said that the city intends to repave the affected portion of Bank Street “due to the damage some of the heavy machinery caused.”

The city’s engineers expect repaving work to be finished by the end of August, she added.

Painesville and the corps signed an agreement for the stabilization project in 2021, the corps said in a release last year.

A corps fact sheet from last year noted the failure of “a section of a previous upper slope retaining wall.”

The contract was awarded in June 2022 and originally expected to cost $2.27 million, the corps noted last year, with the project initially projected to run from July 2022 until February 2023.