By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Alabaster is preparing to review bids on a project to make permanent improvements to a long-troublesome road near the Propst Promenade shopping center.

During a Feb. 5 City Council work session, Alabaster City Manager George Henry said the city is expecting to receive bids for a project to make repairs to Alabaster Boulevard “three or four weeks from now.”

An engineering study revealed the road was in overall “poor” condition, Alabaster City Engineer Brett Tucker told council members in July 2014. Over the past several years, poor road base and fill materials under the roadway have caused parts of Alabaster Boulevard to develop humps and “places where the pavement is graveling out,” Tucker said.

In October 2014, the city installed a temporary fix to alleviate a pavement dip on the road, which connects the Propst Promenade with the Weatherly and Ballantrae subdivisions.

When the city receives bids for the project, it will review them before possibly awarding the project to a company.

In a Feb. 10 email, Henry said the city is considering options to keep the road open as much as possible while the repairs are being performed. He said the city will provide notice “to the best of (its) availability prior to any road closures.”