Sebring Circle roadwork finally finished

After several months of delays, roadwork on Sebring Circle and the surrounding spokes was completed this past weekend.

About two months ago, the Florida Department of Transportation had declared that some asphalt laid down by Roadway Management did not meet its standards.

North and South Ridgewood drives and the Circle are part of State Road 17, which are managed by the state, hence its interest in the roadwork being done properly.

"The FDOT folks decided the road would not last the 10 to 12 years it was supposed to," said Pete Pollard, executive director of the Sebring Community Redevelopment Agency, who took over the project after the death of the city's public works director, Rob Miller.

"The asphalt was not the right temperature when it was laid down the first time," Pollard said.

As a result, the FDOT suspended all of the city's permits on the Streetscape IX Project, he said.

After samples of the roadwork were examined, FDOT required the contractor to mill down only 1 inch of pavement because bottom layers seemed to be alright.

Work to strip off sections of roadway 1-inch deep on East and West Center Avenues and North and South Commerce Avenues from Wall Street back to the Circle began Thursday. Old pavement was stripped from North and South Ridgewood Drives and the Circle on Friday night.

Because the FDOT does not allow traffic on re-milled roadways, the Orlando Paving Company, a division of Hubbard Construction, began pouring fresh asphalt Saturday morning, Pollard said.

"The object was to get in and out as quickly as we possibly could," he said.

Since the first paving was done in late January and early February, Hubbard Construction bought out Roadway Management, so Hubbard inherited the problem. It kept the Roadway Management name for that division, he said.

"It looks a lot better," Pollard said. "All you have to do is look at it and you can see it."

Now that the work is completed, the city can finish its Streetscape IX project up to Pine Street, Pollard said.

The city's consultant, CivilServe, told city officials in May that four other city streets, North and South Commerce Avenues and East and West Center Avenues, were also showing some of the same defective work issues as the FDOT roads.

The city had some leverage. It had withheld payment of $208,598 from Hubbard.

"They have to submit a payment request through CivilServe," Pollard said. "After our engineer signs off on it, then we submit it for payment."

This concludes about a six-month delay, he said.