Heritage Tower Work Continues, Requires Downtown Traffic Shift

Staging is set to begin this Friday on West Michigan Avenue to prepare for the next stage of improvements and construction on the Heritage Tower project, at 25 W. Michigan.

This months-long stage, involving construction on upper floors in the 19-story building, requires construction crews to install scaffolding across the West Michigan Avenue side of the building, as well as a temporary, exterior elevator to move materials.

To allow for that work, once signage and barriers are in place, the following changes will be in place between Capital Avenue SW and the pedestrian crosswalk at Riverwalk Centre, from next week until the spring of 2019:

• Two-way vehicle traffic will continue, but will shift. Westbound traffic will travel in the parking lane on the north side of Michigan Avenue. Eastbound traffic will travel in the current westbound lane. Signage, new road stripes and cones will help direct this.
• There will be no street parking on either side of this section of West Michigan.
• There will be no pedestrian access on the south side of West Michigan in this section, in front of Heritage Tower.
• Pedestrians can access the north side of West Michigan, but barricades will stop them from crossing in the section with the traffic shift.

Construction activities may require a complete closure of West Michigan during this part of the project. City staff will release the timing and information of that, when the need arises.

Heritage Tower is a highly-anticipated, mixed-use project that will feature commercial spaces on the first two floors, and an expected 85 residential units on the upper floors.