ROBERTSDALE, Ala. -- Barring any hiccups, College Avenue should be open to traffic at the beginning of this week, according to officials.

Construction on the more than half-million dollar project began in September with funding from an Alabama Department of Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program (ATRIP) grant to fund the project.

The contract called for 80 working days and initially officials were looking at about four months, but weather delays pushed the project to nearly six months.

“I think people are really going to enjoy using this bridge once it is finally finished,” said Mayor Charles Murphy during a ribbon cutting ceremony held Friday at the bridge site.

In December, the council voted to negotiate with the paving contractor in order to pave the street from U.S. Highway 90 to Wilters Street.

Part of the ATRIP contract includes paving about 400 feet on the north and south side of the bridge. The city was hoping to be able to negotiate paving the additional roadway, which is just over three-quarters of a mile, for under $50,000. Any project costing more than $50,000 requires solicitation of bids, officials said.

“We found out that the county is paving County Road 71 (which is an extension of College Avenue north of U.S. Highway 90) north of Hughen Street,” Murphy said at the council’s Feb. 17 meeting. “We were hoping that we could get the road paved from Hughen Street to Highway 90 as part of the county project, but that didn’t happen.”

So the city negotiated with the paving contractor for the College Avenue project to pave that portion of the roadway, which is just under a quarter-mile. The council voted Feb. 17 to add the two paving contracts to the initial project. The total cost for resurfacing is $65,000, which will be split into two projects, officials said.

The resurfacing project began on Wednesday, Feb. 19 and still needs about another week to cure before lines can be painted on the road, said city engineer Greg Smith.

The city has $360,000 in its 2013-14 budget for resurfacing of streets, said the city’s chief financial officer Ann Simpson at the December meeting. That portion of College Avenue was last resurfaced in the late 1990s, Murphy said. A portion of College from Silverhill Avenue to Fairground Road was paved within the past year.