Portions of Jefferson Avenue in Detroit part of final round of road closures before NFL Draft
(CBS DETROIT) – More barricades and fences are going up around downtown Detroit for the third and final round of street closures.
Starting Monday, eastbound and westbound Jefferson Avenue will be closed in front of Hart Plaza.
Although drivers using the Lodge Freeway won't be able to go underneath Huntington Place, they'll still be able to use the Larned and West Jefferson exits.
MORE: Road closures ahead of 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit
Those planning to use the Windsor tunnel are encouraged to use Interstate 375.
"Even if you've been down here, 100 times, 1000 times, you're down here every day, check your nav system, check on Google Maps, and Waze. Those will have the latest updates and road closures. So even if you know where you're going, it's always helpful to double-check on seeing if the typical route that you usually take down here, if it may have changed," said Sam Krassenstein, chief of Infrastructure for the City of Detroit.
The latest round of closures is expanding the NFL Draft fan experience from Campus Martius to Hart Plaza.
Krassenstein said groups like the Detroit Downtown Partnership have been instrumental in communicating the changes to businesses so they can adjust employee parking and delivery routes.
"Anywhere we can preserve on-street parking that we are, and anywhere that we're not, we are posting that no parking is allowed. And we're communicating that to the residences and to the businesses so that people aren't caught off guard. But if you are parked in an area that we're going to be closing in as part of the perimeter and you haven't moved your car, we unfortunately will have to tow," Krassenstein said.
Some improvements, like new cellphone towers, will be permanent upgrades, while others are temporary, such as a data tower that will help television networks transmit the NFL Draft to the world.
"It's one thing to talk about what it looks like on paper, but it's quite another to see what the footprint is in person, to see how many people are involved in executing it, and to understand everything that's involved with building an event like this together," Krassenstein said.
"All the businesses are open for the next few weeks and will be open during the Draft, so don't let the road closures scare you into coming downtown. There's still plenty of parking, still plenty of ways to get around."
