Mankato’s Victory Drive to reopen later this week

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - As the weather turns to fall, the end of construction season is getting closer.

Road closures are always a fixture of the summer months, and some will finish work and reopen while others are just the start of a longer, years long project.

Victory Drive in Mankato has been closed since June, and was originally slated to be open before the start of the new school year.

That time came and the project was delayed by a couple weeks, but the county said that now the project is almost complete and the road will reopen some time this week, depending on how long the finishing touches take.

“We understand it’s a major inconvenience when we’re disrupting this major of a road right in the heart of town so we definitely understand the frustration over it going longer than what was originally anticipated, we’re frustrated with that as well but in the same breath we understand how construction works,” said county public works director Ryan Thilges.

Meanwhile MnDOT said that Highway 22 will be opening up before long. The roundabout project at Augusta Drive is slated to finish in early October, and officials said that it’s going right on schedule.

The Highway 14 bridge that’s been looped into the roundabout project is also nearing completion, and MnDOT said that it will finish and reopen before the roundabout does, but didn’t give a firm date.

“It was a busy construction season for us as it usually is. This year was made a little extra challenging by the historic flooding we had to start out the year, but we worked our way through most of those challenges and most of the projects,” said MnDOT’s Brett Paasch.

Once the projects are complete the highway will be fully open for the winter, but will close again in the spring for the multi-year Highway 22 project.

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