Hawley Street rebuild in Mundelein enters second construction season
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the construction and engineering costs for the Hawley Street improvement in Mundelein.
Heavy construction equipment is back on a well-traveled section of Hawley Street in Mundelein as a two-year project to rebuild and widen the road begins for the season.
Crews on Wednesday were installing a storm sewer on Hawley at Pershing Avenue, just east of Carl Sandburg Middle School, in advance of the roadwork expected to begin in mid-April. When that happens, Hawley will be open only to westbound traffic, with eastbound drivers shifted to Route 176.
“I drive on Hawley Street every day to drop off my daughter at Carl Sandburg, so I can't detour. Although I'm dreading the traffic backup, I am really looking forward to having Hawley paved and done correctly,” village Trustee Holly Kim said.
Plans call for widening Hawley to three lanes for about 1.2 miles, from just east of Seymour Avenue to Midlothian Road. The area along Hawley is largely residential, with Sandburg and Mundelein High School west of Route 45 and commercial to the east. The work features new sanitary and storm sewers and water lines, sidewalks, the extension of the Millennium Trail bike path, a right-turn lane onto Route 45 and improved traffic signals, including one to be added at California.
Hawley actually is a municipal extension of a county highway to the west, according to Village Engineer Bill Emmerich, and the work is the result of a 2006 agreement between the county and village. Construction and engineering costs to date are about $10.9 million with the village reimbursing the county about $3.4 million. When complete, the rebuilt section of Hawley will be transferred to county jurisdiction.
The focus for the next few weeks will be connecting homes between Prairie Avenue and Route 45 to the sanitary sewer installed last fall. A new storm sewer system also is being installed on the north side of Hawley between California and Prairie. The work will involve daily lane closures.
That is the precursor to the road reconstruction, which involves removing the road, installing a 12-inch-deep stone base and topping it with 11 inches of asphalt, according to Mark Molnar, resident engineer for Alfred Benesch & Co., which is overseeing the project.
To do that, the eastbound lane will be closed to allow it to be rebuilt and a center-turn lane added. At that point, tentatively April 18, only westbound traffic will be allowed to use the remaining lane.
“Whenever there's a major change in traffic, it's rough for a week or so, but from what we've seen they figure it out,” Molnar said. “In August, we'll put the traffic on the two new lanes” and build the remaining lane, he said. Work is scheduled to be done by Oct. 31.
Drivers will have other work to navigate. Mundelein's annual road improvement project includes the $3.1 million reconstruction with curb and gutter of Lomand Drive from Edgemont Street to Kilarney Pass, and Firth Road and Lucerne Court. On the north side of town, work has begun on a $4 million project to add left-turn lanes on Route 176 at Route 83 and a southbound lane on Route 60 and other improvements.
“There's a lot of contractors who will have a lot of people active around here,” Emmerich said.