KUB and its contractor will be closing Cumberland Avenue for overnight installation of new water infrastructure on three consecutive nights, starting at 10 p.m. today (Monday, May 16).

Southern Constructors Inc. crews will be installing water lines across Cumberland Avenue, closing the avenue between 17th and 19th streets from 10 p.m. today until 6 a.m. Tuesday, May 17. The closures will repeat Tuesday and Wednesday nights, with Cumberland reopening at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning, May 19.

Westbound motorists will be detoured during the closure onto Melrose Place, then onto Lake Avenue, then onto 19th Street before reconnecting with Cumberland Avenue. Eastbound motorists will be detoured onto 19th Street to Clinch Avenue to 17th Street before reconnecting to Cumberland Avenue.

Meanwhile, a temporary no-parking zone will be in effect on the west side of Melrose Place, between Cumberland Avenue and Lake Avenue, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, May 17-18. New infrastructure is being installed to service an existing KUB customer. Two-way traffic on Melrose Place will remain in effect.

The infrastructure upgrades are part of the City of Knoxville’s $17 million Cumberland Avenue reconstruction, to be completed by August 2017.

The reconstruction will change the existing four-lane Cumberland between 22nd and 17th streets to a three-lane cross section with a raised median and left-turn lanes at intersections. An earlier phase of work on the western end of Cumberland focused on improving traffic flow between the Alcoa Highway ramps and 22nd Street; that phase finished at the end of 2015, on time and under budget.

More information is available at CumberlandConnect.com, on the Cumberland Connect Facebook page, facebook.com/CumberlandConnect, and on the Cumberland Connect phone app. Or text VFL to 313131 to get text messages on the most current traffic updates.