City To Repair Main Street Starting This Week
The Harrodsburg Herald/Robert Moore
Contractors will try to repair the intersection of Main and Office Streets on Thursday, May 16, depending on the weather.
Robert Moore
Herald Staff
[email protected]
Much needed repairs on several Harrodsburg streets—including Main Street—will begin Thursday, May 16. The Harrodsburg City Commission voted to repair the intersection of Office and Main Streets at a special-called meeting on Wednesday, May 15. The city commission voted to modify a change order for their 2023 agreement with Mago Construction for the maintenance and paving of city streets. According to Commissioner Charlie Mattingly, who oversees the public works department, repairs on Main Street will begin Thursday, with contractors working all day to mill, repave and stripe the intersection. As always with road construction, everything is weather dependent.
“It’s going to be an all day job tomorrow,” said Mattingly. He said Mago had a major breakdown at their local plant and will be using asphalt from their plant in Lawrenceburg.
“I’ll be glad to get this Main Street fixed,” Mattingly said.
The magistrates unanimously approved the change order, which also directs Mago to pave West Lexington from U.S. 127 to Fort Street and Franks Court.
According to Mattingly, the original agreement with Mago totaled $648,105, but Bellaire Drive was deleted from the list of streets to receive work. Mattingly said other streets came in under budget, leaving the city with $60,000 to use for other projects.
The intersection of South Main still bears the scars from a major waterline break in January. The break led to icy conditions on the road, and the city issued a precautionary boil water advisory. While crews managed to repair the main, the street took a real beating, and citizens have wondered what the city was going to do about it before the 250th celebration. Harrodsburg’s 250th Parade is scheduled for Saturday, June 8.
The issue came up at the commission’s regular meeting on Monday, May 13, when Mattingly, who oversees the public works department, moved to use the leftover funds in the 2023-2024 budget to pave Parkview Drive, Franks Court and Lexington Street.
Commissioner Marvin “Bubby” Isham objected, saying there were other streets—including South Main—that needed to be fixed first.
“Main Street needs to be done awful bad,” Isham said. “We got this 250th coming up, and Main Street looks like crap.”
“I’m very much like Commissioner Isham here,” Mayor Bob Williams said, referring to Main and Lexington Streets. “I believe this money would be better used to complete these two projects.”
Mattingly said getting the contractors to submit bids and do the work in such a short time frame would be difficult.
“Call in whatever favors you may have with McGlone or Mego,” Williams said, listing the two main contractors the city uses for paving. “This is a major priority to get done now.”
According to Mattingly, the work on Main Street will cost approximately $30,000, while the work on West Lexington will costs more than $16,018.67 and paving Franks Court will cost $5,696.56.
