Market St. tree removal to begin, results in road closure

Trees line Market street between 17th and 23rd streets as traffic flows in Wilmington.

Market Street will be closed four days next week while crews remove old, dying trees from Wilmington's historic tree canopy.

The closure, between 17th and 23rd streets, will be from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, said N.C. Department of Transportation officials.

"The tree contractor is going to come in and prune out the trees," said Joe Chance, roadside environmental engineer with the DOT.

In December, the state Board of Transportation approved $50,000 in funding to prune and remove the unhealthiest trees on that stretch of Market Street.

Ten trees will be removed next week.

Chance said the trees that will be removed have been hit by cars or have diseases and are decaying from the inside out.

The condition of some of the trees has been made evident from branches randomly falling to the street below.

In July 2012, a large branch splintered from a tree near the National Cemetery entrance and landed on a car driving along the 2000 block of Market Street.

The car was totalled, but the driver was uninjured by the falling limb.

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Market St. tree removal to begin, results in road closure