The start of the massive Woodmen Road widening project will be delayed from spring to fall so Colorado Springs can tap into $32 million in federal economic stimulus money to cover three-quarters of the cost of the first phase of the project.

The federal windfall means the $32 million the city had saved from proceeds of the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority sales tax for the Woodmen work can be used to accelerate city and county transportation projects that officials originally thought they couldn’t fund for several years, said Robin Kidder, the city’s roadway engineering manager.

The city had expected to spend $43 million from the PPRTA tax proceeds to widen Woodmen to six lanes from Interstate 25 east to Bell Drive, just past Academy Boulevard, and build a state-of-the-art interchange at the intersection of Woodmen and Academy.

The city began advertising for bids on the project in February, with work expected to begin this spring. Those plans went out the window in mid-March, when the city learned it would receive $32 million of the $400 million in federal stimulus money earmarked for “shovel ready” road and bridge projects in Colorado.

The influx of cash from Washington, though, means the city must rebid the project using strict federal guidelines, two of which require higher pay for workers and that a portion of the work be given to disadvantaged and minority-owned firms.

City officials, if they get approval by the Federal Highway Administration, expect to readvertise for bids in late April and choose a general contractor by late summer. There are no contractors in Colorado Spring large enough to tackle the project, so officials expect the bid to go to one of seven or eight national or international construction firms with offices in Denver. However, the contractor chosen is expected to hire many local subcontractors and workers.

Delaying a project already a decade in the planning – and one expected to last two to nearly three years – is well worth it, Kidder said.

“This 32 million dollars is like money from the sky,” he said.

Kidder said city and county officials have been concerned that declining revenue collected by the 1-cent RTA tax could jeopardize completing the 45 priority projects that voters indicated in 2004 they wanted done before the capital-improvement portion of the tax sunsets in 2014. Now all those projects will be completed, many on an accelerated time schedule, Kidder said. He said the projects are smaller in scale, so many local firms will be qualified to do the work.

Kidder said the county is considering what projects it wants to do, and he added that the city is looking at speeding up work to replace bridges at Vincent Drive, Hancock Expressway and Austin Bluffs Parkway.

Kidder is hopeful a portion of the $32 million in freed-up RTA money can also be used to design the second phase of the Woodmen project. That part of the project would widen the busy road to three lanes from Bell to Powers Boulevard. That $30 million project would begin after the first phase of Woodmen widening is completed.

EXPANSION

The Woodmen Road expansion is divided into three phases:Phase I: Widen Woodmen to three lanes in each direction east from Campus Drive near Interstate 25 to Bell Drive, the first street east of Sam’s Club at Academy Boulevard and Woodmen.

The most challenging part of this phase will be construction of an interchange at Woodmen and Academy. The interchange will carry Woodmen traffic over Academy, with a stoplight on top of the interchange to allow Woodmen traffic to exit onto Academy.

Academy will need to be lowered 10 feet and Woodmen raised 15 feet to accommodate the interchange.

Construction of the $43 million project is expected to last two years to two years and nine months.

Phase II: Widen Woodmen to six lanes from Bell to Powers Boulevard. Construction will begin immediately after Phase I is competed and will tentatively last until 2013. The cost is expected to be about $30 million.

Phase III: Construct an interchange at Woodmen and Union Boulevard. No money has been funded for this phase, and there is no construction schedule.

NEGOTIATIONS

A thorny issue that has complicated the first phase of the Woodmen project is acquiring the 66 business and residential properties and rights of way needed to widen the road and build the interchange. Kidder said all but 10 to 12 properties have been acquired, and the rest will be bought either through negotiations or eminent domain before the project begins in earnest in the fall.

Kidder said negotiations to acquire the most problematic piece of property, a 2-acre parcel of the 15-acre Woodmen Valley Shopping Center, have been halted. He said a judge will decide how much the city must pay the owner through eminent domain.

Some motorists may have noticed preliminary work being done in the area. Kidder said Qwest has been moving its fiber-optic cable, and Colorado Springs Utilities has been moving gas lines. The gas tanks at the Shell gas station at the northwest corner of Academy and Woodmen have been removed, the dirt surrounding them cleaned up, and the building will soon be razed.

For more details on the Woodmen widening project, including photos and videos, visit: www.woodmenroad.com.

Photo by Shutterstock