Traffic alert: Black Street bridge, part of B Street to close near Spooky Nook

The Black Street Bridge and part of North B Street will close Monday so the city can replace a 16-inch water main in the area before construction happens in the immediate area on the Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill complex.

The streets will be closed for 50 days while a 16-inch cast-iron main is replaced by a 16-inch ductile iron main, which will be “abandoned in place.”

Signs announcing the upcoming closures have been installed.

“We wanted to get started with the water-main project” during December while schools are off for the holiday break, said City Engineer Rich Engle. “That will have the least amount of impact on their buses, having construction during this time period.”

With the Black Street Bridge no longer an option to cross the Great Miami River during the period, motorists will have to use the High-Main Street Bridge.

Also, “It will get the water main (project) out of the way for the developer’s construction activities,” Engle said.

B Street will be closed between Wayne and Rhea avenues, although businesses on B Street north of Wayne “will still have access to their businesses,” Engle said. “There won’t be any construction activities there at the moment.”

Some 700 flat-bed truckloads of steel that will be used to construct what will be North America’s largest indoor sports complex have begun arriving on the part of the Spooky Nook site on the former Champion Paper mill that is located west of B Street. The part of the Champion complex located east of B Street will be used as Greater Cincinnati’s second-largest convention center, with a hotel and restaurants and retail shops also located there.

The Spooky Nook project is expected to open in late 2021 and has been leading to openings and expansions of businesses, including restaurants and bars, in the area of Main Street and the city’s downtown.

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