Tempe says Mill Avenue work largely finished; final overnight striping, manhole repairs and a fall reopening are planned

Josh, the City of Tempe construction project coordinator, told downtown merchants on July 2 that the Mill Avenue improvements from University Drive to Rio Salado are "largely finished," with only minor punch-list work and scheduled short-duration operations remaining.

"As of 07/02/2026, we're currently completed with all of our hardscape and roadway items," said Benjamin Plush, assistant project manager with Lincoln Gardner Construction, the on-site contractor. He described recently installed pavement, landscaping, temporary striping, corner mosaics and other final touches.

Plush outlined the remaining tasks and timing: installation of a few bike racks overnight (planned for 12:01 AM to 9:00 AM to avoid business hours), manhole repairs scheduled July 21–23, and a final downtown-wide permanent striping pass during the first week of August after the asphalt has fully cured. "We are planning to do that from the hours of 12:01AM to 9AM," Plush said of the overnight striping work.

The city also described a short-duration paving sequence in the Maple/6th Avenue area that will use flagging rather than a full closure. "It's not gonna be a hard closure... the duration of the project's roughly about 10 days, 11 if you count the final striping in the morning," Josh said, and added that the only hard closure will be the morning of paving (roughly 5–9/10 AM). For routine daytime work, crews will operate about 6 AM–4 PM.

When merchants asked whether the 2nd Street asphalt repairs would require a full road closure, Benjamin answered that it would not. "Not a full road closure... they're just gonna go back and kinda fine tune the grading over there," he said. Josh added that flaggers will assist pedestrians and vehicles, estimating delays of up to "a 5 minute delay at maximum" when crews are working across a driveway.

Downtown Tempe staff also used the meeting to review communications and merchant outreach. Allie, a Downtown Tempe representative, said merchants can sign up for a weekly or biweekly merchant newsletter and access past meeting recordings through the Downtown Tempe merchant portal. She announced a planned in-person "media 101" session for merchants late in July (date to be determined) and promoted a summer sidewalk campaign running through Aug. 2 that uses a phone-based points system and merchant-submitted coupons to encourage visits.

"It'll be until August 2 that that will be available," Allie said of the summer sidewalk campaign, and she cautioned that some phone/GPS systems may require users to refresh the page if they have trouble collecting points.

Allie also asked merchants to "Save the date, October 23 from 5PM to 9PM" for what she described as a Mill Avenue grand reopening (working title: "Beats and Eats") featuring programming, tours of the completed work, artwork and live music, and a low-cost small-plate food option to encourage walking between businesses.

For construction or contractor questions, the city directed merchants to contact Ben or Casey at the contractor; for project-level construction questions, Josh provided his contact information and noted further details are available at tempe.gov/streets. The meeting closed with a reminder to email the project team with additional questions.

Next steps: crews will perform the overnight bike-rack installations, manhole work July 21–23, and final striping the first week of August; Downtown Tempe will circulate details about the merchant "media 101" session and the Oct. 23 reopening as those plans are finalized.