Big work coming to Warren's Water Street

Four simultaneous road, sewer, gas and water projects to take place in early Spring; town looks to coordinate to lessen burden

By Ted Hayes
Posted 5/25/16

Warren’s north end will soon see an unusual amount of construction, but plans are in the works to try to keep its impact on traffic to a minimum.

Last week, Warren’s town manager, building …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Big work coming to Warren's Water Street

Four simultaneous road, sewer, gas and water projects to take place in early Spring; town looks to coordinate to lessen burden

Posted

Warren’s north end will soon see an unusual amount of construction, but plans are in the works to try to keep its impact on traffic to a minimum.

Last week, Warren’s town manager, building official and others met with state officials and private developers to coordinate a host of work that needs to be done on Water Street over the next year. There are no fewer than four separate infrastructure projects in the works, and town officials want those involved to coordinate to lessen their impact as much as possible. Among the projects are:

n The developers of the Tourister mill apartment complex plan to install a new sewer line from the mill all the way to the wastewater treatment plant.

n The Bristol County Water Authority has plans to install a new water line along Water Street.

n The DOT has a long-standing project nearing fruition, that will see aesthetic improvements and handicapped accessible curbs and other features installed along parts of Water Street.

n And finally, National Grid has plans to remove an old unused gas line buried under Water Street.

Warren Town Manager Jan Reitsma called a meeting the Friday before last to try to bring all the parties together. Doing the projects simultaneously could help ease their impact on Water Street residents and overall traffic, and could save money in the long run, he said.

“We want to shorten the overall construction period as much as possible,” Mr. Reitsma said. “And we should coordinate so we don’t tear up the road multiple times. It’s just a waste of money.”

So far, Mr. Reitsma said all the parties appear to be working well together, and all are on the same page as far as timing. Initially, the thought was that the work would be done between August and November.

But “more recently we found there are some issues that need to be resolved and too many loose ends,” he said. “We felt it was too early. So we are postponing construction until spring (2017). That will also be beneficial because when you can post bids early in the year, you are likely to get better prices.”

How Water Street will be impacted remains to be seen. There may be advantages to closing off the entire stretch needing work over one lane, which would allow one-way traffic. Or, officials could decide to close all of Water Street in one-block increments, closing and opening them as need be. Those details have yet to be worked out.

In the coming months, Mr. Reitsma said he hopes to coordinate a community meeting to bring residents up to speed on the coming construction, and how it might impact them.

“It has been a long time since there was a community meeting,” he said. “We want to explain to people what’s happening.”

No date has yet been set.

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.