One of Springfield’s key industrial roads will get a $3.1 million upgrade.
The city of Springfield announced Aug. 25 it received a $1.5 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration. The grant, funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act, is for highway and transportation projects in communities where a decline in coal use impacts industry.
The grant will allow for the widening of LeCompte Road, a north/south artery on the east side of U.S. Highway 65 that serves several industrial sites, including the massive warehousing facility Springfield Underground.
A short stretch of LeCompte Road will be widened to three lanes from the Springfield Underground’s entrance near Kearney Street to the BNSF railroad crossing. From the railroad crossing south to the intersection of LeCompte and Division Street, LeCompte Road will be widened and overlaid with asphalt.
“LeCompte Road serves as one of the main thoroughfares for the industrial, manufacturing and warehousing land uses east of U.S. 65,” Springfield Mayor Ken McClure said. “The roadway is not currently designed to accommodate the volume of truck traffic that exists on it today, nor expected to accommodate in the future.”
The project plan also calls for the intersection of East Division Street/State Route YY and LeCompte Road to be widened with turn lane additions. LeCompte will be realigned to line up with the intersection of Division and Eastgate Avenue. There is about 3/10 of a mile of Division Street between Eastgate Avenue and LeCompte Road in the present configuration.
“One item holding the area back from being developed is the lack of appropriate infrastructure to support it,” McClure said. “In order to stimulate economic development in the area, improvements to LeCompte Road are necessary.”
Springfield and the Ozarks Transportation Organization will need to match the federal funding with $1.6 million in local funds to do the project. The road improvement is expected to generate $28 million in private investment in the industrial area in northeast Springfield and create 94 jobs. The local funding will come from the city of Springfield’s 1/8-cent transportation sales tax cost-share program and the Erlen Group, formerly known in business as Springfield Underground.
“The Economic Development Administration is dedicated to working with communities to support their locally-driven strategies to recover and rebuild from the pandemic,” said Alejandra Y. Castillo, assistant secretary of commerce for Economic Development. “This EDA investment will support critical improvements to local transportation infrastructure, making the economy more resilient and better equipped to overcome future economic disruptions.”
Olsson, a nationally recognized, employee-owned engineering and design firm, has been selected to design the project. The LeCompte Road work will be done within the next five years.
