This report has been updated to reflect the scope of the three sewer projects.

For Miami residents concerned with the state of the streets of their town, work was recently begun that will, in the future, lead to an eventual repaving project, as a 14-month sewer upgrade project began last month.

“In the past five years, there hasn’t been a lot of road work done, just so the sewer would come in and we’d have to do it all over again,” Town Manager Joe Heatherly said. “Road work has suffered because of it.”

The Wastewater Collection System Improvements Project represents phases three through five of a project that will repair or replace entire sections of sewer and transition some residents from septic to a sewer system. The work will affect access to some residences and parking in work areas.

The $25 million project has been in its planning stages for about eight years, Heatherly said.

Work began on April 30 and is expected to run through the summer of 2019. Funding comes from a combination of grants and a loan: 80 percent from a USDA Rural Development fund grant — about $20 million — and 20 percent from incurred debt.

Phase three includes the far east portion of Miami: Loomis Avenue east to Mill Street, as well as the Walmart shopping area, including Miami High School continuing east to Miami Gardens to the mall area east of the light at Russell Road and US 60. 

Phase four is the area in Miami north of Sullivan Street from Pine Street, east to Miami Avenue. 

Phase five is the southern part of Miami, south of US 60 from Canyon Avenue, east to Latham Boulevard.

Heatherly said the phases will not necessarily go in order and that some of the road upgrades will begin within a few weeks.

“Each of the phases has money built into it for road repair,” he said. “We’ll start to do some patchwork and street replacement.”

Some of the street repairs are being funded by a $300,000 Community Development Block Grant, and the town is waiting for the outcome of a dispute over work done on a prior repair project.

“Some previous work appears to have not been done to the specifications of the project,” Heatherly said. “We had a firm in Phoenix inspect eight sites and report to the insurance company. That could turn out to be millions of dollars in work.”

Even the current work is running into issues though, as Heatherly reported at the May 14 Miami Town Council meeting.

“There have already been change orders,” he said. “But you don’t know what you have until you get underground.”

For information about the project, call the Town of Miami at 520-999-1572.