A contractor will be installing and connecting water lines on Cumberland Avenue this week, prompting the overnight closure of Cumberland for four nights, starting tonight.

Cumberland Avenue between 20th and 22nd streets will be closed at 10 p.m. tonight and will reopen at 6 a.m. Tuesday. The closures will be repeated Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, with the road reopening at 6 a.m. the following morning.

Westbound motorists on Cumberland Avenue will be detoured right onto 20th Street, left onto Clinch Avenue and left onto 22nd Street to reconnect to westbound Cumberland.

Eastbound motorists will be detoured right onto 22nd Street, left onto Terrace Avenue and left onto 19th Street to reconnect to eastbound Cumberland.

Southern Contractors Inc. will be completing the installations – connecting customers to new infrastructure, with no planned service interruptions – as part of an upgrade of utilities in the Cumberland Avenue Corridor by KUB, in partnership with the City of Knoxville. 

The City’s $17 million reconstruction of Cumberland will modernize aging infrastructure and change the existing four-lane street to a three-lane cross section with a raised median and left-turn lanes at intersections. Sidewalks will be widened and landscaped, and utility lines relocated, to create a more attractive, safer, pedestrian-friendly corridor.