Hamlet’s Starke Street improvement project continues. Now that the paving work is done, a sidewalk is being installed along the west side of Starke Street from Plymouth Street north to the gas station.
Engineer Lee Nagai gave an update to the town council Wednesday. “They’ve got sidewalk in, down past the Co-Op, I believe,” he said. “And they’re working on the last section of curb and cutter, and then the next section will be starting the piece without the curb and gutter. The sidewalk will basically stay straight, and there’ll be about a two-foot gap between the edge of the pavement and the edge of the sidewalk continuing north.”
He said the new sidewalk is still drawing a mixed reaction from local landowners. “Mr. Jensen’s happy. Mr. Goble, not so much,” Nagai told council members. “But it’s done, and we haven’t really impacted his property. It certainly looks like we’re in our right of way, based on where the utility poles are. We’re inside the utility poles, so I don’t really think there’s an issue there.”
Meanwhile, Nagai says the rebuilt roadway has significantly improved drainage, but there are still some unavoidable issues at the north end. “There’s just no outlet up there,” he explained. “We talked about that when we designed the project. We put that storm sewer in the initial design, and the price came back pretty high. It was just not feasible, so we did what we could do. And we did put under-drain in there, so as the water percolates out, it will get away faster and protect the pavement. But without spending a couple hundred thousand dollars on storm line, we’re just not going to be able to get anything done up there.”
Hamlet’s Starke Street project is being funded, in part, by a grant through the state’s Community Crossings program.
