Editor’s Note: This story was produced by Source Media Journalism fellows Summer Lugthart, D’Zaiyah Walton and Justice Wheeler.
MANSFIELD – Construction workers discovered multiple unexpected objects while digging up downtown streets — from previously unknown utility lines to a buried brick wall to a dog femur.
Despite a few surprises, the Main Street Corridor Improvement Project is on track to be finished by late October, according to city of Mansfield engineer Bob Bianchi.
“There’s been a lot of challenges, a lot of unknowns,” Bianchi said. “It’s good to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Work still to be completed includes road repaving and installing a fountain in front of the Park National Bank building. Adding increased lighting for safety is another final step of the project, according to Jennifer Kime, CEO of Downtown Mansfield, Inc.
The project is 67 percent complete, Kime said Tuesday. It’s been an 18-month process, costing around $20.3 million, most of which is coming from federal and state grants.
The project involved replacing several thousand feet of underground water lines — which occasionally led to unexpected discoveries.
“Any time you put a shovel in the ground, you will find something,” Bianchi said Tuesday.
Bianchi said the city replaced the existing water lines, which were installed between 1924 and 1934.
There have been challenges along the way, like maintaining pedestrian traffic, managing road closures and dealing with difficult weather conditions.
Downtown workers have seen their daily commutes turned into a maze. Some members of the public had difficulties navigating the site.
“Maintaining vehicular and pedestrian traffic has been quite challenging, keeping sidewalks open,” Bianchi said. “There’s times where you have to replace the sidewalks right outside someone’s business, right out their front door.”
Several streets have been closed at various times throughout the project, with trenches dug in a zig-zag pattern.
“The concrete and road trenches are for water, sewer and gas lines. While the pavement currently looks rough, it will be repaved and painted,” Bianchi said.
Bianchi said the trenches zig zag because they have to be bent across the roads and around other objects under the ground, like communication vaults.
Below are photos of the construction work around downtown Mansfield. (Credit: Justice Wheeler) The story continues below.
Fire chief said Main Street project hasn’t impacted response times
Kime said the city worked with Downtown Mansfield, Inc. to help plan the project and keep the public informed of its progress.
“It takes the whole team and that’s why part of the project’s unique,” she said. “We have organizations like us, who are not engineers, involved. Then we’ve got city planners. We’ve got engineers. We’ve got the mayor. We all come to the table with a different perspective.”
Weather conditions have dictated when crews can work. Some tasks, like concrete installation or asphalt pavement installation, can only be done within a certain temperature range.
“You’re restricted in some ways, but overall, they’ll (contractors) work in the rain – if they can and it doesn’t impact quality. But there’s always times where weather has impacted (the project) to some extent. It’s been better on this project than I’ve seen in the past in other projects,” Bianchi said.
Mansfield Fire Chief Dan Crow said the project does not appear to have impacted emergency response times.
“Looking at our response time statistics before and during construction, the median response time for Station 1 remained unchanged at 2 minutes, 33 seconds in both 2024 and 2025,” Crow said.
“Citywide, the median response time increased only slightly from 2 minutes, 45 seconds in 2024 to 2 minutes, 48 seconds in 2025.”
“Our crews continually monitor the location of road closures and adjust response routes as needed,” he added.
New water lines are just one part of the overall project cost, according to Kime. There have been limited local dollars spent — most have been federal grants.
Kime: Improvements will make downtown more welcoming, pedestrian friendly
While actual construction began about 18 months ago, conversations about changes downtown have been going on since 2006, Kime said.
Downtown Mansfield, Inc. has supported those changes, from beautification to two-way street conversions designed to make downtown more of a destination.
Kime stated DMI’s mission is to invest back into the community and advocate for businesses.
“We run a facade grant program where we do grants for improvement in people’s facade, anything from brickwork to just like signage, things like that,” she said. “We do business recruitment, we do help businesses with marketing, sometimes development too.”
The goals of the project are to give downtown Mansfield a more pedestrian-friendly, disability accessible and business friendly environment, Kime said.
In addition to beautification, community members will benefit from more sustainable waterlines and infrastructure and improved roads, she said.
“We want the downtown to feel more friendly and more welcoming. We want everyone to feel at home here,” Kime said.
