The work on East Houston Street and on the downtown Beeville drainage improvements is about 71 percent complete, Texas Department of Transportation Area Engineer Ralph Condra told the City Council Tuesday.

Condra said the work began just before Christmas last year and the contractor was given 209 days to complete the two projects.

Most of East Houston Street (U.S. Highway 59 east) was to undergo pavement rehabilitation and the storm drains in the 100-300 blocks of North Washington and North St. Mary’s Streets was to be upgraded, Condra said.

The engineer said traffic on East Houston will soon be moved to the south side of the street so that final paving can begin on the north side, where traffic now is routed.

He said both sides of the street should be open to traffic soon so that cars can once again move at a normal pace.

With that done Condra said work can begin on finishing the storm drain improvements on North St. Mary’s Street.

In fact, workers involved in the project said Thursday that they expect the crews to be working north of the 100 block of North St. Mary’s by the end of next week unless they develop problems.

The reason work has taken so long in front of the Main Post Office downtown is because storm drain inlets have to be installed.

However, no new drain inlets are to be installed in the 200 block of North St. Mary’s and that will allow the crew to make better time.

Work will slow down again when the workmen reach Cleveland Street. New drain inlets are to be installed there.

Condra said contractors are scheduled to begin repaving the three blocks of North Washington Street before long. He said plans are to have the pavement “milled” down several inches and then have it repaved immediately after that with hot mix, bringing the new surface to slightly lower than it currently is.

To have the least impact on traffic, that work will be done on Sundays, Condra said. That is when traffic flow is at its lightest on Washington Street.

Interim City Manager Joe B. Montez said he would like to see the same type of work done on North St. Mary’s. He said city staff members looked into the cost of that and found that the city would have to come up with between $100,000 and $130,000 to accomplish that. The money simply is not available at this time.

That means the city probably will have to stick to its original plan to have North St. Mary’s “chip sealed.”

The difference, Montez said, is that the new surface on Washington Street will be smoother than the surface on St. Mary’s. And the city will have to address that at a later date, possibly having that street repaved with hot mix material.