The city block that will be home to an affordable housing project is getting cleared, city engineer Paul Simonton told Hinesville City Council members.

The downtown terrace project, which will build 31 townhomes between Court, Welborn and Ashmore streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, has undergone tree clearing and asbestos abatement on the three dilapidated buildings that will be cleared is about to start, Simonton said.

Simonton said he expects the pads for the first five townhomes to be ready by the end of the month.

“You should start seeing buildings going up in November and December,” he added.

The downtown terrace project was one of a lengthy list of items on which Simonton provided updates, including the roundabout at Ryon Avenue and South Main Street.

A notice to proceed was issued July 15 and the expected completion date for the Ryon Avenue roundabout is July 10, 2026. Ryon Avenue has been blocked off and detour signs have been set up, Simonton said. He said they worked it out to where Main Street will not have to be closed for the work.

The project, with a cost of $1.14 million, could be done as early as spring, Simonton said.

Simonton said they are working to relocate utilities and get drainage done on the next phase of South Main Street widening. An emergency sewer repair had to be conducted on South Main after a directional drilling went into a 15-inch sewer line instead.

Crews also are tearing up the road and putting sewer back in as part of the Bagley and Court streets sewer replacements. That work is expected to be done by February 2026 and Simonton pointed out that with old sewer lines, there are a lot of other utilities crossing them.

“It’s pretty slow going,” he said.

A project that has been done is the addition of pickleball courts at Krebs Park, now giving the park six such courts.

“And they were well used as soon as we finished,” Simonton said.

New tennis courts at the park are about 80% done, he said.

Also in the works is an improvement to the Bryant Commons entrance. Originally designed as a driveway to a residence, the entrance will be widened. The city is looking at putting in a turn lane with a short deceleration lane from Highway 84. The location of utilities, Simonton pointed out, will make for a short decel lane.

There also will be a right turn lane exiting onto 84 and a left turn lane onto 84 at the beginning. However, once the median down Highway 84 is done, the left turn out of Bryant Commons will cease and there will be two right turn lanes exiting onto 84.

Plans have been submitted to the state Department of Transportation and Simonton is hopeful the work can go to bid in January.

The city is working on designs for phase 3 of Charles Frasier Boulevard, but that may be a year out from work beginning.

Simonton said the city and the DOT have met about how the city will handle traffic coming from Deal Street, where the city has purchased land for an event center. It is estimated there will be 4,000 trips generated from that site.

“We went over this site and they were very interested in this project and very interested in how we were going to prevent dumping 4,000 vehicles on to Veterans Parkway,” Simonton said.

The DOT also will be doing the design for traffic signals on Highway 196 at Miles Crossing and Pineland Avenue, along with paying for the equipment. The city will be responsible for the poles and the installation of the equipment.

Simonton said easement and permit issues have set the city back on its timetable for the green zone well in Long County. Along with the well, there will be a transmission main and the raising of an elevated tank.

The city also expects to put out to bid work on expanding its water reclamation facility from 2 million gallons per day to 4 million gallons per day. That work could take two years to finish.

Simonton also said he hopes that Oak Crest will have reuse water back by the end of November. Work on system modifications for Stonehenge could be done as early as January, at a cost of more than $5.5 million.

The also will work on failed drainage infrastructure on Sequoia Circle, Fox Haven Drive, Byrum Drive, Flora Ellen Drive, San Patel Drive and at the Liberty County Justice Center and old Coca-Cola bottling plant.