By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
Ellis County officials are hoping a federal program that helped the city of Hays pay for planned reconstruction of Vine Street will help the county move forward with the Northwest Business Corridor project.
The county submitted its grant application Friday, ahead of the Monday deadline for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Grant.
The county has been working on making improvements to 230th Avenue and Feedlot Road to complete the bypass around Hays, dubbed the Northwest Business Corridor, for several years, and the BUILD Grant could go a long way toward paying for the approximately $10.78 million project.
“We’ve been working very hard for about two months now on that application,” County Administrator Phillip Smith-Hanes said. “Its 30 pages of documentation that you have to put together, answering specific questions.”
According to the DOT, the BUILD program was developed to make investments in infrastructure across the county, and there has been almost $2.4 billion awarded to 233 projects rural projects since 2009.
One of those projects was the city of Hays’ Vine Street Corridor Project just last year.
The city of Hays was awarded just more than $6 million. The grant application from Ellis County will total approximately $8.7 million.
Smith-Hanes said officials believe there is about $900 million available through the BUILD grant program nationally.
After setting aside $800,000 for the project in February, the county commission voted last week to set aside another $100,000 for the project. All $900,000 was transferred from the Special Road and Bridge Fund.
Public Works Director Bill Ring told the commission that the additional funds were needed to equal 20 percent of what was requested in the grant.
The proposed improvements would consist of a complete rebuild of 230th Avenue north of Hays. The road is currently rock and it would be upgraded to pavement. It would also address the width and steepness of the hills in the road.
Feedlot Road from 230th Avenue to U.S. 183 would also see improvements.
Smith-Hanes said there has been significant industrial development in that region and there are a lot of businesses in the area that could benefit from the improvements.
At last week’s county commission meeting, Commissioner Dustin Roths reiterated his support for the project.
“I can’t express enough how important I think it is to commerce and all of northwest Kansas,” he said.
Smith-Hanes also said the engineering firm, Driggs Design Group of Manhattan, has been a big part of putting together the grant.
The DOT will announce grant recipients in November or December.
Ring said if the county were to receive the grant funding, construction would start in the spring of 2020.