Work on the northern section of South Royle Road is set to kick off this fall, as the Ridgefield City Council approved a nearly $5 million contract to modernize the street to accommodate growth.
During its Aug. 24 meeting, the City Council voted unanimously to approve the construction contract for Royle Road between South 15th Street to South Fifth Way.
Bids ranged from about $4.9 million to roughly $6.1 million. The engineer’s estimate the city received was for about $5.2 million. Yacolt-based Western United Civil Group had the lowest bid, which was accepted.
The project will see the roadway expanded to two traffic lanes, a center turn lane or median, bike lanes, sidewalks, street lights and utility infrastructure, according to a staff report provided to the council. It will fit alongside prior work done as a partnership between the city and developers along Royle Road up to Pioneer Street that began in 2020.
The project is the second of three phases to rebuild the entirety of South Royle Road. The first phase, which focused around the central portion of the road, concluded this spring. It featured a roundabout at the road’s intersection with South 15th Street and South Wells Drive as well as the addition of a center median with turn lanes, bike lanes, sidewalks and the installation of a street light.
That phase had some coordination issues, which led to delays and headaches for those using Royle Road as the thoroughfare around town. Among the issues was the relocation of utility lines into a single trench along the project area, which required working with numerous different companies and led to a protracted process.
Ridgefield Public Works Director Chuck Green said, for the second phase of the project, the city will be looking differently at how it approaches the work. He said the city will be using a “critical path” schedule to allow for flexibility in the process. The contract also requires weekly meetings to keep the project on schedule.
A chief issue to avoid are prolonged road closures like those experienced in the first stage of the overall project. Green said construction will involve one side of the road at a time and ideally no full-on road closures.
“That does not mean that there’s not going to be any closures at all,” Green said.
The project isn’t planned to have the weeks or months-long closures that the Royle Road project previously experienced, Green said.
Green anticipates work for the current phase will start in October and wrap up in late fall of 2024.
This phase of the work is funded in part by close to $3 million in state Transportation Improvement Board grant money, according to the staff report. The city is matching those funds with traffic impact fees, which Ridgefield collects on new development in city limits.
Councilor Judy Chipman praised Green and his team for the way they designed the contract for the next phase of the ongoing work. She said she was critical of how the Royle Road contracts have been drafted in the past, but the one in front of the council on Thursday gave her more peace of mind.
“You just crossed every ‘T’ and dotted every ‘I’ with what we need to have, to know that this is going to be a very well-led project,” Chipman said.
