North Meridian Street reopens after sinkhole repair

UPDATE

Citizens Energy Group reported about 1:55 p.m. Thursday that all lanes of North Meridian Street between 38th and 46th Streets have reopened.

The closure was originally expected to last through Friday afternoon. Contractors repaired structural failures in a 110-year-old clay sewer, brick manhole and connecting storm inlet, Citizens asid in a blog.

Crews inspected nearby infrastructure and found a small number of non-emergency issues, which Citizens said will be corrected in the near future. Additional lane closures or inconveniences to motorists were not anticipated.

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INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – A closure of North Meridian Street will be expanded and last longer than initially planned after inspectors found a caved-in manhole was actually a sinkhole, Citizens Energy Group said Tuesday. 

A Tuesday morning inspection found the caved-in manhole was actually the structural failure of a 108-year-old clay sewer, a brick manhole and the connecting storm sewer, resulting in a sinkhole, said Laura O’Brien, a media contact with Citizens Energy Group. 

Both northbound lanes of North Meridian Street and one of the two lanes of southbound Meridian will be closed from 38th to 46th streets through at least the Friday evening rush hour while repairs to the sinkhole are made. 

All northbound traffic will be rerouted at 38th Street to use Illinois and Pennsylvania streets as detours to 46th Street. 

Initially, the fix had closed the center two lanes of Meridian — one northbound, one southbound —between 40th and 42nd streets.

Crews are expected to work round-the-clock until the work is done, Citizens said in a news release.

(Below is a video from News 8’s Julian Grace at the worksite. App users can go online to view the video.)