Evanston officials have now largely landed the funding and expect to begin work on an ambitions renovation of the Emerson-Ridge-Green Bay intersection and a section of Green Bay, starting in May.
At a City Council meeting earlier this month, aldermen approved awarding the $11.2 million project to the low bidder, A. Lamp Concrete Contractors, after receiving assurance from staff that a $2.5 million funding gap had been largely closed.
On the project, roughly $4 million will come through grants from the Illinois Department of Transportation, and some $4.5 million through a combination of city funds.
The city was facing a $2.5 million funding gap on the project, officials said. Officials announced at the April 11 City Council Administration and Public Works meeting that the city was successful in landing an additional $1.3 million in grant funding toward the project, largely closing the deficit.
If successful on another grant, valued at over $800,000, the city will have funding almost assured, officials said.
Martin Lyons, the city’s assistant city manager, told aldermen that the city was on a timeline on the project to make use of the state funds “so it’s not as if the city could choose” to ask the bidder to hold their bid for six months or buy time some other way because at this point “it’s either a go or no situation.”
One remaining concern is “we have no contingency funding,” Dave Stoneback, the city’s public works agency director told aldermen, “and there is a fair amount of ground work out there (and) it would not be unusual to encounter some unknown unforeseen construction.”
Ald. Delores Holmes, 5th, expressed hope that Stoneback’s concerns won’t be realized.
“I’m putting it on my prayer list that there will be no unforeseen problems,” she said.
Speaking to residents at an April 14th 2nd Ward meeting, Sat Nagar, senior project engineer for the city, called the project “one of the most complex projects done by the city in a long time.”
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At the three-way intersection, there are several issues “in terms of the traffic conflicts, traffic safety,” he said.
Markings are missing in the street and all the signals in the area are more than 40 years old and not timed, “so it’s very hard to get the traffic through,” Nagar said.
He said the project seeks to address an elevation difference from Green Bay coming south and Ridge going north “so we want to make it all one elevation, make it safer, he said.
The project also calls for replacement of traffic signals and putting them on a timing system, so “if someone is traveling certain speed like 30 miles an hour they should be able to just get through the intersection without stopping,” Nagar said.
Water mains, some over a century old, and sewer lines are targeted for replacement under the project, which Nagar described as “pretty much from the ground down, all the way up.”
He said the city’s construction schedule calls for work to start in May.
“We are hoping by November to be done with the whole thing,” Nagar said, drawing a stir from the audience.
“This is what we have planned,” he added.
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