Construction on nearly a mile of sidewalk improvements on Park Road in the city of Chandler is about one-third complete, City Manager James Melson estimated this week.
Melson has explained the project runs from Park Road Elementary School extending east. “It will be on the south side of both bridges to match the bridge walk ways,” he said.
The city manager noted, “It will start slowing down due to areas they are working in. We figure they’re about a third done at least, maybe 35- 40 percent. It’s gone fairly quickly,” he thinks, “considering the weather down there.”
Melson said, “We think this week they are going from Park Road and Rozell Lane to Timmons Park where they cross from the north side of Park Road to the south side connecting to the existing trail at the baseball field.”
He emphasized, “From that point, there is quite an elevation distance to the handicap accessible area. Most of that is due to the two existing bridges, the elevation distance between the two bridges and before you get to the first bridge from Rozell Lane.”
Melson and his project manager, David Nickell, who is also the city’s Public Works director, said crews were pouring on Monday afternoon from Rozell and Park Road at the baseball parking lots about 150 feet connecting it to the existing soccer field.
“With weather permitting, they should be completed by July 7 which is the end of the 120 days. But they have to bring a lot of dirt in,” Melson stressed.
He stated, “The project comes along the south side of the outer fence in the right of way but there is nothing inside the baseball field. Except for a couple of places, they are pretty finished between the softball and baseball fields.”
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation awarded the bid during its Nov. 1 meeting for $477,932.90 to H&G Paving Contractors, Inc., of Muskogee. Length of the project is 0.723 mile.
“They bid it in October,” Melson earlier noted, adding “We had 16 bidders on it.”
The city manager also previously pointed out, “We had to pay $15,000 for the engineering. That came out of private money. That’s done.”
Melson said shortly after ODOT awarded the bids, “We got started on this nearly three years ago. I built that bridge a couple of years ago,” Melson said.
Melson noted that on building the new bridge, the Sac and Fox Nation paid the $140,000 it cost to build it and the city paid $36,000 for the engineering.
Melson stated the District 2 commissioner back then had access to bridge beams which he donated for the bridge. “The beams came from the Crosstown Expressway in Oklahoma City when all that was redone,” the city manager further explained.
He pointed out a small group in the Chandler community began planning the sidewalk project sometime back.
Among them were Diann Herrmann and the late Dusty Martin.
Herrmann said last fall the original planning committee was comprised of herself, Martin, Matt Radcliffe, Sherri Ripley, Tim Blackwell, Elaine Imel, Mike Christy, Mar shall Alsip, Ginny Fowble, Rep. Kevin Wallace, David Nickell and David Smith.
“We planned the project,” she stated, adding, “We held the town meetings and we wrote the proposal to ODOT.”
Of that group, she, Christy and Alsip were responsible for the fund raising, Herrmann noted.
The planning group sought a Safe Routes to Schools grant through ODOT called a TAP grant. “It’s a federal grant through ODOT,” Herrmann explained.
“We did the application for the ODOT grant on Nov. 30, 2018, which was almost three years ago,” she emphasized, confirming what Melson had pointed out.
The total estimated cost of the sidewalk project, including design and construction, was $704,316, Herrmann said.
“The grant we received was for $550,028,” she stated.
She said the remaining $154,288 of the cost was the responsibility of the Chandler community. “We received a $120,497.52 Avedis grant and used $19,000 from our local fund raising to make up the difference,” she stated.
Melson also earlier explained, “This was supposed to happen 1½ years ago. But Dusty got sick, the COVID hit and the ball was kind of dropped. Then in November of 2020, ODOT told them it had to get done by the end of 2021.”
Melson emphasized with the new bridge project the city did with the Sac and Fox Nation paying the construction and the sidewalk improvements it all totals around $870,000, adding, “that’s close to a million dollars.”