North Carolina Construction News staff writer
The City of Fayetteville is adjusting the Rosehill Road sidewalk project schedule due to “unforeseen circumstances” that will push the completion date into 2024.
The $1.4 million project, funded through a transportation alternative program (TAP) grant, experienced complications leading to the removal of the original contractor on July 10. This decision was due to safety concerns and insufficient progress, according to city officials.
Fayetteville is installing 6,520 feet of sidewalk, bus pads, and drainage improvements along Rosehill Road’s east side from Country Club Drive to Shaw Mill Road. Construction originally started in October 2022, with an initial completion date of July 7, 2023.
The City is currently seeking a new contractor to complete the remaining work on Rosehill Road. The new contractor is expected to start in early 2024. A revised construction timeline for the new contractor is approximately six months after work recommences.
According to Wetherill Engineering, the southern half of the Rosehill Road ROW was 80 feet wide and the northern half of the ROW was 60 feet wide. The existing roadway cross section is a two-lane road with 11’ travel lanes and 6’ shoulders.
“Designing a sidewalk where the ROW is 60 feet wide was especially challenging, and required Wetherill Engineering to design curb and gutter along the edge of pavement,” the company said. “With the existing swale along the roadway being no more than two feet deep in many places, a standard NCDOT drainage structure would be too deep for use.
“In these cases, WEI designed a special sidewalk flume detail approved by NCDOT for this project. There will be 17 of these special sidewalk flumes specified on the project and 13 NCDOT standard curb inlets/drop inlets in the project. Approximately 942 LF of Class 3 RCP ranging in size from 15 to 36 inches was also designed to handle the existing and proposed drainage.”
A new contractor is expected to start working on the unfinished sections in early 2024 with an estimated construction timeline of six months after work resumes.