Grant matching will take big-money projects
Posted on Saturday, January 10, 2009
ROGERS - At least three engineers, if not more, will add their touches to what may end up being the most complicated portion of Rogers' trail system.
That portion will run south and west from Guido's Pizza on New Hope Road, crossing New Hope and Interstate 540. It will connect with the Promenade, Mercy Medical Center, Embassy Suites and the Church at Pinnacle Hills. It will require digging at least two tunnels, rather than crossing a bridge over the roadways.
The northernmost section alone will cost $38,000, and that is only for engineering work. Construction costs still haven't been determined.
City officials have said that section would not have been built anytime in the near future were it not for a grant from the Walton Family Foundation, which awarded the city $1.3 million over a two-year period, as long as the city matches the money.
And while the city may not have been able to build that section without the grant, it could be the project that allows the city to meet its matching requirements, as long as the foundation approves an extension to the grant timeline.
The challenge
The city had $500,000 budgeted for trails in 2008, but that changed in June. The foundation awarded Rogers the grant - $650,000 for each of two years - with the condition that Rogers matches that amount, and it couldn't include the money already in the budget.
Mayor Steve Womack accepted the grant, but his gratitude was tempered with concern about the time frame - his doubts would later be proved justified - as he estimated the city would have to fit two years' worth of work into 18 months.
The effort
The city took a shotgun strategy: Hit a lot of targets at once. There have been numerous contractors working on even more trail sections, and city staff have been contributing as well.
An unplanned system formed to handle the grant work. Rick Stocker's Parks and Recreation Department took the originally budgeted $500,000 to renovate existing trails in city parks, in most cases paving over the alreadylaid gravel. He said it was a relatively easy and inexpensive effort, especially compared to building new trails.
"All we have to do is pour concrete over that, and you've got a great trail," he said.
The concrete is making previously gravel trails handicap-accessible and low-maintenance.
Stocker has spent $213,257 so far.
Planning and Transportation, meanwhile, took the $650,000 match of the Walton grant to build new trails. The department has already completed 5,400 feet of trails, with another 3,650 under construction, for a total of $385,268, according to engineering tech Jennifer Bonner.
The completed projects included stretches from Walnut Street to Creekwood Road, Creekwood to Olive Street, and Creekwood to North 24th St. Portions of a trail spanning North 24th and Dixieland Road and another following Blossom Way Creek are also done.
To speed up the process, the city has been purchasing all materials before accepting bids on the projects.
"Before we put a contract out, we have to know exactly how much of X, Y, Z you're going to need," Bonner said. "Once the contract is signed, they can literally start that day."
The benefits
There are about 50 miles of trails drawn into the city's master trail plan, but at a cost of $3 to $10 per square foot, completion of the trails was a slow process. Rogers needed its money elsewhere, and trails couldn't compete for funding with other infrastructure needs.
"The plans have been out there for four years to do this, but the money has not been available," Bonner said.
The grant makes that money available. Womack leapt at the chance for what amounted to a buy-one-get-one sale. In harsh economic times, he said, a municipality must take advantage of opportunities to make its money go further.
So now the city has the chance to complete some of its most expensive trail projects. The Pinnacle Hills area trails, Stocker said, cost more because engineers must deal with high-traffic roads, floodplains, waterways and other issues.
The struggle
Those same trails are, at the same time, helping the city reach its portion of the matching grant. Stocker said he's worried about running out of trails to resurface. If he cannot spend the city's $500,000 original trail budget, new trail creation will have to make up the difference. These highdollar sections should help the city reach its goal when other spending falls short.
Bonner, meanwhile, is hoping some trail improvements could also help raise the total costs. She plans to buy warning devices for the trail ramps that empty onto roadways, specifically those at 24th and Locust, 13th and Olive, and at Olive near Oakdale Middle School. The truncated domes, she said, will inform blind pedestrians that the trail is ending while helping those in wheelchairs stop before rolling into traffic. The domes will cost $4,700 each without labor included.
"It is trail money because you're improving trail intersections with streets; plus it's a safety issue," Bonner said.
The deadline
Dec. 31 passed, however, and the city had only spent $598,525 of the $1.15 million needed to match the grant requirements. Womack, however, is not worried. He is looking at the trails project as a two-year project, and as such, the city has spent about a quarter of the money needed for the grant within six months and is on target to reach its goal, as long as the Walton Family Foundation is willing to grant a six-month extension. Womack has not yet applied for an extension; he is waiting for all the numbers to be finished.
"If we need to ask for an extension, we will," Womack said. "The foundation has been very good in the past to extend the deadline under those circumstances."
Womack also said an extension would fit with the intentions of the foundation by making the project a full two-year process.
An attempt to seek comment from the Walton Family Foundation on the city's anticipated extension request was denied, as the organization does not discuss grants that it awards.
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