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Mall Ring Road Work in St. Clairsville Won’t Be Done for Black Friday

Photo by Robert A. DeFrank Work on Mall Ring Road has been delayed due to poor weather. Drivers will continue to take the detour this weekend and during Black Friday shopping.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Work on Mall Ring Road has stalled due to uncooperative weather, and the route to some businesses will not be open in time for Black Friday shopping as some had hoped.

The road was closed in early October from the back of the Ohio Valley Mall to the Residence Inn and Buffalo Wild Wings to allow for utility work and other projects to be completed. Traffic to those businesses is being detoured onto a newly completed bridge over Interstate 70.

The goal of the road closure and limited use of the new bridge was to allow the Ohio Department of Transportation’s contractor to attempt to halve what could have been a 10-week closure.

Instead of reducing the road to one lane for five weeks then switching to the opposite lane, the utilities were to be moved all at once.

“It’s unfortunate,” Lauren Borell, public information officer for ODOT, said. “We had all of the right things in place to move forward and get the road open by Wednesday, but all work was weather permitting and unfortunately with the recent weather we’ve had, it has made it nearly impossible to get the road open before Black Friday. We need to get pavement down, install guardrail. We want to provide a good product to the traveling public, and the weather right now is not allowing any of that to happen.”

She would not speculate on a completion date for the project.

“Right now we’re kind of in a holding pattern, letting things dry out so we can move forward with paving. And now we’re running into issues with pavement temperatures. We need things to be at an optimal level to pave. We’re hoping next week the weather will behave itself and we’ll be able to do the work,” she said. “We’re really hoping that it’ll be soon, and we’re going to work hard toward that.”

Borell added that the Thanksgiving holiday today and Black Friday will lead to an increase in traffic.

“It would have been nice to have that open to help aid that congestion, but at this time it’s just going to remain the same,” she said.

Belmont County officials said they are disappointed but understand the reasons for the delay.

“The weather this fall just hasn’t been cooperating in allowing them to get that work done in the time frame they had originally thought it could be completed in,” Commissioner J.P. Dutton said, pointing to recent heavy rain and some snow. “I think everyone understands the weather we’ve had this fall. We’re well above our normal rainfall for the year. … Late into the year, the weather is becoming even more of a challenge.”

Dutton added that the commissioners continue to receive updates from ODOT regarding the progress of the project.

The project includes the construction of a 1.67-mile connector road from U.S. 40 across Interstate 70 to the intersection of Mall and Banfield roads, reconstructing 0.59 miles of the existing Mall Ring Road and building the new bridge over I-70. The road will continue north from there to the Commons Mall Crossing Road. That road was built by the Belmont County Transportation Improvement District in 2015 and connects to U.S. 40. The goal is reduce traffic congestion and increase access to the retail sites in the area, including the Ohio Valley Plaza and the mall.

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