Sparta’s Roosevelt Drive Paving Begins

The second phase of paving Sparta’s Roosevelt Drive started Monday, two years after originally anticipated.

This portion of road connects White County High School to Highway 111. City Administrator Brad Hennessee said a combination of high traffic and low funds contributed to the delay.

“The second phase has been on going,” Hennessee said. “I have been here a little over a year. It was on that desk when I got here, and we essentially revived that grant project, and we are tickled to death to see it come to fruition.”

Hennessee said the paving portion of the project should be completed before Thanksgiving. Restriping will begin the following week.

“The notice to proceed has been issued to Roger’s Group to pave,” Hennessee said. “We developed the construction schedule for that. We anticipate the construction of actual paving to be done the first two days of (this) week. Then, they will take their Thanksgiving break. When they come back, it will be stripped.”

The $350,000 project is mostly funded by a T-DOT grant awarded to the city in 2018.

“Sparta has not done a lot of paving in the last few years, and Roosevelt is a very high traffic volume street,” Hennessee said. “So, we have not been able to do a lot of maintenance on it, because we could not keep traffic off of it.”