Construction on Steadman Road nearly complete

Progress on the Steadman Road improvements has proceeded on schedule and the road is expected to be open to traffic again by August 15. The project is scheduled to be totally completed by September 1.
Steadman Road is a state-owned road and the nearly $4.4 million project was awarded in 2025 to Knik Construction.
In June, Knik Construction workers closed Steadman Road, demolished the sidewalk and excavated the ground down two and a half feet. The project was the culmination of nearly ten years of planning for much-needed improvements to make it Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant. The wheelchair ramps on the sidewalk were no longer up to accessibility standards and the sidewalk itself had buckled, cracked and crumbled in parts. The road itself, one of the few paved roads in Nome, was damaged and riddled with enormous potholes. There were drainage issues that led to rainwater and snowmelt pooling. The improvements to the road stretch from Front Street to 5th Avenue.
The improvements of Steadman Road include 25 new storm drain catch basins along the curbs, an improved sidewalk up to where the road meets with West 4th Avenue, wider ramps up onto the sidewalk and repaving the road up to the intersection with 5th Avenue. Crews demolished the old asphalt and concrete and dug down 30 inches before filling it with specially formulated sub-pavement gravel before repaving, said Knik Construction Superintendent Justin Testerman while describing the project.
During the project, utilities were taken down for construction and raised back up, but there were no specific NJUS utility upgrades.
The gravel that the crew used to re-build the road is from the Nome area and is run through a crusher and screened to make sure it is up to specifications. “Super clean,” Testerman described it. “If you're running through material, you're going to reject probably 50, 60 percent to get what we're building,” said Testerman.
During the first bit of sunny weather last week, a crew was hard at work along Steadman Street – some flattening out the surface, others carefully marking the future center line of the roadway with survey equipment and bright pink spray paint.
Near Front Street, Testerman was one of the workers marking the road’s center. Knik Construction had five to ten employees working on the project at any given time this summer, along with several sub-contractors.  Rainy weather forced them to hold off on the final steps and paving for a few days, but Testerman said the project is still on schedule. “Weather is uncontrollable, and so you play with the hand you're dealt, and here we are,” he said.
The work also included grading the intersection between Steadman Road and 5th Avenue, paving side street approaches and installing new signs.
During the project, utilities were taken down for construction and raised back up, but there were no specific utility upgrades.
Taco Esquibel, another superintendent on the project, said the crew appreciated Nomeites' patience with the project. “We're trying to get it done and get out of their way as fast as we can,” he said.
While excavating the roadway, workers uncovered part of the old boardwalk that ran down the road in the early days of Nome. Esquibel said that in previous work on the road, the center had had been dug up, but not the edges. An archeological consultant was on site. “They just kind of looked at it and stopped, and kind of dug underneath it,” said Esquibel. “We found actually an old spoon, and she found part of a fork and some ceramic.”
Esquibel said the boardwalk was still recognizable. “It's pretty amazing to see it was still solid,” he said.
Esquibel was on the crew that worked on Steadman Street around 20 years ago. Watching the sidewalks he put in decades ago get demolished felt a little strange. “It was a little like history going in the back of a truck,” he said. “I was pretty amazed [at] how they lasted.”
After Steadman, Knik will continue to repair damages the Nome-Council Road sustained during ex-typhoon Merbok in 2022. They will be replacing gravel surfacing, road signs and applying a dust palliative at mileposts 4–5, 9–11, and 14.2–14.7, according to Angelica Stabs with the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities. “Construction is anticipated to begin during the week of August 21 and continue through mid- to late September, pending the contractor's finalized schedule,” she said via email on August 5.
Looking ahead, there are plans to repair and upgrade Seppala Drive between Bering Street and Airport Terminal Road in 2027 and 2028. There are also plans for construction on Center Creek Road in 2028.