The construction on East Montview Boulevard that has forced drivers through a zigzag detour on the north end of the Anschutz Medical Campus will likely wrap up in the next few weeks.
But that doesn’t mean motorists will be free of construction along Montview.
The current project has crews ripping up Montview near Aurora Police Station No. 1 as they work on utility upgrades for the new Veterans Affairs Hospital.
Jordan Schupbach, a spokesman for the VA, said work on the current stretch will continue for another week or two. After that, crews will launch another phase of construction that will involve working on Montview west of Wheeling Street as well as Wheeling itself.
Work on the seven-phase infrastructure project started in December and will likely continue through next year.
“It is being done in phases to keep some of the exit routes off campus open at all times, and not completely bottleneck the incoming or outgoing traffic,” Schupbach said.
Other projects will include work on East 19th Avenue, East 17th Place as well as Montview and Wheeling.
The project is needed to increase the capacity of some utility infrastructures in preparation for an increased load on those utilities when the new hospital opens, he said.
Scott Procop, president of Cedar Creek Pub at 2100 Ursula St., said construction along Montview has been nonstop at one spot or another since the restaurant opened last fall.
“We knew that going in — that there was going to be construction continuously,” he said.
While he welcomes the end of the detours, Procop said he doesn’t think they’ve hurt business.
When the new VA hospital opens in 2014, the $800 million facility will encompass about 1.1 million square feet of medical facilities and will extend from East Colfax Avenue to East 19th Place.
Construction at the hospital site as well as surrounding infrastructure projects are currently under way.