Blame the wet weather for closing part of 15th Avenue on the Emporia State campus earlier than planned. The street will close between Silent Joe and the southwest corner of Welch Stadium beginning Thursday, May 23.
The street will reopen temporarily from May 30 to June 3 to avoid conflict with the Dirty Kanza gravel bicycle race.
The closure was always planned during the Abigail Morse renovation and demolition project, but barricades weren’t going to go up until after the DK race weekend. The plan changed, however, to give salvage crews a place to park their trucks.
“Our original plan was to have salvage crews for the nonprofit agencies park their trucks on the lawn east of Abigail Morse Hall,” said Mark Runge, director of University Facilities. “All of our recent rain, however, made that impossible.”
Instead, the trucks will park on 15th Avenue during salvage.
The road closure will not affect families dropping off or picking up their children from the Center for Early Childhood Education. It also will not affect access to campus parking lots for faculty, staff, students and visitors. It does, however, affect traffic that normally uses 15th Avenue as a straight route between the east and west sides of campus.