In April Barnhill Contracting Company began resurfacing worn-out, pot-holed sections of 50 streets in Wake Forest the town engineering department had identified as deficient. This week Director of Engineering Eric Keravuori said in an email, “Weather permitting Barnhill could be finished this Friday with the whole project.” The work cost $1.4 million.
And this week Carolina Sunrock began surveying for the future Forest Road connection from Ligon Mill Road to South Main Street. Forest Road now deadends soon after it leaves Ligon Mill Road though maps show it continuing to intersect with Wake Drive beside Wake Forest Pediatrics. The maps show the right-of-way only, Keravuori said; the ground is covered with trees. The short piece of Forest Road should soon connect to Wake Drive and hence to South Main Street.
The other projects in this $915125.68 contract are a connection between the two complete parts of Royall Mill Avenue that began this week. The street now begins at North White Street and stops near Flaherty Farms subdivision. “On the east side, Traditions has built a section. This project closes the gap and provides an east-west connection on the northern side of town,” Keravuori wrote. “Eventually we would like to tie it into Harris Road and it will go all the way to Capital Boulevard.” The roadblocks for that project are the bridge over or the tunnel under North White Street and the CSX rail line as well as the steep descent on the other side of the rail line. The most recent plan called for a bridge over the road and railroad.
Carolina Sunrock will also make radius repairs to turns in the South Forest Business Park, re-stripe Retail Drive and repave the Wake Forest Police Department parking lot.
Weather permitting – a chancy prospect this year – the $915,000 project will be completed in mid-November.