Four-week Shaw Avenue closure planned for Clovis widening project

Shaw Avenue will shut down for four weeks in October between DeWolf and Leonard avenues, forcing traffic off one of Clovis’s main east-west routes as crews move into the next phase of the Loma Vista widening project.

The closure is expected to hit drivers and merchants near Loma Vista Marketplace, the city’s planned 32-acre commercial center at the southwest corner of Shaw and Leonard. City materials say the work is part of phase 2 of the widening project, which covers Shaw between DeWolf and Leonard and includes a structure designed to create a direct connection for commercial developments on the north and south sides of the roadway.

The city has already finished phase 1, which widened lanes east of Leonard Avenue. Phase 2 still depends on relocating PG&E overhead utilities and some gas pipelines before the roadway can be excavated to a depth of 20 feet, with heavy equipment and semi-trucks moving through the site. City officials have said the closure is being planned on public-safety grounds because the work area will be too active to keep traffic moving through it.

That safety rationale has already collided with business concerns. In January 2024, Clovis City Council members questioned whether Shaw Avenue should be closed at all and discussed keeping the signature amenities of Loma Vista Marketplace intact during construction. The council’s consensus at that meeting was to keep Shaw Avenue open, but merchant representatives later backed the broader project while urging the city to avoid the busiest holiday shopping period. They argued October would be better than November or December, when retail traffic is heaviest.

The closure also lands in a part of Clovis that has been planned for decades. City records say the Loma Vista Specific Plan was first worked on in May 2001 and approved by the Clovis City Council on March 3, 2003. The 3,300-acre area was envisioned to eventually support nearly 30,000 residents and was identified in the city’s 1993 General Plan update as one of three urban centers. The broader goal was to build a mix of housing, parks, schools, pedestrian links and commercial centers that would limit dependence on driving.

That larger plan now runs through Shaw Avenue, which the city describes as a two-and-a-half-mile planning and reinvestment corridor and one of Clovis’s primary commercial corridors. The roadway links CSU Fresno and older, economically disadvantaged neighborhoods on the west with Loma Vista on the east, making the coming shutdown more than a local construction inconvenience. It is another test of whether years of eastward growth and road rebuilding are delivering visible relief for commuters and enough access for the businesses built around them.