Reconstruction of US 18/218 interchange near Floyd on Avenue of the Saints on target for completion

MASON CITY — The Iowa Department of Transportation is still on track to complete the reconstruction of the US 18/218 interchange of the Avenue of the Saints near Floyd by Thanksgiving.

The DOT’s Pete Hjelmstad says the main line paving crew has moved in and started paving, and while it won’t take long for that to be completed, there’s a lot of adjacent work that has to take place. “The big thing with this is you are going to see the main line go down pretty quickly. That should probably be done in about a week, but there’s a lot of other hand pours we call them that need to be done north of the interchange on Highway 218 where we did the reconstruction in Floyd as well. There’s shoulders that have to be put down. There’s seedings. There’s mulching. There’s still a lot of work to be done over there, but again, getting the paving crew in is a really good sign.”

Hjelmstad says the project is still on its original timeline of completion.    “Since this project started, we said we were shooting to be done around Thanksgiving of this year, and that’s still our goal. We’ll see what the weather does for us and we’ll keep you updated as we get closer to opening that up.”

Hjelmstad says the DOT will also be doing some work on State Highway 122 between South Virginia and Illinois Avenues on Wednesday to go in and do some asphalt patching on some of the outside lanes. The outside lanes will be closed but the inside lanes will remain open.