VASSAR — As potholes go, the one near Oak Street in the parking area along the south side of the Vassar post office was a doozy.
Street construction work, however, that began this month figures to improve a four-block stretch of Oak Street and North Cass Avenue. And make that approximately four-foot-wide, 18-inch-deep pothole a thing of the past.
Crews for Bay City-based Shaw Contracting Co. were in Vassar this week for the first phase of a street-improvement project estimated to cost $407,464.
That price tag includes engineering services paid by the city of Vassar, though $219,877 in federal funds used on the project makes the work less costly to the city.
Once the labor is done, a new sidewalk will be built along the south side of the post office, though parking will no longer be available there. So postal customers won’t have to dodge the aforementioned pothole.
The federal government doesn’t own the Vassar post office or the land surrounding the building.
The parking area along the south side of the post office “is in a state of disrepair, and the property owner responsible for maintaining it has been unwilling to make the necessary repairs,” Vassar City Manager Ben Guile told ...