Brookfield has picked out the streets it will improve in the coming year.
Monroe Avenue from Kemman Avenue to Grand Boulevard, Cleveland and Harrison avenues from Monroe Avenue to Washington Avenue and Blanchan Avenue from Ogden Avenue to Rochester Avenue are on the village’s docket for regular repairs in 2025.
The work will include replacing deteriorated mainline sewer sections and curbs and gutters and replacing or repairing drainage structures. Making intersections and alley connections ADA compliant, patching pavement in failed areas and resurfacing the pavement also fall under the scope. The village will also widen Monroe Avenue by three feet to a total pavement width of 25 feet, according to village documents.
The repairs are expected to cost the village about $2.45 million, although Brookfield has been awarded $200,000 in federal funding through Cook County’s branch of the federal Community Development Block Grant program. The remaining $2.25 million price tag includes engineering and construction costs.
Brookfield trustees approved a contract with Hancock for design and construction engineering in the amount of $314,700 at the village board’s Oct. 28 meeting.
“We’ve typically tried to target about $3 million dollars [per year] for work as part of these projects,” said Dan O’Malley, a project manager at Hancock Engineering, Brookfield’s regular engineering firm, at the village board’s Oct. 14 committee of the whole meeting.
“We do have a large project planned for next year,” he added. “That’s the 3700 [block of] Grand [Boulevard] and Brookfield Avenue improvements. That’s about a $5 million project, $1 million of which is going to be funded by the village, so, with that in mind, we have a slightly reduced program that we’re recommending for next year.”
He said Hancock had budgeted an additional $150,000 on top of the project’s costs for “miscellaneous asphalt and concrete pavement patching throughout town,” which will allow Brookfield to maintain other streets as needed and extend their lifetime of use.
He told trustees the project would go out to bid by early March with construction ideally starting in April and ending sometime in July or August.
The stretches of the four roads up for repairs were chosen from streets Hancock identified in a 2021 pavement condition report and rated their quality three out of five, as Brookfield has already fixed up all streets that were rated one or two out of five, O’Malley said.
In response to a question from Trustee Kit Ketchmark, O’Malley said Brookfield still has about 17 miles of streets rated three out of five, but that the rating represents streets in fair condition.
“Every year, we review all the streets that were rated a three, pick out the ones that are now starting to age out and get to the point where, with our yearly paving or patching budget, we’re not really getting the same investment out of them.”
He said most streets in town are now rated at a three, and those rated a four or five are “in very good condition” and have no need for repairs, as they were likely already redone within the past decade.
Village President Michael Garvey said he appreciated Hancock’s efforts to bring street repairs to the board relatively early so Brookfield can get a head start on them.
“We’re on the aggressive schedule of getting out to bid in early spring and getting contractors who want to book up their summer, so we feel like we do get better rates at that time, and the projects start early [so] we don’t worry about them finishing before the end of the season,” he said. “[For] these types of projects, coming out now and asking for this is the way to go.”
