Gardnerville's Main Street may reopen next week

Final paving was completed on Gardnerville’s Main Street over the weekend and motorists should see the road fully open next week.

“As you can see we have a beautiful new Main Street, and we’re super excited about that,” Main Street Director Jen Tune told the Gardnerville Town Board on Tuesday. “There are a couple more things they need to do, which is why the traffic control is in place.”

Weather and circumstances permitting, permanent striping on the marathon project could be done by Monday.

Tune has been meeting with the town and the Nevada Department of Transportation every week on the project and said she anticipates Tuesday’s might be the last session.

Nevada Department of Transportation spokeswoman Meg Ragonese said final utility work is underway, then smoothing the roadway surface and striping are the last touches required.

She said that construction will be done in mid-August, which is next week.

Traffic shifted from the outside to the inside lanes today in the 11-month-long, $11 million project to repave Highway 395.

“As major construction winds down, NDOT wants to thank the entire Douglas County community, drivers and business members for the understanding and support of the project,” Ragonese said. “We remind community members to continue to patronize area businesses, and to drive attentively through all road work zones.”

Motorists will continue to see lane, sidewalk and intersection closures up to the Labor Day weekend as construction wraps up.

drivers will continue to see periodic lane, sidewalk, and intersection closures for finishing work such as flashing pedestrian crosswalk installation. Intermittent lane and sidewalk closures will take place up to the Labor Day weekend for this finishing work. 

Work on Main Street through Gardnerville essentially started with trenching for utilities along either side of the highway, where the state installed 28,000 feet of conduit for current and future use over two miles.

That work continued until construction took a winter break at the beginning of December but resumed on Jan. 18 on the last quarter of the roadside drainage and conduit work.

Among the challenges on that work was cutting century old concrete that was part of Gardnerville’s original Main Street.

Project Director Wes Osmer told The Gardnerville Town Board in April that trenching along the road was a nightmare.

“Some of the old town utilities were built, abandoned, rebuilt or moved,” he said. “We are constantly finding abandoned utilities that were not identified in the plans.”

After the road was entirely taken up in some places and shaved down in others, Sierra Nevada Construction laid 18,000 tons of asphalt across the nearly two miles to wrap up work.