St. Louis, MO  (KTRS)  Ameren Missouri is beginning a major project in downtown St. Louis on Wednesday.

The $8-million project is aimed at upgrading 100,000 feet of underground infrastructure as part of its Smart Energy Plan.The upgrades are expected to improve the power quality and energy reliability for customers.

Motorists can expect road closures during this first phase of the project. The impacted intersections are along Fourth Street at Market, Spruce, Walnut and Olive and along Broadway at Olive and Clark.

The first phase is expected to be completed in April. The entire project is expected to run through 2020.

Key construction facts about the Ameren Missouri plan:

· At the start of the New Year, we will begin a multi-phase infrastructure revitalization project.

· The first phase of the project occurs from January to April 2019.

· Phase 1 includes upgrades in eastern portions of downtown.

Crews are anticipated to begin work January 2, 2019 at the following locations:

Crew 1- 4th & Spruce

Crew 2-Broadway & Clark

Crew 3-4th & Walnut

Crew 4-4th & Market

Crew 5-4th & Olive

Crew 6-Broadway & Olive

· Future phases of the upgrades will occur through 2020, and details of those plans will be announced as the project progresses.

· To ease high volume traffic, we will reduce construction during the busy spring and summer months. However, our crews will perform maintenance during that timeframe when required.

Project Details:

· Under our downtown St. Louis streets is aging conduit duct work made of clay and fiber. Over time, clay and fiber breaks down. The new duct work is made from PVC. PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride, and it’s become a common replacement for conduit duct work. We’ll be upgrading our duct work with 5 inch PVC. PVC’s strength, durability, easy installation and low cost have made it one of the most widely used plastics in the world.

· Electrical conduit is a tube used to protect and route electrical wiring underground in downtown St. Louis. We access our many conduit pathways through manholes.

· We’re diversifying our conduit system adding multiple conduit duct paths to ensure a more reliable system. Our goal is to have multiple conduit paths in each manhole providing us with more energy pathways to keep the lights on for Ameren Missouri customers. More conduit path options will provide greater reliability for customers

· The revitalization of our underground conduit ducts and future installation new advanced cable with fiber optic sensing and controls will allow us to reroute energy to another path if a problem is detected. In most cases, customers would not experience an outage and if they were impacted, restoration times would be significantly shortened.