YOUNGSTOWN — City council authorized the board of control to pay a $321,778 bill for an emergency downtown sewer replacement project that started in late March.

Council voted 7-0 Wednesday in favor of the legislation.

During an improvement project on Commerce Street between Phelps and Market streets, a large sinkhole was found March 29.

Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co, the Youngstown company that was doing the road improvements, did the sewer replacement work.

About 400 feet of 30-inch brick sanitary sewer lines were replaced with polyvinyl chloride lines, along with three manholes,

The Commerce Street improvement project was part of the SMART2 (Strategic and Sustainable, Medical and Manufacturing, Academic and Arts, Residential and Recreation, and Technology and Training) Network program that began more than four years ago. It’s a $27.65 million project on several downtown streets that began in July 2020 and received $10.85 million in federal funding.

The SMART2 work on Commerce Street stopped a few months ago because of a problem with 20 Federal Place, a city-owned building that has its rear side facing the street.

During a $7.4 million project at the nine-story building — including asbestos remediation and partial demolition — damage to the floor and wall on the upper two floors was found. There was concern that parts of the building could fall off so that section of the street was closed and the street work halted, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works.

A $175,000 project to repair that gap in the wall should be done shortly, Shasho said.

After that, Marucci & Gaffney will finish the Commerce Street improvement project, Shasho said. Left to do are curbs and sidewalks on the south side of the street and paving, he said. That work should be finished next month, Shasho said.

Council also voted 7-0 to increase the funding from $3.6 million to $4.1 million for a Mahoning Avenue resurfacing project from Meridian Road to the Interstate 680 interchange, about 2 miles, that also includes new catch basins, curbs, sidewalks and signs.

The additional funding is coming from the American Rescue Plan.

The rest of the project’s expenses will come from federal and state funding, Shasho said.

A contractor could be chosen as soon as Sept. 26 by the board of control, Shasho said.

The work to the catch basins, curbs and sidewalks will be done over the winter, Shasho said. But the repaving project is going to have to wait until the spring, he said.

The project is one of three major projects on Mahoning Avenue.

A $1.7 million project to install new traffic lights at 10 intersections on the road between Meridian Road and Oak Hill Avenue will be finished later this year.

Also, significant progress has been made on a $2.45 million waterline project on Mahoning Avenue that started in February.

That project includes a water mainline replacement between Belle Vista and Lakeview avenues as well as the replacement of waterlines, several of which contain lead, on the streets that run south of Mahoning Avenue.

Nicholas D’Alesio, the city’s water quality compliance coordinator, said lead pipes are the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s biggest concern, but there are concerns about galvanized pipes also, so the city is removing all of the lead and galvanized lines in the project area.

D’Alesio said the city does not know how many of the water lines in the project area are lead and how many are galvanized, but the city identified 328 homes whose water lines needed to be replaced.

When the project is complete, the water will travel through copper service lines, D’Alesio said.

The project is expected to be complete sometime in November.

The city is preparing to also complete a similar waterline replacement project on the South Side that will be about three times as large as the West Side project, D’Alesio said.