Portion of Pittsburgh's Smallman Street to remain closed for 3 weeks

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority estimates it will take another three weeks to fix a burst water main and complete street restoration on Smallman Street in the city’s Strip District.

Smallman Street will remain closed between 14th and 17th streets while work is ongoing, PWSA officials said Friday.

A 36-inch main that’s nearly 100 years old supplying the Strip and Downtown burst on Tuesday, flooding the area and damaging the street. PWSA is supplying the area with water from other sources, according to Executive Director Robert Weimar.

“The pipe split,” he said. “This is a type of split that we’ve seen before. This time we’ve hired a metallurgist to come in and to help us evaluate what’s the real cause for the pipe to break.”

Weimar said the cause could be corrosion or aged connections between sections of pipe.

The authority hired Oakmont-based Folino Construction to replace 600 feet of pipe between 15th and 16th streets, repave the street and install new sidewalks. The pipe arrived Friday from a company in Birmingham, Ala. The entire block on Friday had been stripped of pavement and workers were preparing to install the new pipe.

Weimar could not provide a cost estimate.

PWSA in February completed an 11-month, $13 million project to replace all sewer, water and stormwater lines from 16th to 21st streets in preparation for redevelopment of the Strip District’s landmark produce terminal. The Society of American Military Engineers honored PWSA for the work with its Engineering Project of the Year award.