With the summer construction season now in full swing, the city of Spokane recently awarded an estimated $4.5 million worth of competitively-bid construction contracts for a handful of street-work projects expected to begin this month.

The city's engineering department has awarded a $2.7 million contract to Spokane-based Murphy Bros. Inc. to rehabilitate a well-traveled, 1.3-mile stretch of 29th Avenue between High Drive and Grand Boulevard, following up on work completed in the same South Hill neighborhood last summer.

City spokeswoman Ann Deasy says the project includes fully reconstructing the street's surface from curb to curb, as well as replacing a 12-inch diameter water main beneath it. The project is being funded through the city's 10-year street bond and its water department, she says.

Crews also will restripe existing bike lanes along 29th, Deasy says.

During construction, drivers will be rerouted from 29th to Grand or to High Drive. Deasy says the intersection of Bernard Street and 29th will remain open during most of the project, but will be closed for about two weeks at one point so that work can be done on that intersection.

Construction will wrap up in early November, she says.

In downtown Spokane's University District, the city plans to start a project soon to make enhancements and configuration changes to a section of east Spokane Falls Boulevard between Division and Sherman streets. Inland Asphalt Co., of Spokane, is the low bidder on that $1.2 million project contract, and the Spokane City Council is scheduled to decide at its July 9 meeting whether to award the contract, Deasy says.

She says the scope of work includes changing the street section's configuration from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction to allow for the addition of bike lanes on each side of the street and a landscaped median. Some water mains and stormwater pipes under the street also are to be replaced, Deasy says. Conduit lines will be laid beneath the street as well to allow for the future removal of overhead power lines, she adds.

During construction, drivers will be detoured at the intersection of Spokane Falls and Sherman to the newly opened Martin Luther King Jr. Way on the southern edge of the U District.

Meanwhile, the city has awarded a $619,500 contract to Inland Asphalt for a local-improvement district street project in northeast Spokane to pave parts of east Dalke Avenue and north Myrtle Street. Sidewalks and curbs also are to be installed, and work should wrap up in mid-September, Deasy says.

Deasy says the street sections to be paved as part of the project include Dalke between Freya and Florida streets and Myrtle Street between Dalke and Francis Avenue. The streets sections to be paved are located in an industrial area and also are near where a $1.3 million project currently is under way to widen part of east Francis between Freya and Havana Street.