Franklin officials outline McEwen Drive Phase 4: $46M contract, three-year schedule and months-long side-street closures

Franklin city officials on Tuesday summarized plans for McEwen Drive Phase 4, saying the board awarded the construction contract in December and the city expects construction to begin tentatively in March and run about three years.

At a public town-hall, City Administrator Eric Stuckey told residents, "It's just over $46,000,000, 30,000,000 of which has come from federal grants," and said staff would continue seeking additional funding to stretch city dollars. Project Manager David Hodgett told the audience the work will require major utility relocations, retaining walls, and traffic shifts that will cause temporary inconvenience for nearby neighborhoods.

Why it matters: McEwen Drive Phase 4 is the largest roadway project Franklin officials said the city has undertaken. The reconstruction will add capacity and pedestrian facilities along a key east–west corridor linking McEwen Drive to Wilson Pike and is likely to affect traffic patterns, school-bus routing and neighborhood access during construction.

City presentation and funding Officials described a roughly $47 million project budget and said the low construction bid was $45,844,410.80 from Vulcan Construction Materials, which the city has selected to build the work. Stuckey said federal grants already account for about $30 million of the amount the city has secured; he said the city began with $10 million and increased grant funding over time. The city…