News : Spring has sprung and new streets are unfolding.

Construction workers are preparing to tear up West 1st St. for reconstruction

Carving out J Ave.

It's that time of the year. When winter has passed, for the most part, and the huge earthmoving trucks are popping up to create smooth sailing in our little town.

If you've noticed, work just west of the former Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, the extension of J Ave. is taking place. The street will be expanding from 9th to 13th Streets. Something that has been on the city's to-do list. The pile of dirt where the proposed future Emergency Services building is growing as the collection point from all of the earth moved.

1st St. West from the highway to the R Ave., (Mickey's Bar to the Legion) construction officially began on this section, Monday, April 1.

Last year when the road was constructed, inferior aggregate. (Aggregate is all of the components used to make the concrete for a smooth road.) Because this road will carry all of the heavy traffic from businesses in the area, the city planned to make this road even thicker to hopefully keep it from breaking down as quickly as a thinner layer of concrete would. Unfortunately, the wrong aggregate was discovered too late to correct the issue before winter. The inferior section will now be torn up and constructed again.

The city will not face any additional expense to fix the issue as it wasn't the fault of the city. Unfortunately, for the construction company, they will have to absorb the cost of this mistake.