The orange barrels on the south side of Ringgold Road signal the beginning of the city’s “multi-modal” project to improve East Ridge’s commercial corridor.
City officials said the barrels that begin at Kingwood Drive and extend east to McBrien Road are needed to allow workers to double-check the location of sewers, stormwater drainage, and other utilities along the highway before new construction actually begins.
City Manager Chris Dorsey said the first phase of the $6.3 million project that is being done by Talley Construction is slated to be completed in one year.
Dorsey said the purpose of the project is two-fold: “One is to work on control of stormwater down Ringgold Road, and the second is the addition of curbs, gutters and sidewalks.”
The initial work will be done on the south side of the highway. When that is done, the effort will shift to the north side where the same process will start again.
Dorsey said that the total cost of this phase of the multi-modal project is $8.6 million. That amount includes about $1.25 million the city spent on the acquisition of rights-of-way from private property owners, environmental compliance, Tennessee Department of Transportation oversite, and construction inspection from ASA engineering, the firm that designed the project.
Dorsey said $3.3 million of federal funding from the American Recovery Plan is helping to shoulder the financial burden of the project. An additional $3.2 million will come from the city’s general fund.
Officials said the roadbed of Ringgold Road is scheduled to be repaved by the state after this phase of the construction. No additional lanes for traffic will be added.
The multi-modal project’s genesis dates back to 2018. At that time city leaders announced the improvements would include sidewalks and other amenities for pedestrians and cyclists stretching along Ringgold Road from McBrien Road to the site of the former Kingwood Pharmacy. Then-City Manager Scott Miller said the construction project, which involves 74 parcels of property, could take as much as three or four years to complete.
