The City of Knoxville will open the entrance to Fairmont Boulevard at Broadway on Friday with the completion of a new bridge at that site.

While one street entrance is opening, though, another one will be closing. Bell & Associates, L.P., the current contractor on the project will be closing the entrance to nearby Emoriland Boulevard on Monday to complete work on a new bridge there.

Fairmont Boulevard has been closed at Broadway since 2009 by construction work on the city's First Creek Drainage Improvement Project. It was delayed for several months, however, by a legal dispute between the previous contractor and a sub-contractor before the city eventually found the contractor to be in default and terminated the contract earlier this year.

The city subsequently reached an agreement with Bell & Associates to finish the new bridges at Fairmont Boulevard and Emoriland Boulevard. The bridges are key elements of the plan designed to help alleviate flooding in that area. The work also includes widening of a 1,853-foot-long section of the First Creek's channel.

Bell is scheduled to complete the remaining portion of the project in late August, though there will be some final landscaping work on the widened channel this fall.