Cookeville officials celebrated the completion of phase two of the East 10th Street widening project Monday morning.
Phase two widened East 10th Street from Wilson Avenue to Fisk Road. Cookeville Mayor Laurin Wheaton said that completing phase two is a huge accomplishment.
“It was ahead of schedule, it was under budget, and this is going to be a huge improvement for the infrastructure of Cookeville,” Wheaton said. “As most people know, 10th Street is a heavily used road. It was failing when it came to traffic grading, and so at this point now, I think it’s gonna be an A.”
Wheaton said the next step for the city council is to look at the third and final phase of the project. Wheaton said phase three will likely stretch from Fisk Road to Washington Avenue.
“That’s gonna be a big undertaking, but we’ve already put some dollars aside to go ahead and start studying that to see if it’s something that we can do,” Wheaton said. “And so that will probably be the next discussion, is do we widen it, you know, all the way down to Washington.”
Wheaton said she thanks the citizens for being patient as the city has worked on the project.
“I hope that those people see now that a project like this does take some time,” Wheaton said. “It is a little bit of a headache. I call it growing pains, but when you’re done, look at the amazing accomplishment that we have. We have a great road now that can be utilized. It’s gonna be great for the growth, it’s great for the traffic that we already have here in Cookeville, and it was completed before school started.”
Wheaton said Cookeville is growing and that widening East 10th Street is one way the city is getting ahead of the curve to take on the growth. City officials celebrated the completion of phase two at the 10th Street and Fisk Road intersection.