September 12, 2025

By Lane Kimble

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. — There will be a literal sense of accomplishment when the Highway 15/Northland Avenue diverging diamond interchange near Appleton opens to traffic on Monday.

Maybe it’s a “scent” of accomplishment, too.

“I love the smell of cure,” Zach Dittberner admitted.  “It’s just a weird tick, but I really like that smell.  Something to do with the concrete going down.  It smells sweet.”

Dittberner–the Michels Road & Stone general manager of concrete paving–has had ample opportunity to take in that aroma while overseeing the multi-season conversion of the interchange into the Fox Valley’s newest DDI.

Michels crews are putting down about 100,000 cubic yards on this project alone.

“A typical road, you just have two or four lanes going straight through an intersection.  This one, you’re criss crossing,” Dittberner said. “So it makes it a little more challenging, a little more handwork, but in the end, I have seen it, I do believe (diverging diamonds are) a lot safer and traffic flows a lot better.”

The Northland Avenue DDI should help with that.  WisDOT says the interchanges reduce the number of potential crash points by 50% while allowing traffic to merge onto the interstate without having to wait to turn left.

WTBA toured the work this summer, a couple months after the overpass closed for work.

“We just want to get the project done, get out of here and open this thing up so people can travel to Green Bay, maybe enjoy some Packer games and get home quicker,” Dittberner said.

Michels still needs to finish off the southbound on and off ramps before work on this $27 million project is done.  That’s not to mention their role in the overall expansion of 23 miles of I-41 from Appleton to De Pere, which includes plenty of mainline work.

So expect to see Dittberner juggling a lot of work here in the coming weeks and years, pausing only briefly from time to time to take in that “sweet” smell of success.

“It’s like putting a puzzle together, right?  You get parts where you’re enjoying it and it’s going great and then you’ve got parts where you can’t find the piece and you’re really struggling.  This project’s no different,” Dittberner said.

“So when I smell that cure, it’s kind of that final step once you’ve got it on.  It’s that sense that you’ve finally gotten somewhere.”