Road work.
Preliminary construction will begin next month
Ground is broken for the four-year project that will redo a 10- mile stretch of I-70.
Officials representing federal, state and local government were on hand Friday morning for a groundbreaking ceremony that kicked off four years of construction along nearly 10 miles of Interstate 70 through northeast Denver.
Gov. John Hickenlooper, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and the Federal Highway Administration’s acting administrator, Brandye Hendrickson, were among those who grabbed shovels decorated to echo mural artwork from beneath a 1.8-mile viaduct that will be torn down about two years from now.
The symbolic ceremony happened in temporary sandbox along Yosemite Street, with I-70 traffic buzzing in the background.
Several speakers focused on the scope of the $1.2 billion Central 70 project, while some of a dozen or so protesters who were on hand moved behind the stage to hold up signs critical of the plan.
“As far as we can tell, in the history of the Department of Transportation, it’s the first time that we’ve provided a 4acre park,” Hickenlooper said, referencing a cover over the sunken highway section that will replace the viaduct. “All this stuff adds complexity. The complexity of this project is far beyond anything we’ve ever done before, and it is going to have to be a public-private partnership at every level.”
Preliminary construction work will get underway in the next month, and through 2022 the project will add a new tolled express lane in each direction between Interstate 25 and Chambers Road in Aurora. Most of the western and central sections will be reconstructed.
The project is the basis for a public-private partnership deal with Kiewit-Meridiam Partners that is expected to cost the Colorado Department of Transportation $2.2 billion over more than 30 years.