A long-awaited project for the City of Hinesville will be getting underway soon.

City council members approved awarding an $11 million contract to Platinum Paving that will straighten out MacArthur Drive and also widen parts of South Main Street.

Getting bids on the work over the years has been difficult, engineer Paul Simonton told council members. Originally put out for bid during the COVID-19 pandemic, bids were hard to come by and firms stayed from the work.

“We’ve been trying to get bids on South Main widening for three years,” Simonton said.

The project actually dates back to 2010, when it was a sidewalk and drainage project along South Main Street from Second Avenue to Ralph Quarterman Drive. But as traffic increased, the scope of the project grew, even as interest from companies to do the work was at best limited.

“We finally put it all together,” he said.

The project’s work will begin with straightening out MacArthur Drive from Highway 84 to South Main. From there, it will This project will straighten McArthur, widen it and it will turn south on Main Street to VP and Charles Frasier and then to Ralph Quarterman and include a roundabout at the intersection of Ralph Quarterman and Charles Frasier Boulevard.

Under the project, MacArthur will be widened, with curb and gutter and sidewalks installed. Sidewalks will be put in along South Main to Deal Street, where new turn lanes will be added.

Simonton pointed out that turning left from South Main onto Veterans Parkway can be difficult, pointing out it sometimes takes multiple cycles of the signal before drivers make their turn. The project will put in right-turn lanes and a lengthened left-turn lane, and a widened section going northbound on South Main. That will put four lanes at the intersection. The right turn lane on Charles Frasier — which begins at Veterans Parkway — becomes right-turn only as it gets to Eunice Street.

Also included is the planned roundabout for Ralph Quarterman Drive, and removing the stop signs at Ralph Quarterman and Charles Frasier Boulevard.

Platinum Paving is finishing work on the Veterans Parkway improvements at the entrances to Lowe’s and Walmart, and can be mobilized quickly to start this project, Simonton said.

“The Walmart project is pretty much done,” he said. “They are ready to move that crew. They are ready to start right away.”

The contractor will have traffic signals and message boards along the impacted routes, Simonton noted.

“A lot of time and effort was spent figuring out how we could do that and have the least amount of impact,” he said. “It’s going to be an interruption. We’re going to try warn everybody ahead of time.”

Simonton said the work on the new signal on Veterans Parkway at the intersection with entrances to Lowe’s and Walmart was supposed to be complete months from now but could be wrapped up as early as Thanksgiving. The South Main/Charles Frasier/MacArthur Drive project is expected to be finished in two years once work begins.