Lowellville finishes Safe Routes to Schools construction project

October 9, 2014 at 12:00a.m.

LOWELLVILLE

Construction crews will wrap up Lowellville’s Safe Routes to Schools project by the end of this week.

Lowellville Mayor Jim Iudiciani said the village received a $339,000 grant for the project in 2011 from the Ohio Department of Transportation.

The project added sidewalks and curbs to Walnut Street and next to the school’s baseball field. It also removed old sidewalks along West Wood Street.

Iudiciani said change orders on the project amounted to approximately $110,000. He said the state will cover $35,000 of those changes, but the village might need to cover the other $75,000.

“We are going back to the state, who will then go to the federal government to ask them to help with the change orders for all the unforeseen construction obstacles we had with the project,” Iudiciani said.

Some of the obstacles took place with creating the sidewalks on Walnut. Iudiciani said if the village cannot receive that funding from the state or federal governments, he said the village could borrow money to pay the debt. He said the village also put smaller projects on hold to be safe.

Brent Kovacs, public information officer for District 4 with ODOT, said he thinks $75,000 in change orders is typical of any construction project.

Kovacs said the statewide Safe Routes to Schools program, introduced in 2005, “encourages kids to bike and walk to school.”

He added that ODOT works on two Safe Route to School projects per year on average.