photo by: Bremen Keasey

Construction equipment in place near the South Lawrence Trafficway and West 27th Street intersection. The City of Lawrence is hoping to approve utility expansion projects that coincide with the SLT's expansion.

As the South Lawrence Trafficway begins an expansion from two lanes to four on the west side of Lawrence, utility projects might soon be underway that could help spur the city’s expansion to the west of K-10.

The city is considering giving a pair of construction contracts to Emery Sapp & Sons — the company currently working on the expansion of the roadway, as the Journal-World reported — to upgrade existing utility crossings and add in some new utility lines as part of the construction. The project would cost the city just under $14 million, which would be funded by money in the city’s capital improvement program.

Andy Ensz, an engineering program manager for the city’s Municipal Services and Operations division, said the utility crossings that would be improved or added would be city sewer lines and water lines. The project would add four utility crossings that would extend west of K-10 and improve or relocate two crossings that already exist.

Ensz said a big driver of these utility upgrades was direction from the City Commission. He said the project first was funded in the city’s capital improvement plan for 2024 with a hope that the expansions could facilitate development.

“We are either upsizing water lines or sewers to increase capacity for future development or putting in new crossings that will allow for development west of K-10,” Ensz said.

The expansion of the SLT and impacts to the surroundings are some of the reasons why utility crossings would need to be relocated, Ensz said. For example, the manhole for an existing portion of sewer south of Bob Billings Parkway is located right where the expanded lane would run once construction is complete.

Instead of starting a bidding process for the project, MSO requested a direct contract with Emery Sapp & Sons. In a letter from George Butler Associates Inc., an engineering firm the city worked with to estimate the costs, it said there were benefits to forgoing the bid process. Because the company is already there and already has control of the site, it expedites the construction work. Additionally, the cost for the project would be around $3 million cheaper than George Butler’s estimate.

Ensz added that the construction firm already knows which utility crossings would impact its other project, which means they can address those first, along with it being more cost-effective.

The construction bids were a part of the City Commission’s consent agenda for the meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday night, but that meeting was cancelled because of winter weather. If the project receives approval, Ensz said the city expects the work on the utilities to take about 18 months, with the crossings completed by the end of 2026.

Once that happens, the additions of the utility new lines — two north of Sixth Street, one south of Bob Billings Parkway and one just north of Clinton Parkway — will make it easier for developers to push west. Instead of having to construct utility crossings themselves to connect to the city’s water and sewer lines, they will be readily available one the project is finished.

“There are several spots there west of K-10 that will have utilities available for development,” Ensz said.