Columbiana Drive repair project on schedule, on budget, city says

A ride down Columbiana Drive at the mall in Harbison is a bumpy, dusty prospect these days, as the city is roughly halfway through a 60-day repaving project for the busy connector.

The 1.2-mile portion of the road that is being resurfaced connects Harbison Boulevard in front of the Columbiana Centre mall with Lake Murray Boulevard north of the major Midlands shopping complex and serves as a major feeder route into and out of the 81-acre complex.

The $2.6 million project is both on schedule and on budget, according to Samantha H. Yager, of the Columbia Public Works Department. Its projected completion date is late June to early July.

Road work occurs after business hours from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., to limit disruption to merchants and motorists, Yager said.

The work has had no substantial impact on mall traffic, Andrew Peach, Columbiana Centre general manager, said.

“All in all, it’s really been a pretty seamless project,” he said, adding, “We’re just looking forward to getting the road done and moving on from there.”

The four-lane roadway, which carries an average of 12,000 cars a day, has been milled down to its proper grade, so water will not stand on it, but flow properly into appropriate drains, city officials said.

The road is undergoing a process called reclamation, where workers stabilize the soil beneath the road bed with cement, to assure a strong riding surface, the city said. A seal is then placed over the surface so the cement can harden and cure properly, Yager said. Then temporary striping is to be put down to guide motorists until the final layer is done, she said.

The road preparation process will be done before permanent asphalt repaving begins, Yager said. “That’s really the longest part of the project,” Yager said. “Then they’ll put the asphalt down and pave,” she said.

The general contractor, Lane Construction Corp., of Columbia, has a 60-day working window to complete the project, which began April 21, and could be extended if weather or roadway conditions become a factor, she said.

Columbiana Centre, meanwhile, has made an overflow parking lot available to Lane Construction to use as a staging area for the paving project, Peach said.

This story was originally published May 20, 2015 at 3:58 PM.