The City of Knoxville will host a ribbon-cutting to reopen Emoriland Boulevard and celebrate the completion of the First Creek Drainage Improvement Project at 11 a.m., Friday, August 26.

The ribbon-cutting will take place on the new Emoriland Boulevard Bridge, which was built as part of the flood control project. Emoriland has been closed at its intersection with Broadway since the First Creek Project began in 2009.

"This project has been a difficult one and we're pleased to be able to open the bridge and celebrate the completion of this work," said Mayor Daniel Brown. "I want to thank the city's Engineering Department which has worked through a lot of unexpected problems to get us here today. I also want to thank the residents of the area neighborhoods who have been patient through what turned out to be a longer-than-anticipated process."

The First Creek Drainage Improvement Project is part of the city's long-running effort to alleviate flooding along the creek as it runs along and beneath Broadway in North Knoxville. The work included the construction of new bridges at both Fairmont and Emoriland Boulevards and the widening of a 1,853-foot-long section of the creek's channel.

The project was supposed to have been completed last fall but fell behind schedule initially due to unexpected issues with the excavation of subsurface rock and high water during early phases and later because of a legal dispute between the primary contractor and the sub-contractor building the bridges.

The city was eventually forced to terminate the contractor and subsequently reached an agreement earlier this summer with Bell & Associates, L.P., to finish the project.

There will be some final landscaping work on the widened channel later this fall.