Although the heavy rain and bad early spring may have kept home builders out of the ground, road construction in the city and state is still on schedule.

North Dakota roads

"We are not really experiencing delays due to the flooding or the recent weather,"said Billie Jo Lorius with the North Dakota Department of Transportation. "At this point, it's not a concern and there are no delays on construction projects."

The DOT's construction season doesn't usually start until April 15, she said. Most of the inclement weather - blizzards, floods, frozen ground - was finished by then.

"As far as the recent weather, it was mainly Bismarck-concentrated,"Lorius added.

The department is facing a heavy construction season, with federal stimulus money helping several projects move forward. In fact, 2009 is the largest construction season the state has seen, despite the wacky weather.The DOTis investing $383 million in road projects on 1,300 miles of roadway in North Dakota.

That construction includes$260 million in 139 regular, statewide construction projects; $18 million in county road improvements and bridges; and a total of $105 million in economic stimulus that will be invested in 99 projects.

City roads

City roads haven't had much delay, but water main projects are difficult when areas are constantly filling with water, such as the Haycreek area, said Dale Heinert with the Bismarck city planning office.

In Mandan, a major concrete pour was disrupted by the heavy rains Monday at the intersection at Sunset Drive and Old Red Trail, where a stoplight is going up and new concrete will be laid out. Crews poured about 100 yards of concrete Monday, but lost nearly half of it in the heavy rains, said David Bechtel, project manager in Mandan's engineering department.

Other than that, asphalting and road maintenance projects have not been delayed due to weather, Bechtel said.

About 30 Mandan streets will undergo resurfacing or maintenance this year, he added, including a nearly $1.3 million stimulus project.

As far as roads, in Bismarck:"A lot of the work that we're doing now is on existing streets. We're resurfacing them or repaving them," Heinert said.

In Bismarck, there also isn't much of a delay due to weather, and if the weather gets really bad for a couple of days, that delay is normally built into the contractor's schedule, Heinert said.

Road maintenance projects in both cities typically begin between May and early June, whenever load restrictions are lifted and the heavy equipment can safely travel on the roadways. This year, Heinert said, restrictions were lifted in late May.

Bismarck is in the process of completing 220 blocks of resurfacing projects, and will begin on another couple hundred that will carry over into next year.

The visible projects will include concrete pavement repair onMain Avenue from Washington Street to Memorial Bridge, and work on South Washington Street, south from Expressway, and repairs on Seventh and Ninth streets from Bismarck Expressway to Boulevard Avenue. The latter two projects are stimulus fund projects.

The Highland Acres area is being torn up for new water mains in the streets, Heinert said. That 57-block project will be finished by the end of this year.

But most of these projects won't be delayed due to rain.

"This kind of weather? Not too much, unless it continues and continues and continues,"Heinert said. "If we have weeks of soaking rain, that's worse. It doesn't help when it rains, but it doesn't slow us down too much."

Heinert said the kind of work that starts from raw land will be the most delayed, where developers have to build foundations, water and sewer systems.

"We've got lots of stuff going on,"Heinert said. "This town doesn't slow down."

Home building

Earlier in the year, home builders commented on not being able to get into the ground as quickly as they were able to the past few years.

March blizzards and floods meant a lot of pumping and battling with elements beyond their control.

This could be contributing to home building permits being more than half year-to-date this year over last year.

According to statistics from the Bismarck-Mandan Development Association, there have only been 96 permits filed for single family homes as of May 2009, compared to 339 the same time last year. That put total valuations lower:$21 million for total valuations from January to May 2009, compared to more than $87 million last year.

Mike Hopfauf with Hopfauf Custom Homes said in April that the bad weather caught everyone off guard;it delayed building materials, made digging dangerous and all-around delayed putting basements in the ground.

The industry seems to be scrambling to catch up, however, as more and more permits are approved every day.

With near-record snowfall, a constant dumping of precipitation from the heavens, extreme temperatures and dry heat then humidity that makes a person feel 5 pounds heavier, it's a wonder that construction hasn't been impacted more.

(Reach reporter Crystal R. Reid at 250-8261 or crystal.reid@;bismarcktribune.com.)