El Paso County applies for $10 million federal funding to to boost support for current road projects

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- County Engineer Joshua Palmer received permission from the Board of Commissioners Tuesday to apply for federal grants; the grant funding will help reallocate some current funds from one project to help smaller projects that are either unfunded or underfunded.

The other projects are on Bradley and Galley roads.

Construction began this week, and Palmer said that the additional funding is needed because of increases of up to 30% in materials and labor.

"We plan ten to twelve years in advance, typically," he explained. "We'll use anywhere from 5% to 10% as kind of a baseline to account for potential inflation. In the last two years, we've seen increases of up to 15% and 20% for some materials and labor."

Palmer said that the current budget South Academy for those projects is between $62 million and $71 million; the former is the construction cost while the latter cost includes design.

The project, scheduled for completion by late next year or early 2025, will make a number of improvements on South Academy between Bradley Road and Interstate 25.

“Widening the road," Palmer said. "We’re doing some bridge scour repairs. The bridge over Fountain Creek is in need of some rehabilitation. We’re improving the drainage overall. Lighting, signing. So, some pretty significant improvements that are necessary at that interchange.”

He added that the county has been forced to scale down the South Academy project.

"We paused ourselves in the design process," he said. "Went back and did some re-scoping, some value engineering to try to find some cost savings. And it worked — (but) not as much as we would have hoped.”

Palmer said that he should know in another month or so, if the project can get federal funds.

"I'm hoping that the traffic load on South Academy, its proximity to I-25 and Fort Carson will rank the project high on the priority list," he said.