P&N widens two miles of street and dramatically improves stormwater system using nearly $4 million in grants.

The City of Kentwood planned to widen and reconstruct Kalamazoo Avenue, a main north-south thoroughfare. They received funding from three sources: $3.25 million from MDOT’s Surface Transportation Program (STP), $300,000 in Jobs Today funding, and a $400,000 MDOT Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality (CMAQ) Grant.

Prein&Newhof provided professional design, survey, and construction engineering services for the project, which included:

• Two miles of pavement; four miles of reconstructed sidewalk; eight miles of curb and gutter. This project required a total road reconstruction, including sub-base, base, and road surface.
• 1.5 miles of 12-inch water main; 1 mile of 16-inch watermain.
• Five extended or reconstructed culverts; a complete storm sewer collection system.
• Sanitary sewer rehabilitation; 5,000 feet of sanitary sewer reconstruction.
• A complete irrigation system.
• Four traffic signals.
• A redesign of the 52nd Street intersection.
• Decorative concrete medians.
• Permanent radar speed detection signs. 

P&N was also responsible for easement and right-of-way acquisition assistance, construction phasing, subsurface soil investigation, coordination with private utilities, and the design of pavement markings and signage.

Kalamazoo Avenue was open to traffic in both directions throughout the project.

The short time-frame required to facilitate the Jobs Today grant funding for Phase One presented an additional challenge. Prein&Newhof was hired in November 2006, giving the team two months to complete a significant amount of the survey and design work necessary to identify the required property acquisitions.