Paving on several Santa Rosa roads gets underway in April as rain subsides

Work to repave neighborhood streets and two major downtown thoroughfares in Santa Rosa is expected to start in April pending additional rain.

Road work will take place in a neighborhood near Steele Lane Elementary and in the Grace Tract area where construction crews have been replacing aging water and sewer infrastructure, the city announced last week.

Paving is also expected to start in Coffey Park and Fountaingrove where more than three dozen miles of neighborhood roads were damaged during the 2017 Tubbs Fire and work will get underway again on a section of Santa Rosa Avenue following a winter pause during the rainy season.

Here’s a look at the projects.

Grace Tract neighborhood

Paving will soon get underway in areas of the Grace Tract neighborhood where water and sewer mains were recently replaced.

Workers replaced the aging and undersized water main and the sewer line on East Haven from Eleanor Avenue to East Foothill Drive, on Hawthorne Court, Iris Court and Eleanor Avenue.

Workers also replaced the aging sewer main on East Foothill Drive between Thomas Drive and Siesta Lane.

Contractors will now repave impacted roads.

Neighborhood streets near Steele Lane

Construction crews will reconstruct the roadway on Albany Street, Malano Court, Clement Avenue and Emeritus Circle in the area southeast of Steele Lane and Nordyke Avenue.

Crews have been working in the neighborhood since July 2023 upsizing water mains and replacing outdated sewer mains made of a clay mixture on Albany Drive from Oliver Lane to Elliott Avenue, Clement Avenue from Albany to Malano and on Malano.

The work is expected to increase water flow, reduce sewer seepage and reduce overall maintenance costs.

Pavement work will start after the water and sewer replacement is completed later this month.

Work continues on three other projects

Work to restore the asphalt on neighborhood roads in Coffey Park and Fountaingrove damaged during debris removal during the 2017 Tubbs Fire will start in late April.

Workers have been replacing pedestrian curb ramps with accessible ramps compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act during breaks in the rain and that work is expected to continue over the next few weeks in some areas of Coffey Park before paving starts.

The city is expected to host a community meeting before paving begins to discuss the project with residents. More information on the date and location will be available soon.

About 33 miles of roadway will be rehabilitated as part of the $21.8 million project. City engineers have said the pavement prematurely degraded in some areas where heavy trucks removed burned material and other debris after the fire.

Construction is expected to take 18 months.

Residents can learn more about the project and the upcoming meeting by visiting neighborhoodroadrecovery.com, where they also can sign up for weekly project updates.

Workers downtown also will start repaving a portion of Sonoma Avenue where crews replaced water lines in recent months.

Water lines have been updated from E Street to Doyle Park Drive and crews are completing upgrades east toward Bobelaine Drive.

Workers over the past few weeks have been plugging trenches and now will pour a new asphalt overlay over the roadway that serves Fire Station 1 and the police department.

Nearby, construction will restart on a project to overhaul a busy stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue from Sonoma to Maple avenues.

Work to reduce lanes of traffic, add a center turn lane, new bike lanes and crosswalks to improve traffic flow and safety is nearly done but the project was paused during the wet winter season.

Crews will return later this month to repave and stripe the road.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.