The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) is hosting two public open houses for the Sterling Safety Corridor Improvements Milepost 82.5 to 94 Progressive Design Build project.
The meetings will be held on Tuesday, June 25, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Sterling Community Center or on Wednesday, June 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Soldotna Public Library.
According to DOT Design Project Manager Julia Hanson, project development has slowed over the last few years. These open house meetings will reconnect the public with the design team and the DOT and allow locals to ask questions and voice concerns about the design.
“For these first couple of open houses, we’re trying to reintroduce the project,” said Hanson. “There’s been a significant time lag between when we last communicated with [people about] the project and now that we’re kicking it off again. We’ve heard a lot of concerns from the public. A lot of people aren’t happy with the preliminary proposed design, and there are a lot of decisions we still need to make. So, we want to reengage with people and just let them know we’re listening.”
The project, which runs from Whistle Hill in Soldotna and all the way to Sterling, has a projected start date of 2026 in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), but Hason says it could begin as early as 2025 in some sections where the design is more straightforward.
An environmental assessment was conducted between 2015 and 2021 to understand the impacts of each project design alternative and, based on that, select one. Hanson says the “project started to lag a little bit” after the environmental document was completed in 2021, and a decision was made to breathe some life back into the project. “…in 2022 is when they said we need to make some progress on this. We need to actually start building something.”
At that time, the DOT began advertising the project as a design-build contract. Under a design-build contract, contractors hire their own design consultants and present completed designs with a bid price for the full design and project build-out.
However, the design-build approach was scrapped due to concerns with the proposed designs, and the DOT changed the procurement method to a “progressive design-build.” Under this new approach, QAP and DOWL were selected to design and build the new safety corridor.
Hanson says this method will allow the project to begin in parts while other design aspects are fleshed out. “The big difference between this delivery method and our normal delivery method is that if we identify pieces of the work that we think are ready to start building, we can issue a design-build contract based on just a small piece of the work.”
You can attend one of the open house meetings to learn about the safety corridor, view the potential improvements, ask questions, and share comments directly with the project team.
Visit the project website at SterlingSafetyImprovements.com for more information.
Connect with the project team by emailing SterlingSafetyImprovements@dowl.com or visiting the project website, SterlingSafetyImprovements.com, to join the email list, receive updates, make a comment, and learn more about the project.