It takes a bit more effort to get inside Lexington’s city hall these days. Work crews are moving ahead with the final phase of cosmetic improvements along Main Street. For possibly another week, most workers and visitors to city hall must use a side door. Project manager George Milligan says their excavation uncovered some surprises.
“We found basements that came all the way out under the sidewalk. We found coal chutes that had just been concreted over that required some additional work to clear those types of problems,” said Milligan.Milligan says coal chutes allowed trucks to deliver coal to basement furnaces.
He says most of the improvement were completed last fall, just prior to the World Equestrian Games. They included cosmetic improvements to South Limestone, Cheapside Park, West Main and West Vine. As for phase two, along North Limestone, he says that’s on indefinite hold.
“It was gonna be like almost the south Limestone because there you were gonna have to again put the utilities back underground as we did on the first phase of south Lime,” added Milligan.
Milligan says they’ll shut off the traffic light at the corner of Martin Luther King and Main Street for a couple of hours Wednesday night. He says it will help to pave the way for the return of pedestrian crossing signals at the intersection.
Milligan says this Main Street project should be finished in about five weeks
