IRONTON — Detouring truck traffic off a residential street and upgrading the city’s industrial park should be the end results of an ongoing construction project off Lorain Street.

“We are continuing the roadway through the industrial park,” Dr. Bill Dingus, executive director of Lawrence Economic Development Corporation, said.

Right now Commerce Drive at the Ironton Industrial Park has its entrance and exit onto Third Street about two blocks from the Third and Lorain streets intersection. However that road now dead-ends inside the park.

With the new street extension trucks will be diverted into the park on Third Street and exit on Lorain Street.

“Lorain Street has a large housing section and the Open Door School and this will take off most of the truck traffic,” Dingus said. “When you take a 75-foot rig onto Lorain Street, it is a fairly tight turn. This will make it much nicer for that section of the community.”

On top of the reduction of truck traffic on Lorain, extending Commerce Drive will bring a greater sense of unity to the park, the director says.

“It starts to tie the whole industrial park area together including Liebert’s and the county garage,” Dingus said. “It all becomes part of that industrial park. This should be the link to the whole industrial area.”

Mullins Construction of Wheelersburg was the low bidder on the $180,000 project. Half of that cost comes from a Ohio Department of Development grant made on behalf of Liebert’s when that company made a multi-million dollar expansion a few years ago. The other $90,000 comes from the Ohio Department of Transportation.

The project should be completed within the month.

“When (the LEDC) took over the industrial park, that was one of the things we agreed was one of our goals,” Dingus said. “It is nice to link that whole industrial section together.”