MERIDIAN, TWP. — The Michigan Department of Transportation is planning to spend nearly $15 million to give a makeover to about a little over three miles of Grand River Avenue in Meridian Township.
MDOT says Grand River Avenue, also known as M-43, sees about 16,000 to 25,000 vehicles per day.
The construction will run from Park Lake Road past Cornell Road to the east.
"With those improvements, we're going to do some ada ramp upgrades and storm sewer upgrades at the Okemos Road intersection, and across from Playmakers on that swamp cut area where the road is kind of falling in there," said Project Contract Engineer Michael Meyer.
It also will include joint and crack repairs and gutter replacements.
"We're also partnering with the Ingham County Drain Commission and Meridian Township to install some water main and a lot of the storm upgrades and stuff are coming from the upgrades of some of the drains at the Okemos Road intersection," Meyer said.
They will also be raising the grade of M-43 about two-feet at Okemos Road and then at Nakoma Drive to help alleviate flooding. The project will be broken into several phases.
"We're going to have a phase from Marsh Road to Oak Point Court, which will be primarily like the resurfacing phase."
That work will take place through the summer. Okemos Road and Nacoma Road will require more work.
"Those those areas will be broken up into three kind of sub phases in order to keep Grand River traffic flowing throughout the corridor because that's that is one thing we are doing is we will always maintain a lane; a lane of traffic in each direction on drain river itself," Meyer said.
Meyer says Okemos Road will need to be closed at the intersection throughout the life of the project.
"With every construction project there is traffic impacts however, we've done quite a few studies and stuff and and we try to minimize traffic impacts with our staging, as well as with our detour routes," Meyer said.
Drivers are urged to be patient and drive safely through the workzone.
A tentative start date has been set for April 4. MDOT is anticipating that this project will be completed by June of 2023.
They also plan to conduct another public meeting to discuss the construction schedule.
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