Check this off Nederland’s Christmas list — significant completion of Nederland Avenue.

Workers completed the hot-mix overlay from Highway 69 to 23^rd Street and are scheduled to begin striping Monday. City Manager Chris Duque said the striping should take about two days, which means Nederland Avenue should be wide open for traffic by Dec. 19. The project should be completed, cleanup and all, around two weeks later.

“There is still some work that has to be done,” Duque said. “There are still some right-of-way issues and some driveways and intersections that will need to be done.

“We’ve finished the water line components of it. The drainage project is pretty much complete. They just have to finish up the street that it was on.”

Workers were supposed to finish up 12^th Street on Tuesday, but Duque said there was a mechanical issue at the asphalt plant. The project was expected to resume Wednesday, which will close down 12^th street. Parking for City Hall will be on Atlanta Avenue.

The project began last spring and was originally scheduled to finish by the end of October, but an unusually rainy end of summer and fall halted progress. The city pushed back the anticipated deadline Thanksgiving week, but inclement weather and unforeseen mechanical issues caused further delays.

Even with delays and additional work, the project remains under budget, Duque said.

“We have not busted,” he said. “I need to double check, but I think we’re close. There have been some things that have come up in the past month or so that we have asked them to address in addition to the original specs. We should still be under budget.”

At the last Nederland City Council meeting, Duque said he anticipates officially closing the project at the first council meeting 2019, which is scheduled for Jan. 14. At that time, city officials will determine how much of the budget is left and move that over to other, upcoming street projects.