Downtown readies for Gordon Drive reconstruction

SIOUX CITY | John Mechem heard a few customers grumbling already on Monday.

The Chili's Grill & Bar general manager expects to hear a lot more as construction starts up on Gordon Drive just outside the restaurant and makes it harder for customers to reach businesses along one of downtown Sioux City's busiest streets.

"We understand that (business) will be slower than usual this summer," Mechem said.

Monday's closure of the street's inside lanes was just the beginning of the Iowa Department of Transportation's reconstruction of Gordon Drive from west of Pearl Street east to the viaduct at Court Street. The project is expected to be finished in late November.

As early as this week, traffic will be limited to two lanes of westbound traffic on Gordon Drive for the duration of construction. Eastbound traffic will be detoured onto Third Street. Eastbound motorists will able to get back onto Gordon Drive at Court Street to drive over the viaduct.

"I'm hoping with our setup that traffic operates fairly smoothly," IDOT District 3 traffic planner Dakin Schultz said.

So do many others who regularly use Gordon Drive.

"The biggest thing that we are trying to make known is how people can get to us," said Mechem, who's working with the IDOT to set up temporary signage giving motorists directions through the construction zone to the restaurant at 110 Nebraska St.

The Gordon Drive work is part of the IDOT's 10-year, $400 million project to widen Interstate 29 to three lanes in each direction from Sergeant Bluff to the South Dakota border. The total project is currently scheduled to be finished in 2018.

Gordon Drive is being widened and repaved, and its intersection with Virginia Street expanded to accommodate traffic pattern shifts that will result from the I-29 widening and reconstruction through downtown that will take place in coming years.

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Downtown readies for Gordon Drive reconstruction