Sparta Looks to Complete Roosevelt Drive Repaving Project

Sparta city officials look to complete the second and final portion of a repaving project on Roosevelt Drive.

City Administrator Chris Dorsey says state grant funding from the Department of Transportation will be used to help fund the project.

“These are funds that can only be used on primary arterial roadways as defined by TDOT,” Dorsey says. “These can’t be used on residential streets or anything of that nature. It has to be used on these arterial roads. We were in the process of getting the contract signed with TDOT, which is what the approval was last night, in order to get the project underway.”

The roughly $350,000 project will include an 80 percent match from the state with the other 20 percent covered by the city.

Dorsey says the project is currently in the early stages and hopes to have the design phase completed soon.

“We hope to get [the project] done as early as this spring or summer,” Dorsey says. “But, we’re at the mercy of TDOT, which we hope will work with us to get this done as quickly as possible. Our timeline is to hopefully have it done by this next summer or early fall.”

Before the project starts, Dorsey says the city is working to fix underlying issues in the area before paving begins.

“We’ve already changed out our water valves on that section to make sure that wasn’t going to be an issue with some of our waterlines going to the houses there,” Dorsey says. “The worse thing is to pave a road then have to dig it up immediately to fix some issues.”

The city completed the first phase of the project late last year. The second phase will repave Roosevelt Drive between State Highway 111 and west of Allen Drive.