2 areas of downtown Port Huron are still torn up. Here's when they'll wrap up.
Two big areas of downtown Port Huron are noticeably torn up mid-construction just as the city unfurls new features and events to bring in more visitors.
But both primary projects — the reconstruction of Fort Street and redevelopment of the West Quay parking lot — are expected to make enough progress before pressing pause next month for Boat Week.
West Quay is the second parking lot reconstruction on that side of downtown after the Majestic in 2020. It is being spearheaded by DTE Energy as part of soil cleanup efforts to remove century-old contaminants beneath the pavement.
DTE spokesman Eric Younan said the project, which also includes shoring up seawall along the Black River, is slated to be complete by Aug. 31 and remains closed to public use.
“The project’s halfway done,” he said.
Although work isn’t expected to disrupt Blue Water Fest, held in connection to the Port Huron to Mackinac sailboat race, city officials said the project has changed the footprint for the four-day event July 13-16.
“A portion of the lot will be gravel parking for Blue Water Fest. Blue Water Fest will be held in the south McMorran Lot, but the deep underground stuff should be put back together. They could be close by Blue Water Fest,” said Port Huron City Manager James Freed.
“The DTE project was really a significant investment from DTE to clean up legacy contaminants,” he said. “When they bought the old power company, they inherited all of its contaminated sites. But DTE pledged to clean up those sites. They spent several million dollars opening up those sites, cleaning up that legacy contaminant that they did not create to prevent it from leaching into the Black River.”
The city signed off on that West Quay project last year, adding support to the city’s seawall work outside the Zebra Bar at 522 Quay St.
The excavation activities along the bulk eastern portion of the lot have left it closed to public use since work began in January. And like at the Majestic, it addresses contaminants left by the old Port Huron Gas and Electric Company, which operated in that area from the 1870s until DTE’s Detroit Edison stepped in by the 1920s.
On the other side of downtown, the city continued its trend to replace a major throughway annually with reconstruction of Fort between Quay and Beers streets.
Both Freed and Angela McKinstry, the city’s engineering manager, said the $2.2 million was still on-budget and would be wrapping up its first phase of work by July 1.
“We did that so it’d be (paused) for Blue Water Fest,” Freed said.
McKinstry said Fort from Quay to McMorran Boulevard has seen the bulk of the work so far, though some of the water and sewer main replacement has continued north.
“Depending on weather, we’re looking at paving during the week of June 13,” she said. “And so, we’re not going to have the top level of asphalt on, but we’ll have like a base level and the concrete work will all be done in that section. Restoration, they’ll have top soil down on that. We’re going to be holding off on the seeding because it’s not going to grow in July anyway.”
Despite the progress, during Boat Week, McKinstry said, “The plan right now is to still leave that closed.” The project is set to be complete by November.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that although these downtown projects may seem like (they are) just a downtown issue, they’re the water and sewer hubs that help distribute water to the entire city, and they were more than 100-year-old mains,” Freed said.
To learn more about Blue Water Fest in July, visit www.thebluewaterfest.com, and or learn more about the activities at the new McMorran Plaza that got started last week, visit www.mcmorran.com/plaza.
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: As summer events get underway, 2 areas of downtown Port Huron are still torn up
