SUBLETTE – Downtown Sublette is going to become a construction site in the near future.

The Sublette Village Board awarded a bid for the West Main Street Sidewalk Project at the May 12 meeting at the Ellice Dinges Center in Sublette.

“We received five bids by Monday, May 5. O’Brien Civil Works from Mt. Morris was the winning bid at $94,905,” said Sublette Village President John Stenzell. “Helm Civil bid $151,014.80, Twin City Construction bid $103,777, Gillan Construction bid $123,987 and Stenstrom Excavating & Blacktop Group bid $105,371.75.

“The motion was to award the W. Main Street Sidewalk Project to O’Brien Civil Works on contingent of IDOT (Illinois Department of Transportation) approval. IDOT has to wait eight days for a grace period before it’s actually awarded. In the motion, it also allowed the village president to sign supporting contracts and documents.”

The project will be funded by the Rebuild Illinois Motor Fuel Tax funds, a $25,000 infrastructure grant Sublette received, and $29,000 from the local MFT.

“It’s good to see this project move forward. From what I understand, O’Brien should be done by the end of October with the W. Main Street Sidewalk Project,” Stenzel said. “They will fix the sidewalk on the south side of West Main. It goes from the Main Street Business District to as far west as there is currently sidewalk.

“It’s about two blocks, but it’s actually four blocks because there isn’t connecting streets on that side. There are a couple driveways and handicapped accessible street crossings that have to be addressed.

“We’re also putting in two crossings for Main Street to go from the south side to the north side.”

Other projects in the works include storm tile under Rt. 52 and West Main Street being resurfaced.

The Rt. 52 project is under Sublette’s watch as Stenzel reached out to Hoerr Construction and gave them videos taken of the tile to see if it can be a candidate to line the tile rather than replacing it.

“It won’t be cheap, but it’s cheaper than if we had to physically dig through the highway,” Stenzel said.

Lee County is in charge of the W. Main Street resurfacing. The county awarded the bid to Martin & Company out of Oregon. A work begin or end date hasn’t been released.

In Stenzel’s president report, he mentioned was at the last Northern Illinois Mayors Association meeting. A woman was there talking about Illinois America 250, which is a statewide commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America.

Stenzel doesn’t know if Sublette is going to do anything yet, but he wanted the board to know it’s coming and it’s hard to believe the country is 250 years old.

For USA’s 200th birthday in 1975, there was a committee, a parade, and restaurants had placemats with patriotic information.

The NIMA meeting was Stenzel’s last as the president of the association.

The next Sublette Village Board meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, June 9.