First step taken toward finishing Irene Road interchange | Belvidere Daily Republican

Written by Bob Balgemann

One step is for preliminary engineering at an initial cost of $81,000. The other step, costing $33,800, is for services of a right of way consultant. The city and county will be splitting that expense, with the county dollars coming out of its highway fund.

Once that portion of the engineering is done the city and county could find themselves with a much larger expense: buying land needed to finish the remaining three lanes of the project. A high-ranking Illinois Department of Transportation official told the committee that if the city and county provided the land, the state would finish the interchange…..

Irene Road interchange “is a gamble. I can’t tell you it will bring development. But I can tell you it won’t come without it.”

….

Stuart M. Kemp, offered a “worst-case scenario” to the committee, in which the city and county spend a lot of up-front money and then find out they are unable to successfully negotiate the purchase of the needed property.

 

Read the entire story by clicking on the following:  First step taken toward finishing Irene Road interchange | Belvidere Daily Republican