MANSFIELD — Mansfield City Council on Tuesday evening approved seeking bids for a $4.5 million project to replace or rehabilitate about 1,700 feet of a failing, century-old box culvert along East Third Street.
“It’s a very big project,” city engineer Bob Bianchi told council during a utilities committee meeting. “This project has been (in development) for about a year and a half.
“We have got the final plans (from EMHT). All the property acquisitions have been done. The plans have been been fully completed.”
Click here to see a multi-media explanation of the project.
The box culvert (15 feet wide and seven to eight feet deep) is used to move storm water underground. The section in question enters on Third Street near the city’s main fire station at 140 E. Third St. The work will go east to Ashland Road.
The underground system handles Ritter’s Run in the downtown through a series of sandstone tunnels and brick arches. Bianchi said inspections found the culvert in question needs to be replaced.
(Above is a video showing the inside of a section of a large culvert underneath East Third Street in Mansfield.)
He showed council members a video taken inside the culvert that revealed exposed steel, stress fractures and other decay. He also showed a photo showing steel plates on the sidewalk along East Third Street.
“Those are actually covering holes,” he said. “You (remove those) and look into a hole and you are seeing the bottom of Ritter’s Run. You’re seeing the stream going through,” Bianchi said.
The city has received a $500,000 grant from the Ohio Public Works Commission for the project. An estimated $4 million would come from the city’s sewer fund, according to Bianchi.
“Of course when we open bids, we’ll get the true cost, but that’s the engineer’s estimate at this point. I have spoken with the (city) finance director. We’ve had a meeting about the budget. These dollars are budgeted for 2023 in our sewer fund.
“We can fund this project. It does deplete some of our cash, but we don’t run out of money. We’re not going into the red. Early estimates are that we’re gonna have over $600,000 in cash next year (after this project),” he said.
Alomar Davenport, the 4th Ward councilman who chairs the finance committee, asked if the project would drain the sewer fund coffers to the point it could not handle emergency repairs.
Bianchi said the administration has reviewed the 2023 budget plans.
“After all those expenses were put in from every department of the sewer (fund), we still had dollars left over. If something were to happen … I mean … it hasn’t happened yet, but where we need to spend $5 million tomorrow, we would have to talk about that. But I don’t anticipate that,” the engineer said.
Construction would begin in the spring of 2023 and will take a year to 18 months to complete, Bianchi said.
The effort to replace and repair the 1905 culvert will complicate travel along East Third Street, according to the engineer.
“When you’re driving into Third Street, you look down, it’s gonna be a mess. It’s gonna be a lot of construction, a lot of heavy equipment, a 15-foot wide culvert is gonna be placed in ground,” he said.
Bianchi said residents in the area will have access to their homes, though through traffic will be closed off. He said other locations, including Richland County Job & Family Services, also have access from other directions, not just Third Street.
“The contractor, as well as the city, will be working closely with JFS and Newhope Industries and anyone else along that corridor to make sure that we’re in close communication so that we don’t want to hinder their operations,” he said.
In response to a question from 2nd Ward Councilwoman Cheryl Meier, city fire Chief Steve Strickling said the construction would not impact the department’s response time.
“Normally we respond west on East Third and go to Adams Street and then go north or south. It’s pretty rare for us to east on Third, unless it’s to one of the few residences that are right at that general area. So it should not impact our response times adversely at all,” Strickling said.
Sidewalks and catch basins would also be replaced as part of the project, according to Bianchi, who said the road would also be repaved.
