As Brookfield officials work on a plan to fund side street improvements in coming years, one of Brookfield main streets will face a major project in 2009 that could force the village’s Fourth of July parade to be rerouted.
Village trustees at their Committee of the Whole meeting on April 14 will discuss a $2.14 million improvement to Grand Boulevard from Grant Avenue to the Veterans’ Circle at Eight Corners during the summer of 2009.
Some 65 percent, or $1.4 million for the project, will come via the federal government as part of its Surface Transportation Program that helps fund improvements of collector routes. Brookfield would be on the hook for $721,500 of the total cost, which includes both paving and water/sewer improvements.
The village’s share will be funded either through motor fuel tax funds or by proceeds still remaining from a bond issue in 2006. While the village expected to have used up the entire bond reserve in 2008, bids for street work this year came in roughly $500,000 under budget.
If trustees agree that the project should be funded in 2009, they would likely vote to approve spending money to fund engineering drawings in late April.
The work would constitute a major improvement to both the street and storm sewer system on Grand Boulevard and on Lincoln Avenue from Grand to Prairie Avenue. According to Village Engineer Derek Treichel, Grand Boulevard will not need to be widened and no trees will be lost as a result of the work.
However, the street would be torn up on July 4, 2009 meaning that the village’s annual Fourth of July parade may need to be rerouted.
While the southern half of Grand Boulevard will see a major improvement next year, village officials don’t know when there might be similar funding available to resurface the northern portion of the street, from 31st Street to the circle.
That project alone (which also includes improvements to Monroe Avenue from Grand to Prairie Avenue) has an estimated price tag of $4.65 million. According to Treichel the federal share of that amount-$3.4 million-is more than one full-year’s allocation of federal funding that the federal government sets aside for the West Suburban Municipal Conference, which administers the program locally.
“I don’t feel we’ll be able to do the north side of Grand Boulevard in 2010 because of the cost,” said Village Manager Riccardo Ginex at a meeting last week of the village’s board’s Infrastructure Subcommittee.
Instead, the village may begin looking at other streets that qualify for collector route status for 2010 and 2011. Among the streets being considered are Prairie Avenue and Maple Avenue from the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad tracks to 47th Street.
Custer Avenue is also a candidate for improvement, although that would be a shared project with the Village of Lyons, since Custer Avenue forms the border between the two towns.