Contract paving work set to start this month

The paving season is already well underway in Polk County, and more work is expected to start in the coming weeks and won't take long, according to Public Works Director Michael Gravett.

He said that C.W. Matthews, the contractors who won the paving contract from the county for more than $1 million in additional work paid for via 2008 Special Purpose, Local Option Sales Tax funds, will be starting this month on four different roads to be completed by the firm.

Four roads are the target of the paving work to be finished by the company that won the contract to fix the I-85 collapse in Atlanta earlier in the year.

Those included Old Atlanta Highway, the Polk County portion of Vinson Mountain Road, and Campbell and Hutto roads, Gravett said.

A total of 10 miles will be paved additionally above what the Public Works department is already working to complete. Denton said that an additional amount of money was given locally for Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant funds for paving material costs this year, totaling up to $693,000. He said the county received less than $650,000 total in 2016.

Gravett said the work was only expected to take a couple of weeks to complete based on estimates provided by C.W. Matthews.

It's not the only work to be completed by contractors in the coming months on local roads either.

County Manager Matt Denton said the Public Works department got additional LMIG money totaling up to $45,000, or 70 percent of the cost of safety repairs and striping on local roads.

Gravett said the scope of the work includes guard rail repairs and striping on several local roads. That list will be made available when the work goes out for a bid.

He said bids will go and hopefully be accepted before the end of the calendar year.