Restore Biloxi moves into more neighborhoods this month

The city will meet with a group of west Biloxi residents next week to let them know that the Restore Biloxi Infrastructure Program will be coming to their neighborhoods later this month.

About a hundred notices are being hand-delivered this weekend to residents along Brookside Cove, Christi Lane, Alicia Drive, Mercedes Drive, Walda Drive, a portion of Big Lake Road, the northern end of Provence Place, and a portion of Old Bay Road and Bay Pointe Drive.

The residents are being given information about the 240-day project, which will
include replacing water mains, sanitary sewer lines and storm drains as well as replacing the
streets, curbs and sidewalks affected by the construction work. The work — which has a contract price of $3.66 million — is being funded by FEMA and MEMA.

Residents also are being invited to an informational meeting on Wednesday, March 14 at 6 p.m. at the Donal M. Snyder Sr. Community Center to hear more about the work. A question-and-answer session is also planned as part of the meeting.

To see the postcards being hand-delivered this weekend to residents in the impacted area, click here.

Looking at the big picture on infrastucture work
This Donal Snyder meeting is the latest development in the city’s much-discussed $355 million federally-funded program to facilitate repairs or replacement of the water, sewer and storm lines damaged by Katrina. The work also will involve many of the wastewater pump stations throughout the city.

Currently, infrastructure work is progressing in the Sunkist and Ancient Oaks subdivisions in west Biloxi, and on Fifth Street in east Biloxi, between Oak Street and the new Margaritaville site.

Bids on two more construction contracts will be opened later this month, and about a half dozen additional contracts are working their way through the process.

In fact, by the end of this year, the city expects to have between $160 and $200 million in work underway throughout Biloxi. By contrast, in a typical year before Katrina, Biloxi averaged about $16 million a year in major municipal construction projects.

“We’ve been telling people about this work for years now,” Mayor A.J. Holloway said. “We’ve told them that it’s going to be massive. We’ve been telling them that it’s going to be more work that we’ve ever done in our 300-year-history, and we’ve told them that we’re going to get it done in five to seven years instead of the 20 years it would typically take to do this much work.

“And this year, they’re going to be seeing it.”

For an overview of the Restore Biloxi work, click here.

About the pending work in the Old Bay Road area

Comments from Marvin G. Dalla Rosa, the project manager for HNTB, the firm the city hired to coordinate the massive Restore Biloxi program:

“This phase of Restore Biloxi, known as ‘RDN2,’ includes the replacement of 5,800 linear feet of water line, 5,000 feet of sewer mains, 2,000 feet of sewer force mains and 1,300 feet of storm drain lines.

“Four sewer pump stations will be removed from the city’s system and the flows will be consolidated into one new station. Roadways, curbs and sidewalks disturbed during the installation of this infrastructure will also be repaired.

“A few of the challenges associated with this project include the maintenance of traffic during the construction of the sanitary sewers and limited access to some streets, especially those cul-de-sacs within the project area.

“For example, while the streets are about 27 feet wide, some of the sewer lines are as deep as 20 feet. This will necessitate the use of innovative construction techniques by the contractor. For the work located within a cul-de-sac, traffic flows into and out of the neighborhoods must be maintained as well.

“The success of this project will require a well-coordinated effort on the part of the contractor and the cooperation of the residents affected.”