Muckaloochee Creek bridge in Lee County to close several days repairs

LEESBURG — Infrastructure improvements continue to drive Lee County governmental activity as Tuesday’s County Commission meeting featured officials taking action on two ongoing projects, including the closure Thursday of Muckaloochee Creek bridge on Smithville Road.

At the meeting, which lasted roughly 20 minutes, commissioners — Greg Frich and Rick Muggridge were not in attendance — approved a $143,525 contract with Southern Concrete Construction Company to repair the aging bridge with the intent of having the work done before the start of the coming school year Aug. 8.

“Southern Concrete won the bid to do the work there on Smithville Road, and they’ve actually set up all their stuff over there and they’re anticipating getting going on it so they can have it done before school starts,” said interim County Co-Manager Mike Sistrunk. “They’re really going to try and hurry. They don’t want to tie up that bridge any longer than they have to.”

Sistrunk said the bulk of the work, for which $70,000 is coming from the Georgia Department of Transportation and the rest coming from county SPLOST, will focus on fixing the structural integrity of the underside of the bridge and adding guardrails to the top portion.

“We applied for grant money to repair the bridge and we wanted to put up guardrails to protect our citizens,” added Sistrunk. “We don’t want anybody accidentally driving off that bridge.”

Because the bridge will not be passable for several days, Sistrunk said drivers can use Georgia Highway 118 and Lumpkin Road as alternates. Anyone needing to get to the north end of the county or into Sumter County can also use U.S. Highway 19 or Georgia Highway 195.

In addition to awarding the contract to repair the bridge, the commission also moved forward with plans to renovate portions of the Lee County Courthouse by unanimously approving a $470,000 contract with Midwest Maintenance Inc.

With that contract now in place, Midwest can begin shipping materials to the site with the intent of beginning the work within the next week. The renovations being done are considered phase one and will cover everything from the center of the historic building to the top.

“Midwest is ready to go, they’ve just been waiting on us,” said Sistrunk. “The hope is that they can be done within a year, which would match up with the 100-year anniversary (of the courthouse).”

Sistrunk said that in negotiating the contract with Midwest, the company agreed to schedule its work around regular courthouse activities, and to be as unobtrusive as possible.

“We have an agreement around court days,” said Sistrunk. “We only have court about two days a week, so we’ll be able to work around what they have going on.”

Sistrunk also said he doesn’t anticipate the renovations work hindering access to the courthouse or impeding traffic passing in front of the downtown Leesburg building.

“You never know for sure, but if there’s anything we’re going to give plenty of notice to the citizens,” said Sistrunk. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem. They’ve done work like this before. They do awesome work. I think people are going to be impressed when they see it.”

In other matters, the commission finalized the closure of Raines Lane, which is no longer a public road, and approved the 2016 ACCG Group Health Benefits Program—Health Promotion and Wellbeing Grant application.