Mount Prospect sets summer construction list
With the start of the construction season a few weeks away, the Mount Prospect Village board approved a list of projects totaling more than $5 million on Tuesday.
Most of the money needed for those projects will come from state and federal grants, said Trustee John Korn at Tuesday’s village board meeting.
“It’s important people know that most of the money comes from outside the taxpayer base,” he said.
The most expensive project will cost $2.3 million as the village repairs curbs and resurfaces 4.7 miles of roads throughout the village. Another $1 million will be spent on the combined sewer repair program.
The $1 million Briarwood sanitary sewer replacement project will replace 1,660 feet of sewers and fix another 720 feet of line. Right now the mains are failing and causing basement backups. The problem dates back to 2009 and is caused by restaurants and residents dumping grease into village sewers, according to village officials.
Mount Prospect will also spend about $160,000 on design work for two much-anticipated road projects that will take place in 2012. Those are the reconstruction of Kensington Road from Rand Road to Prospect High School and pedestrian signal improvements at the intersection of Northwest Highway, Mount Prospect Road and Prospect Avenue.
Kron said he uses the walk signals around Mount Prospect, but isn’t sure they’re always working.
“Sometimes I have the feeling they’re placebos,” Korn said. “I don’t think they’re connected to anything. They’re just something to press while I’m standing there.”
This summer, work will also continue on the $23 million Levee 37 project, which began in April 2009. The Army Corps of Engineers will construct a levee wall and pump stations along the west side of River Road and Milwaukee Avenue to protect subdivisions west of the Des Plaines River.
The project should be completed in 2011, according to village documents.
“This project has been going on so long it started out as Levee 1,” Mount Prospect Engineer Jeff Wulbecker joked on Tuesday.