The Enterprise spoke with Mayor Joan Hawkins, who provided some further information on the status and future timeline of the long-running Bannock Street project.  The recently announced delay is primarily the result of a need to coordinate the various grants involved.  Like many projects across the country right now, the mechanisms for funding are being sorted out.  

According to Mayor Hawkins, “We have five different grants for Bannock Street. We need to coordinate four of those grants  for the current project so we can have just one contractor.  The first two blocks, 100 West to 300 West are covered by a federal grant administered by LHTAC. The second two blocks, 300 West to beyond 500 West are from a state grant. The stormwater portion is a federal grant through FEMA. We have an Idaho TAP grant that will be doing the sidewalks that are not covered under the federal grant. We also have an Idaho LRHIP grant that will resurface the street from the library to Four Points and possibly a sidewalk on the west side that we are trying to coordinate with the Bannock Street project. In addition, the city wants to replace some water pipe within the lower two blocks.”

Obviously, that number of funding sources creates a puzzle where any one delay adds up.  “The funding on both federal grants has been slow coming in,” Hawkins continued.  “ITD will not let us put a project out to bid until we have all of the money. Because of the time it takes once a project goes out to bid until the project can be started, it would have put us not starting the project until August, which doesn’t give us enough time to complete it this year. We were also concerned because many contractors have already bid on other projects. The project will now go out to bid this fall and construction will start next spring. This way, we can have the project completed in one season, with one contractor. Even though we hated to put this off another year, we felt we would get a better product by waiting another year. We started work on this project in 2017 so we are anxious to get it done!”

So what will happen first? According to Hawkins, “The FEMA portion of the project is what we will do this year. This is building a new stormwater drainage on property the city owns west of the current walking path. It will consist of digging out the field and creating a berm. The stormwater will fill the entire field. It will be ready to hook up to the drainage when the Bannock Street project is completed.

The City received a grant from the U.S. Forest Service, another federal grant. We had to stop work on that grant for several months because we were not sure if we would receive the money. We were recently informed that we can work on 90-day increments on that grant. With those funds, we were planning to convert the new stormwater drainage area into soccer fields. Grant funds would be used for a sprinkling system, a walking path around the berm of the drainage field, and approximately 400 more trees for that area. We are hoping we can get most of that work completed this year.

There is another federal grant that will finish the rest of Bannock Street, which will be completed in a future year. We were awarded the grant, but if it is like the current grant we have, it has taken eight years to get it to construction.”

While there are still a number of issues to be resolved, the project will begin its initial stages this year, and continue apace into the foreseeable future.  As any changes occur in the process, we will update you.