While the construction may not be near the level of last year’s transformation of Commercial Street, another important improvement to downtown is currently underway.

Last week, contractors with K&H Concrete Cutting began repaving work on Depot Drive, the roadway that stretches from Division Street to Park Place downtown. The construction project will replace the sidewalk curbs along the street, as well as install new asphalt.

The construction is funded primarily through dollars from the Michigan Department of Transportation’s Small Urban program, which provides federal funding for road projects to urbanized communities with populations between 5,000 and 49,999. These funds will cover around 90 percent of the $130,000 the project will cost, said City Manager Kevin Anderson.

The project has been in the hopper for around three years now, after city leaders worked with the county and the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission to identify Depot Drive as perspective target for MDOT grant funding, Anderson said. Leaders typically choose roadways for repair based on the condition of the road, the amount of traffic traveling down it and the state of the utility lines underneath it, the city manager said.

“The utilities [underneath Depot] were in good shape, but the traffic flow is relatively high and the condition was at the point where pothole patching was not going to get us much further,” Anderson said.

Depot is a critical roadway, not only due to its location downtown but due to the fact it is used by trucks, which keeps them off Front Street, Anderson said.

The city and county have used funds from the Small Urban program for other repaving projects in recent years, including ones on Pokagon Street, Mathews Street and Dailey Road, Anderson said.

As of Monday, crews were still working on widening the sidewalk curbs in order to bring them up to current standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is required for projects using state and federal dollars.

After the work is completed, crews will mill the current paving and replace it with new asphalt. This step will require Depot to close to traffic, Anderson said.

Work on the project could be completed as soon as later this week, Anderson said.