Any self-proclaimed Greenvillian knows the hassle of driving down Augusta Street — often known as Augusta Road.
South of Mills Avenue, the narrow, four-lane corridor is flanked by many driveways, business entrances and curb cuts. A line of leaning utility poles stands just off the curb, close enough for passing cars to accidentally hit.
The city of Greenville is planning an extensive improvement project along Augusta Street. A major element is burying the power lines along a six-block commercial section between Cateechee Avenue to Faris Road.
Clint Link, the city’s director of engineering services, said completing the undergrounding work will be a challenging but essential process.
“Augusta Street’s been talked about for a long time and undergrounding the lines and relocating the poles has always been a topic of discussion,” Link said. “I’m excited. We finally, you know, have a project to at least address a portion of the road.”
A long-standing issue
Trey Sherman, owner of Greystone Antiques, has been waiting two decades for the city to remove the utility poles and power lines along the busy roadway.
“There’s an absolute mess right there where my store is at the corner of Cateechee and Augusta,” Sherman said. “Where it turns the corner — that telephone pole has been hit twice and then the ones in front of me have been hit a few times.”
Eleven collisions with utility poles occurred along Augusta Street between 2016 and 2020, according to a road safety audit. Removing the utility poles along the corridor would eliminate the safety hazard, clean up the streetscape and provide better reliability from a power supply standpoint.
Charlie McMullen, founder and owner of Blockhouse Restaurant & Oyster Bar, said there is no doubt removing the utility poles and power lines would help make the corridor safer.
“There can’t be anything wrong with pulling those telephone poles off the street,” McMullen said. “They talk about pedestrian safety, but I’m going to tell you, it’s all driver safety. I mean, it’s so easy to knock a mirror off on Augusta Road or hit one of those telephone poles.”
A complex process
Burying utility lines essentially entails creating a duct bank along the edge of the roadway to lay new electrical conduit. Easements must be secured with property owners in order to bury the lines.
“For Augusta Street, we do have very, very limited space at places you know as far as rights of way to acquire,” Link said. “We have kind of got some approvals from SCDOT and from Duke (Energy) where we need to put the duct bank within the road rights of way.”
The burial project is expected to cost up to $8 million to complete. It will include lane closures, night construction work, and ongoing coordination with businesses and property owners along Augusta Street. A construction-staging and traffic-control plan will be created to minimize the impact on the property owners and those driving along the roadway.
“It’s going to cause a huge disruption in my business for customers being able to get in and out, but I think it’s worth it,” said John Freeman, owner of Duncan’s Home Center.
To complete the undergrounding work, the power supply for each building must be reconnected, Link explained. The city will coordinate times with businesses on when power will be shut down in order to do the reconnections.
“We are in a position to start having those conversations (with businesses),” Link said. “We just don’t have a lot of detail to provide them right now as far as the specific schedule and specifically what it will involve for their individual property.”
Communication is key
Many business owners, including Sherman, were unaware until recently of the city’s proposal to complete undergrounding work and other improvements along Augusta Street.
The Augusta Road Business Association held a meeting Nov. 28 for local business owners and residents to learn more about the roadway-improvement project. More than 20 business owners along Augusta Street were in attendance.
“Feedback is what the planning engineers need to continue to mold a concept that will be appropriate for businesses and surrounding residents in the community,” according to a statement by the ARBA board of directors. “We are in agreement that there will be additional meetings in the future, and we invite the community to please attend when that takes place.”
Read more about the Augusta Street improvements project.
Next steps
Greenville City Council recently approved using $5.8 million from a state grant to help fund the project. Link said there are also existing bonds in the city’s undergrounding program that can be used for the project. The program’s funding comes from payments by both the city and Duke Energy.
City engineers are currently working with Duke Energy on the electrical-design portion of the project. Link said they expect to finalize the design and submit a bid for construction by early summer of 2024. Construction is estimated to begin by mid-summer.
“I would say a nine- to 12-month construction schedule, so pretty long,” Link said.
While the undergrounding project focuses on the commercial section of Augusta Street, there will also be some opportunities to bury utility lines in the residential section further south.
“In the residential section of the road, we are doing some cleanup of the existing overhead lines there in that area,” Link said. “It’s not a full-on undergrounding project per se. But we are looking at ways to eliminate (or) reduce the number of utility poles.”
Number of collisions
The number of collisions with utility poles along Augusta Street that occurred between 2016 and 2020 according to a road safety audit completed by Stantec Consulting Services.
- 3 along the street’s commercial section
- 8 along the street’s residential section
Map
Utility undergrounding will be completed along a six-block stretch of Augusta Street from Cateechee Avenue to Faris Road.
Full project overview
The second phase of improvements along Augusta Street will affect both the commercial section from Church Street to Faris Road and the residential portion from Cureton Street to Mauldin Road.
Along with the utility underground work, other improvements to the commercial section include:
- Sidewalk upgrades
- Signal improvements
- Access management
- Landscape medians
- A lane reduction in the northbound direction for left turn lanes
Completed projects
Additional utility-undergrounding projects that have been completed throughout the city include:
- Haywood Road
- Unity Park (Hudson, Oscar, Welborn and West Washington streets)
