MIDLAND, Texas — The Garfield Reconstruction Project has begun once again in the City of Midland.
Initially, the project got its start back in 2017 when voters passed a bond measure to fix multiple roads within Midland.
“So in 2017, voters approved to go ahead and rebuild 26 roads, Garfield (Street) was one of them, so that happened to be a year three project," said Jose Ortiz, the Director of Engineering Services for Midland. "For different reasons it was pushed back, and so we finally got everything in place for construction in February of 2022."
The project has seen construction take place near Michigan Avenue and Louisiana Avenue. Water lines, storm drains and sewer lines are being switched out with new equipment.
However, a supply issue with the contractor forced a delay in the project as the City of Midland had to wait for them to get access to more storm drains.
With fresh pipes for the storm drain rolling, the City can now get the project back on the road again.
“When we got to Louisiana (Avenue), unfortunately there was a supply issue with the storm drain so the contractor couldn't finish the intersection off. They had to go away because there was a six month delay, so we wanted to keep that open to the public," Ortiz said. "So now that they have the storm drain in house again, they've gone out, they've installed the storm drain system at Louisiana.”
This is just phase one of the project. This phase is slated to be completed in about two to three weeks pending unforeseen circumstances.
Phase two of the project will begin shortly after, but will take some time to finish up.
“From there, we still have an eighteen month project, north of Louisiana going up to Golf Course (Road), that would be the rest of reconstruction of Garfield," Ortiz said. "You’re gonna see a lot of trenching and backfill because you have three major utilities: water, sewer and storm drain. Each of those have to be done separately.”
Other roads that will be worked on in the second phase include the aforementioned Golf Course Road along with Cuthbert Avenue and Big Spring Street.
Ortiz mentioned that the city has been working closely with the Texas Department of Transportation regarding scheduling and traffic concerns. The city is responsible for projects concerning city roads while TxDOT is responsible for projects concerning major roads such as highways.
For more information on potential traffic delays, the City of Midland has developed an interactive map on their website so that drivers can prepare for any delays concerning construction.