By Garrick Moritz, Gazette

            It’s been a long time coming, but construction on the Palisades township highway that serves River Ridge Golf Course and the Palisades State Park, at least for now, is finally going to be rebuilt. On Monday, May 22 the Gazette received word that construction would soon begin via both social media courtesy of a post by Palisades Township Chairman Craig Nussbaum and later by phone call from Oran Sorenson, also of the Palisades township board.

            “We just had our first organizational meeting this morning (Monday), with the construction company and the engineers,” said Sorenson. “Mobilization is happening this week and work is projected to start on Tuesday June 30th first thing in the morning. Work will be happening from about 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday and maybe Saturdays depending on weather factors, but never on a Sunday. During construction the road will be open, but reduced to one lane traffic at a time with flags and walkie talkies. The project is expected to take a total of 25 days. If everything goes well, the project will be complete by the last week in June, of course that’s in ideal circumstances with no weather delays or other problems.”

            This has been a project long in the making. With the large expansion of Palisades State park happening, and the entrance to the Park scheduled to move, the original plan was to make the road gravel again. But the overwhelming majority of the township citizens and landowners didn’t support that, and let their board know that they wanted the road to remain paved.

            “Everyone voted and it was a unanimous vote,” said Sorenson. “We wanted a paved road and that’s what our people wanted us to pursue. So, it became a matter of how do we make it happen.”

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