Jan. 2—EDITOR’S NOTE — This is one in a series looking at what Lake County communities and agencies experienced in 2023 and what is facing them in 2024.

For Madison Village government leaders, 2023 will be remembered as a year when a major infrastructure project was completed.

Chivers Construction of Fairview, Pennsylvania, finished work on the village’s section of a sanitary sewer interconnection project.

This endeavor involved constructing a new trunk line to convey the village’s wastewater to Lake County’s sanitary sewer pump station. That station is located near Immaculate Conception Catholic Church on Hubbard Road in Madison Township.

“It was an extremely large and difficult project,” said Village Administrator Dwayne Bailey. “The project got done essentially on time and on budget, and we’re completely happy to have our portion of that taken care of.”

Lake County is now working on a companion project involving the installation of a new trunk line to direct the village’s sanitary sewage to the Lake County Utilities Department Wastewater Plant on Cashen Road in Madison Township.

Bailey provided a summary of Madison Village’s biggest accomplishments in 2023 and top goals for 2024.

In 2023, the village government made noteworthy progress in its quest to create safer driving conditions and improve traffic flow at the Interstate 90 and Route 528 interchange.

The Ohio Department of Transportation has authorized Madison Village to seek bids from contractors for a project that will enhance the interchange with two new mast-arm traffic signals, a turn lane and shoulder upgrades.

Madison government leaders have been eager to complete these improvements to help control the increased amount of vehicle traffic that’s been entering the community to visit Sheetz and Love’s locations, which opened a little more than a year ago.

ODOT also set the final estimated price of the project at $1.4 million.

Love’s will pay roughly 60 percent of the overall project cost, with Sheetz picking up about 40 percent of the tab. Each entity’s share was determined based on traffic impact studies, Bailey said.

The village plans to put the project out for bid in February, and is hoping that the new traffic signals and related upgrades at the interchange can be completed by summer, Bailey said.

In 2023, a wetlands restoration and creation project also was completed on village-owned property on Hubbard Road that once was used as a horticultural nursery. The land is located just south of the Madison Senior Center.

In 2024, plans call for installation of an elevated observation deck and primitive trail through the site, so the area can be used for outdoor education and birding.

Also in 2023, work continued on a project that will improve all-inclusive accessibility of the Dana’s Park playground, which is located behind Village Hall at 33 E. Main St.

Work in 2023 included mainly site preparation at Dana’s Park, Bailey said. In 2024, the village hopes to complete the project with new playground equipment and modern surfacing.

Other 2023 highlights cited by Bailey included:

—Continued growth of the village’s Outdoor Market. The event is held from 5 to 8 p.m. each Thursday, typically from the start of June through the end of August, in Madison Village Park.

“We probably had 40 vendors on a couple of Thursdays,” Bailey said.

—It was an “amazing” season for the 2023 Concerts in the Park series, Bailey said. The concerts take place at Village Park from 7 to 9 p.m. on the same Thursdays as the Outdoor Market.

“Attendance (for the concerts) is way up and we hope to continue to grow that,” he said.

—Construction of Great Lakes Power Products’ new world headquarters at 1973 Great Lakes Way is essentially complete, Bailey said.

This new edifice will consolidate Great Lakes Power Products’ administrative, service, manufacturing and warehousing operations that take place at current sites in Mentor and Perry Township.

“The (Madison Village) building should be filling up with employees (in 2024),” he said.

Also in 2024, Bailey said the village is hoping to complete the transfer of its water and sewer utilities to the Lake County Utilities Department.

This transition will be made after the overall sanitary sewer interconnection is finished and functioning. That’s when the village will stop accepting and treating wastewater, and decommission its wastewater treatment plant on Middle Ridge Road.

The average village water and sewer customer is expected to see his or her bills reduce by 25 percent to 30 percent after the Lake County Utilities Department takes over, Bailey noted.

Madison Village also is planning several paving projects in 2024:

—Parkway Boulevard will be resurfaced from where the new pavement stops at the West Main Street entrance to Parkway Estates subdivision, and extend all the way back to Sunset Drive, Village Engineer Eric Haibach noted.

“It’s a big arterial collector for that Parkway neighborhood,” he said.

The village will receive an Ohio Public Works Commission matching grant to defray the overall project cost.

—Madison Village is partnering with Lake County to pave Middle Ridge Road. The resurfacing of Middle Ridge will stretch from Townline Road, at the Madison Township/Perry Township border; to Hubbard Road in the village.

“We were able to get funding from the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency for this project,” Bailey said.

In a separate but related endeavor, the village will be installing sidewalks on Middle Ridge Road between the Squares Acres neighborhood and Burns Road.

“But we won’t start that until after the paving (on Middle Ridge) is done,” he said.