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SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Residents of Speedway will soon see repairs to some of their roads, sidewalks, and storm drains.

On Monday, the Speedway Town Council unanimously approved and awarded the Community Crossings Matching Grant bid to an area contractor, DC Construction Services, Inc.

The grant allows funding for the town’s 2022 Asphalt Project – which provides yearly street maintenance and improvements to sidewalks, storm drains, and ADA accessible ramps.

“It’s something we take seriously. We want to make sure our roads are in good shape,” said Speedway Town Manager, Grant Kleinhenz. “We want to make sure our residents can safely bike, walk, and drive to and from their job, shopping, recreation, school.”

Kleinhenz said the project opened to bids at the end of last month and a total of two bids were received. He said the council accepted the best and lowest bid from area contractors, but the cost still came in roughly 30% higher than expected.

“The successful and lowest bid was about $50,000 higher than we had budgeted for the project. We thought it would be about $835,000. The final bid came in at about $884,000,” said Kleinhenz. “And that’s really due to what’s going on now with supply and demand and the availability of goods and services.”

Kleinhenz said its an impact from inflation that many other communities are experiencing.

“We just reassessed our budgeted dollars and tried to find the additional funds because if we went out to bid again who knows what the price might have been,” said Kleinhenz. “I think absolutely it could have been higher. I think that’s why when we saw the number that was the first question we asked: Could this be worse? If we wait, could it get even higher? And I don’t think we wanted to take that risk.”

Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2023 and address the following areas:

  • N. Whitcomb Avenue from Beauport Road to Hollister Drive
  • Patton Drive from W. 29th Place to Beauport Road
  • Hickorywood Drive from Macarthur Lane to N. Whitcomb Avenue
  • Macarthur Lane from Beauport Road to Hickorywood Drive
  • Hickorywood Court from Hickorywood Drive to the dead end

Kleinhenz said these streets were chosen following a road condition report that is reviewed annually. He said additional roads also needing maintenance will be identified next year and bid out accordingly.

“You know, these funds, they just don’t do as much as they used to. Costs have gone up,” said Kleinhenz. “So really the dollars that we got, say five years ago, would have done more work. This year, we didn’t get quite as much work [done] as we normally would.”

Construction is expected to last two to four months, pending no weather delays or supply chain availability issues.