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Officials propose rescoping $10M CH63 project, seek grant funding for roundabout
Summary
Hutchison representative and staff recommended rescoping the County Highway 63 project — three miles of concrete pavement previously scoped near $10 million — and pursuing a Highway Safety Improvement grant for a roundabout at a dangerous intersection to shrink county costs.
During discussion of the engineering agreement, Hutchison engineer Shane Larson said the county should revisit the scope of the County Highway 63 project because the earlier approach had expanded costs substantially. Larson said the portion in question is approximately three miles of old concrete pavement and that the prior scope, which added culvert and guardrail work, raised the estimate to roughly $10 million.
“I think we should revisit that, we were looking at a price tag of about $10M to me that seems like a lot of money to spend on County Highway 63,” Larson told the committee. He recommended gap-phasing the project to stop north of a key intersection and resume south of it, then pursue an HSFE Highway Safety Improvement grant to fund a roundabout at the intersection. Larson said preliminary work indicates that if the county peels the intersection out and pursues grant funding the roundabout could be 80 to 90 percent funded by IDOT, potentially saving the county $1 million to $1.5 million on that piece of work.
Committee members discussed crash history and the proximity of a nearby school; Larson noted there has been at least one fatality at the intersection. The committee asked staff to meet with IDOT to explore rescoping options; the project currently is on a letting scheduled for January 2027, giving staff time to pursue grant options if IDOT agrees to gap the intersection.
