LEWISTON – Crews will begin moving Plourde Parkway several hundred feet south Saturday, closing the stretch between Goddard and River roads.

The parkway will remain closed through Nov. 15, Public Works Director Dave Jones said. Only area businesses will be allowed to use the road. Everyone else will be detoured down River Road.

The project brings Wal-Mart’s planned Distribution Center one step closer. Crews have been working alongside the road all summer, relocating utility lines and doing preparations. “But now we can do the final paving,” Jones said. “We’re finally ready to go ahead.”

Plourde Parkway runs along the south side of the Wal-Mart project. The state agreed to relocate the road’s intersection with River Road to give Wal-Mart room to build the warehouse.

Gendron and Gendron won the contract on the project, and Jones and his staff will supervise the work. Public Services Director Chris Branch said the company bid $525,000 for the work – well under the original $750,000 estimate. The entire project, including the utilities relocation and work on River Road and Pleasant Street, is estimated to cost $2 million, Branch said.

Wal-Mart is scheduled to begin construction on the 485,000-square-foot food warehouse in April 2004 and finish in August 2005.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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