Part of West Michigan Avenue at campus center will close for five days

The road will be closed April 27 through May 1.

Note: This road closure has been canceled.

KALAMAZOO—Access to center of the Western Michigan University campus will be more difficult for five days next week, as the city of Kalamazoo undertakes critical infrastructure work that will shut down Michigan Avenue from Western Avenue to North Dormitory Road.

Michigan Avenue, as it runs between the Student Recreation Center on the east and Parking Ramp No. 1 and Kalamazoo College athletic parking on the west, will be totally impenetrable beginning Sunday, April 27, through Thursday, May 1. The Michigan/North Dormitory Road intersection will remain open, and access to Parking Ramp No. 1 will be permitted from the North Dormitory entrance across from Ellsworth Hall. The Michigan/Western Avenue intersection also will remain open during the work.

See a larger map of the closure here.

As a result, access to the Oaklands, Seibert Administration Building, and the main entrance to the Bernhard Center will only be available by traveling clockwise on the campus ring road and turning right off North Dormitory.

The city will be making critical updates to a 1917 sewer line that once marked the city limit, but now is attached to 1950s-era sewer lines that continue up Michigan Avenue and onto the central campus. City officials say the excavation will cover the road width and be as deep as 17 feet.

WMU officials and Kalamazoo city personnel worked together closely to find a five-day window that would be least disruptive to normal campus activity and minimize inconvenience to campus employees and visitors. The initiative will begin the day after spring commencement and conclude before the start of the summer I session. Working 16-hour shifts, city workers will complete the effort before a large May 3 high school forensics competition scheduled to take place in the Bernhard Center.