STARKVILLE — It may be a few more weeks before the city learns if it can take over maintenance of about a mile of State Highway 182 between Old West Point Road and Beattie Street. But aldermen on Tuesday approved nearly $500,000 of engineering redesign work along the corridor under the auspices the answer will be yes.
The city sent the request for taking on road maintenance to the Mississippi Department of Transportation in August so it could install water, sewer and drainage infrastructure underneath the roadway — something state highway guidelines do not allow. The move could save millions on a planned revitalization project for the corridor that is supported, at least for now, by $12.6 million from a Federal Highway Administration grant.
On Tuesday, aldermen consented to pay Kimley Horn and Associates another $461,747 to redesign the revitalization project, work Associate City Engineer Chris Williams said would mostly involve plans for moving the infrastructure from the smaller easements beside the road to underneath the much wider roadbed.
The city has already paid Kimley Horn roughly $1.7 million, Williams said, for the original project design, which also includes reducing the road to two lanes divided by landscaped medians and adding pedestrian/bike lanes to flank each side of the street, among other things. Along with beautification, it aims to spur economic development in the corridor.
“I have nothing formal from MDOT,” Mayor Lynn Spruill told The Dispatch, though she noted city officials have had “lots” of conversations with MDOT wherein the department seemed agreeable to ceding maintenance of that stretch of the highway.
With or without that formal notice, Spruill said, time is running short.
Counting the Federal Highway grant and $3.5 million local match, as well as $10.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that received state match, the city has a little more than $25 million on hand to dedicate to the revitalization. Based on the most recent bids, which were rejected, the total cost would come closer to $42 million under state highway guidelines.
Plus, ARPA has to be dedicated by the end of 2024 and spent by 2026. Without an extension, the Federal Highway grant requires substantial completion by July 2025 and full completion by the end of 2026.
Williams said with Tuesday’s approval, a “more constructible” design based on the city taking the road from MDOT could be completed by the end of the year, and construction of the entire revitalization project could be rebid in March. That would give the full project at least a chance of being completed less expensively in a time frame where the city might keep the federal grant.
The city also continues to seek other federal funds to help with the project, Spruill said.
“If we’re going to take advantage of this at all, we have to move forward,” Spruill said. “If MDOT comes back and says no (to ceding the highway stretch), then we’ll call a halt to it.”
Even if the city ultimately has to return the federal grant, city officials said they hope to at least use the ARPA funds to improve water, sewer and drainage along the corridor.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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