The water main replacement and repaving in downtown Norwich has been completed. The project replaced old piping down East Main Street from the City of Norwich Police Department to the Broad and Main Street intersection, and along South Broad Street from approximately the Prentice and Broad Street intersection to the Mechanic and Broad Street intersection. After completion the New York State DOT repaved East Main Street and South Broad Street. (Photo by Sarah Genter)

NORWICH — Work on downtown Norwich roads has been completed after a long summer of pipe replacement and repaving.

The project began with the water main replacement, which sought to replace water main piping down East Main Street from the City of Norwich Police Department to the Broad and Main Street intersection, and along South Broad Street from approximately the Prentice and Broad Street intersection to the Mechanic and Broad Street intersection.

The total project was projected to cost around $4 million. The city had already allocated $479,233 in a capital reserve fund for the project, and also had $670,767 in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). In January, the City of Norwich was awarded $2.85 million in federal funding to cover the remainder of the project cost.

"This will save that additional taxpayer burden, taking on any additional debt for a water project," said City of Norwich Community Development Director Erik Scrivener. "The remainder that we didn’t have, we were going to have to take out a loan with USDA, so this will kind of cancel a need for a loan."

The water main replacement project began in June and wrapped up around the end of September. Following the replacement, the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) came in to repave East Main Street and South Broad Street.

While there were concerns some of the paving would be pushed to 2024, Scrivener said the DOT was able to complete all of the work this year, including temporary lines and crosswalks painted on the roads. Scrivener said there have been talks about DOT returning in the spring to do permanent painting, but there are no definitive plans yet.

For now, he said the only thing left to do is wrap up the administrative side of things.

"The work itself is completed, we just need to, on our end, finish the administrative side of the grant, which was just recapturing our funds for the 2.85 million [dollars]," Scrivener explained. "It’s a reimbursement grant, so the city pays the contractor and we provide proof of payment to the federal government, who then reimburses us for our eligible reimbursement amount."

So far he said the city has been reimbursed $1.4 million, and a second application for reimbursement of $1.1 million has been submitted. Scrivener said the final draw for the remainder of the federal funding will be completed in the future.

"There’s a number of forms and other documentation we have to provide for that reimbursement. We have two in, and then like I said we just have a third to complete," he said. "Our one reimbursement is still pending, we’re just waiting to get the confirmation that everything is set, and we’ll be getting the 1.1 million [dollars] back to us here."

"We’ll close it out on the final, third draw at some point in the future here," he added. "We’re getting closer to being complete on our end as far as the administration goes."