1st job awarded in new roads venture

The Arkansas Highway Commission on Wednesday awarded the first contract under the $1.8 billion construction program that voters approved 15 months ago.

The contract to build a 6.4-mile segment of the Bella Vista bypass from Interstate 540 west went to Kolb Grading LLC. The Weldon Spring, Mo., company’s $52.7million bid was lower than three competing contractors whose bids ranged from $56.9 million to $78.2 million.

The Bella Vista bypass initially is being constructed as a two-lane road and as a way to reduce congestion on U.S. 71. When fully realized, the bypass will reach into Missouri as a four-lane, limited-access highway as part of a federally designated high-priority corridor known as Interstate 49. When that corridor is completed, it will create an uninterrupted 1,700-mile interstate in the nation’s midsection from New Orleans to Canada.

“It means a lot to the whole state because that’s going to end up being a part of I-49,” said commission member Dick Trammel of Rogers.

The latest Bella Vista bypass project is the first of three that are scheduled to be awarded contracts this year under what the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department has dubbed its Connecting Arkansas Program. The road construction program is being financed, in part, by a temporary statewide half-percent sales tax that is supposed to be in place for 10 years under a state constitutional amendment that voters approved in November 2012.

It is one of the largest construction programs the department has ever undertaken, said Highway Department director Scott Bennett.

“Voters of the state spoke up with passage of the program,” he said. “Now it’s time for us to get the construction going.”

But even as commission members and department officials marked the beginning of the program, it came with a note of caution at Wednesday’s commission meeting in Little Rock because actual proceeds from the temporary sales tax continue to lag behind what the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration projected the department would receive as its share.

In January, the department’s share amounted to $13,275,291.84. That figure was $584,708.16, or 4.4 percent, less than the department was projected to receive.

Larry Dickerson, the department’s chief fiscal officer, said the share in February is shaping up to be much less. He said that with two days left in the month, the figures he has reviewed show a $1.5 million gap between projections and actual collections.

“That’s not to say we’re going to make that up in the last two days, but it will be different than what the other eight months looked like [going into] the last two days,” he said.

“That’s pretty significant,” said commission member Tom Schueck of Little Rock.

Bennett said he hopes the missed revenue projections can be made up with lower bids than anticipated on the projects.

“It is a concern that the trend here is flat or down, and today we’re going to let our first job to contract,” he said before the Bella Vista bypass contract was awarded. “We’ll see what the trend is going to be like on the estimates and the actual award amounts. And later this year we’ll be able to report to you a little bit more on that spread.”

Under the constitutional amendment, the Highway Department receives 70 percent of the proceeds from the temporary sales tax, or about $160 million annually for the 10-year life of the tax. Cities and counties will split the remaining 30 percent, or about $35 million annually. Initially, that 70/30 split amounted to $160 million annually for state road construction and $35 million for city and county projects, and they have yet to be adjusted in the face of lagging collections.

The amendment also created a permanent state-aid street fund, similar to the existing state-aid county fund, that cities can tap for street projects. One penny of the existing per-gallon motor fuels tax, worth about $20 million a year, will go to that fund.

The Highway Department’s share of the money is going to projects the agency has identified as regionally significant.

They include devoting $300 million to improvements on a stretch of Interstate 30 between Interstate 40 on the north and Interstates 440 and 530 on the south. The improvements involve widening that section of I-30 to 10 lanes and either replacing or widening the I-30 bridge over the Arkansas River between Little Rock and North Little Rock.

The improvements also include widening I-30 from Sevier Street in Benton to U.S. 70 in Saline County, and widening the rest of U.S. 70 between I-30 and Hot Springs, much of it in Garland County.

The Highway Department also would have money for widening U.S. 67/167 from Jacksonville to Cabot in Pulaski and Lonoke counties, and for completing the widening of Interstate 40 between Conway and Little Rock in Faulkner and Pulaski counties.

Another project in the district is widening part of U.S. 270 west of Hot Springs, also in Garland County. Interstate 630 from Baptist Health Medical Center to South University Avenue also would be widened.

Other parts of the state also will benefit. Under the program, the widening of U.S. 167 between I-530 and the Louisiana line would be completed. Sections of U.S. 82, which traverses the southern part of the state east to west, also would be widened. U.S. 412 would be widened between Paragould and Walnut Ridge/Hoxie. Parts of Interstate 540 south from Bentonville also would be widened.

The program is taking longer to get started than the $1 billion interstate repair program, a separate initiative that voters approved in November 2011. It allowed the commission to reissue up to $575 million in bonds to help finance the upgrade of existing interstates.

Unlike that program, state highway officials say, the Connecting Arkansas Program requires more engineering and design work, environmental studies and rights-of-way acquisition. Originally, a total of $1.48 billion is dedicated for construction while another $3.2 million is expected to be used for nonconstruction items, officials said. The department has not yet adjusted those projections.