Dry weather means progress on North Iris Street project

Mt. Pleasant experienced largely a rain-free week last week. That is good for street construction.

Because of the dry weather, there was considerable progress on the North Iris Street project last week. With continued favorable weather, Warner Engineering Associates, Inc. of Mt. Pleasant, the engineering firm for the project, said the Mapleleaf Drive/Iris Street intersection could be open sometime next week.

Moving up the road, the Commerce Drive/Iris intersection is set to be paved the first week of August and it is estimated it will take a week to pave the intersection.

Shipley Contracting, the general contractor for the project, poured the mainline of pavement south on Iris from the Walmart Distribution Center intersection to just north of Commerce Drive. Shipley also paved the north half of Mapleleaf Drive for connection to Iris Street and poured the colored crosswalk Thursday. Shipley began pouring the rest of the Mapleleaf Drive connection on Friday and will finish today.

JDM mobilizes today to start setting up the remaining Walmart Distribution Center driveway then Staats and Lomont Molding before pouring the trail along the west side of Iris. JDM?s wok will take a couple of weeks to complete.

It is hoped to switch to phase three of the project by the first week of August. This will include the area from Commerce Drive south to just north of the railroad tracks. Temporary entrances will be constructed to Alaniz and CECO. A temporary access will be built from Commerce Drive north to the new pavement for access to the Crossroads Industrial Park the first week of August.

Cole Construction will be grading and backfilling for the trails and driveways in the coming week.

Once the contractors begin phase three, they will be concentrating on paving the Commerce/Iris intersection.

Once the intersection is poured, it will be opened so all traffic entering or exiting the Crossroads Industrial Park will be on the new pavement traveling north on Iris Street to either Mapleleaf or on north to Winfield.

No detour changes will take place in the next week.