By Greg Chandler
Zeeland Record
The veterans memorial monument located at the entrance to Zeeland Cemetery’s Lincoln Avenue location is expected to be moved today as work will soon be starting up on the Church Street reconstruction project.
The monument is being moved into storage for the next few months so that the entrance road into the cemetery can be dug up and new sewer lines installed that will lead into the city’s Clean Water Plant, Assistant City Manager Kevin Plockmeyer said.
“We need to run both the sanitary and storm sewer system (under) the cemetery entrance drive, so we need to remove (the monument) in order to put the pipes in,” Plockmeyer said.
“We do intend to reinstall it once the project is done.”
The $9.1 million project is scheduled to get under Jan. 5, with the first section of work covering the portion of Church from the Clean Water Plant to Central Avenue. The section of Lincoln from the Clean Water Plant drive to Church is tentatively planned to be closed in mid-February as work progresses from the plant and cemetery toward Central, City Manager Tim Klunder said.
In addition to rebuilding Church Street, the project will also upsize the sanitary line between Washington Avenue and the city’s Clean Water Plant from 15 inches to 27 inches to serve the 425 area north of the city limits, including Gentex Corporation’s North Riley facility. Zeeland Township is expected to contribute more than $1.28 million as its pro-rated share of the project cost under the 425 agreement with the city, Plockmeyer wrote in a recent memo to the City Council.
The second phase of the Church project, from Central to Washington Avenue, includes extending the city’s snowmelt system to include that two-block downtown section.
City officials learned earlier this month that bids for the street reconstruction project came in $1.1 million over the budget. The city plans to shore up the gap in part by using the surplus in last fiscal year’s budget and taking another $200,000 from the city’s personal property tax stabilization fund, then addressing the remaining shortfall in the 2026-27 budget.
Construction on the portion from the Clean Water Plant to Central is expected to be completed by June 12, 2026. The segment in Zeeland Cemetery will be completed in May and work in the road cannot begin until March, project engineer Alan Pennington of Moore and Bruggink wrote in an email to the city earlier this fall.
The portion of the project from Central to Washington, which is being paid for in part by a $905,662 Michigan Department of Transportation grant, is scheduled to start June 2 and be finished by Oct. 30, 2026, Pennington wrote.
Zeeland Record
The veterans memorial monument located at the entrance to Zeeland Cemetery’s Lincoln Avenue location is expected to be moved today as work will soon be starting up on the Church Street reconstruction project.
The monument is being moved into storage for the next few months so that the entrance road into the cemetery can be dug up and new sewer lines installed that will lead into the city’s Clean Water Plant, Assistant City Manager Kevin Plockmeyer said.
“We need to run both the sanitary and storm sewer system (under) the cemetery entrance drive, so we need to remove (the monument) in order to put the pipes in,” Plockmeyer said.
“We do intend to reinstall it once the project is done.”
The $9.1 million project is scheduled to get under Jan. 5, with the first section of work covering the portion of Church from the Clean Water Plant to Central Avenue. The section of Lincoln from the Clean Water Plant drive to Church is tentatively planned to be closed in mid-February as work progresses from the plant and cemetery toward Central, City Manager Tim Klunder said.
In addition to rebuilding Church Street, the project will also upsize the sanitary line between Washington Avenue and the city’s Clean Water Plant from 15 inches to 27 inches to serve the 425 area north of the city limits, including Gentex Corporation’s North Riley facility. Zeeland Township is expected to contribute more than $1.28 million as its pro-rated share of the project cost under the 425 agreement with the city, Plockmeyer wrote in a recent memo to the City Council.
The second phase of the Church project, from Central to Washington Avenue, includes extending the city’s snowmelt system to include that two-block downtown section.
City officials learned earlier this month that bids for the street reconstruction project came in $1.1 million over the budget. The city plans to shore up the gap in part by using the surplus in last fiscal year’s budget and taking another $200,000 from the city’s personal property tax stabilization fund, then addressing the remaining shortfall in the 2026-27 budget.
Construction on the portion from the Clean Water Plant to Central is expected to be completed by June 12, 2026. The segment in Zeeland Cemetery will be completed in May and work in the road cannot begin until March, project engineer Alan Pennington of Moore and Bruggink wrote in an email to the city earlier this fall.
The portion of the project from Central to Washington, which is being paid for in part by a $905,662 Michigan Department of Transportation grant, is scheduled to start June 2 and be finished by Oct. 30, 2026, Pennington wrote.
