Fort Worth is closing parts of West Seventh Street ... again
You might want to avoid West Seventh Street for a while.
Starting Oct. 6, the city of Fort Worth will begin replacing a section of cast iron water main between Carroll Street and University Drive.
The replacement is expected to take 120 calendar days, and will start at the Carroll Street intersection and work westward.
The move comes three years after the city completed an $8.5 million renovation of the stretch that improved the median and added protected bike lanes.
That project was focused on surface improvements, and came before the city started putting an emphasis on cast iron pipe replacement, water department spokesperson Mary Gugliuzza said in an email to the Star-Telegram.
The pipe that’s in place doesn’t have a bad break history, which is why it hasn’t been replaced to this point, she said.
The reason the pipe is being replaced now is to upsize the pipe to meet demand from new development.
The Van Zandt, located at 2816 West Seventh St., broke ground in early September. The building is expected to have 226 apartments, 102,000 square feet of office space, and about 11,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
One University, at 1001 University Drive, is slated to have 120,000 square feet of office space, a parking garage, 254 apartments, a 171 room hotel, and 12,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
The new pipe will be twice the size of the old pipe, and is expected to have enough capacity to handle any additional development in the coming years, Gugliuzza said.
Construction will be focused on the westbound lanes, and information about street closures will be posted on the city’s website.
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