Downtown Bloomington alleys get resurfaced
Work on downtown alleys in Bloomington continued this past week after a crew from E & B Paving moved the operation east from the block between College Avenue and Walnut Street, just north of the county courthouse.
The project is focusing on alleys between 6th and 7th Street, between College and Washington.
For the last week or so, workers have been busting up the surface and pouring new concrete in the alley that runs north-south from 6th and 7th, between Walnut and Washington.
As a prelude to the alley work, in May the city replaced a 123-old water main on the 6th Street leg of the courthouse square.
The board of public works approved contracts related to the alley work at its Sept. 1, 2020 meeting. The contract for inspection work went to Shrewsberry & Associates, LLC for $74,627. The winning base bid from E & B Paving for the work itself was $661,200.
The money for the alley work comes from general obligation bonds approved by the city council in October 2018. That was a roughly $10-million package that was presented to the council as “Bicentennial Bonds.” The package was split into three series to avoid going over the $5 million threshold that would have allowed for a remonstrance process. The series of bonds that funded the alleys passed on a 7–1 vote.
