These bumpy roads around McLaren Port Huron are set for reconstruction next year

Drivers passing through the area’s biggest hospital campus likely notice neighborhood streets riddled with cracks, occasional loose pavement, and crater-like potholes making their journey a bit bumpy.

Luckily, several local roadways are slated for reconstruction as early as next year.

Earlier this week, Port Huron City Council members approved an engineering agreement for a project that’ll address the reconstruction and utility replacement along three roads around McLaren Port Huron, as well as the utility replacement and surface elimination of one road that cuts into St. Clair County Community College’s campus nearby.

Those include the reconstruction of Kearny Street between 10th Avenue and Elk Street, and Willow and Elk streets between Glenwood and Lincoln avenues.

“These are probably some of the worst streets in the city around the hospital,” City Manager James Freed said on Monday.

“The reason why we have been waiting to do those streets is because we just can’t build a new road over terrible infrastructure,” he said. “We don’t have infinite means. We can’t replace every road and every water and sewer main that we want to. So, we have to take as much as we can afford every year and check it off.”

According to the agreement OK’d with ROWE Professional Services, the work will address the segments of road work in tandem with water main replacement and select storm sewer and sanitary sewer replacement.

The pavement removal section will be on Stone Street from River Street to Glenwood, where SC4 officials have identified plans to absorb the property encompassed into campus. That is, sometime after the city of Port Huron closes the fire station on River Street.

Freed said the contract OK’d by council members was for the utility work underground. He told officials an additional contract for the surface area work may be addressed.

“But we want to get the utility design well underway so we can get that project under contract for next spring,” he said.

That means the road work could kick off in 2025.

Council officials said this week that the project was a long time coming for local residents.

Freed agreed. He added they couldn’t previously asphalt over the affected roads because their subgrade also needed to be replaced and new pavement would otherwise “break up in a matter of months.”

The reconstruction of Kearny, Elk, and Willow were labeled as part of a project’s phase one.

When reached later this week, Engineering Manager Brent Moore said there would be one or two phases of road work in that area south of McLaren Port Huron, though he cautioned, “Timelines of future phases are not identified at this point.”

He, too, said he gets phone calls airing concerns about the road conditions in that area, as well as across the city’s entire network of local streets.

While 10th Avenue and Stone Street are rated as in fair or good condition south of the hospital, nearly all of the adjoining grid of local roads are bright red with a poor rating on the city’s latest set of pavement surface evaluation and rating checks, a map for which was last updated in 2022.

Of the road reconstruction, the hospital said in a statement, "McLaren Port Huron is fully supportive and welcomes this road project, particularly with our two new graduate medical education clinics opening in July. As the project start date approaches and details become clearer, we will develop a plan to adjust and accommodate traffic flow and communicate that plan with patients, visitors, and staff.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: These bumpy roads around McLaren Port Huron are set for reconstruction next year