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Traveling along East Center Street is going to be very difficult Tuesday - in fact, it's going to be impossible due to a major traffic jam. The major east-west thoroughfare will be closed beginning at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning so a house can be moved to Winona Lake.
"We urge everyone to stay off of Center Street after 9 a.m. if at all possible," said Lacy Francis, Warsaw's superintendent of public works.
The process of moving the structure will be long and require a choreography between Francis' department, NIPSCO, Sprint, Marcus Cable and Michiana Construction crews (for traffic signals) and the firm contracted to actually move the house, Lykowski Construction, of South Bend.
"It's going to be a pretty involved process," Francis said. "NIPSCO and the other utilities will have to lower the power lines across Center Street and the traffic lights along the route. That, in addition to the house going down the middle of Center Street, is going to make the area hard to travel through."
The schedule and route for the house moving is to begin at 9 a.m. from 1710 E. Center St., travel west to Bronson Street, Bronson Street south to East Smith Street, Smith Street to South Grant, Grant Street north to Winona Avenue, Winona Avenue east to Park Avenue, and Park Avenue south, through the vacant lot at 904 Park Avenue to Canal Street.
There is a possibility, according to Tim Lykowski, who is moving the house for Brent Wilcoxson to its Winona Lake location, that his crew will use Winona Avenue if city and utility officials don't object.
Lykowski also encouraged area residents to avoid the moving route, for their own safety as much as to reduce the interference with the project.
"Another reason for people to stay away from the area is because you never know what to expect when you're moving utility lines, you never know what to expect," Lykowski said. "Some of the poles are pretty old, and when you start shifting the weight on them by disconnecting wires, they could snap."
He added the process of moving the the house the approximate mile-and-a-half will take at least eight hours.
"It's going to take all day, at least eight hours," Lykowski said. "Most of that time is due to the leap-frog process of taking down the utility wires ahead of the house and putting them back up behind it."
