Lawton ready to move forward with South Sheridan Road rebuild

A City Council committee is ready to move forward with plans to rebuild South Sheridan Road, south of West Lee Boulevard.

Members of the Engineering Selection Committee voted last week to designate the Oklahoma City firm Freese and Nichols Infrastructure Consulting & Engineering to design plans for a 1.5 mile upgrade of Sheridan Road, from West Lee Boulevard to one-half mile south of Bishop Road.

The project is important to council members because the badly deteriorating road segment serves a variety of entities, including businesses and residents. It also is the primary entrance into Bishop School. Rebuilding the road while ensuring traffic still can easily access the school is a major concern for the three design firms that offered proposals, for the council and city staff overseeing the project, and for the adults who must access the school.

Freese and Nichols is the firm city engineers recommended earlier this month, after staff members rated the seven firms that submitted proposals. City Engineer Joe Painter said the firm scored the highest possible number of points, and it also has done other work for the city, including roads being rebuilt under the Ad Valorem Road Improvement Program.

Ward 4 Councilman George Gill and other selection committee members wanted to delay a final decision until the three top-scoring firms could talk to the committee in person to explain their timelines. Gill and Ward 2 Councilman Kelly Harris said completion of the road in the quickest amount of time is important, to the council and to constituents. After the committee confirmed the staff’s recommendation last week by choosing Freese and Nichols, Gill directed Painter to conclude negotiations quickly and have a proposed contract and price ready for council consideration within the next two weeks.

Two of the firms presenting proposals last week outlined a two-year timeframe on the process, from initial analysis of the factors that will influence designs through the completion of construction. Brandon Huxford, transportation project manager in Freese and Nichol’s Oklahoma City Office, said he was comfortable his firm could meet that schedule.

Kalya Burd, project manager, said the work should begin by early June, with the project ready to be let for bids by April 2025 and construction completed by late May 2026. Initial work — which typically includes things such as geotechnical engineering — is projected to take three and one-half months, but Burd said it also will include discussions with those who will be affected by construction. While that means Bishop School, it also will include businesses on the north end of the project whose primary entrances are on Sheridan Road.

The company already has begun identifying alternate routes through nearby streets that intersect with Sheridan Road. The same is true for Bishop School, where plans will be developed to help the school use Bishop Road as its primary access point (a plan all three design firms said they would use).

Burd estimated 60 percent design plans could be ready by September, the same time right of way acquisition and utility relocation could begin (the city already knows it must relocate a waterline). Without problems, final designs could be done by December, Burd said.

“What will dictate the time is right of way acquisition and utility relocation,” she said, of work that must be completed before the project can be let for bids.

Designers had different ideas about how to handle the construction, as far as keeping a lane open or completely closing the road so construction can proceed faster. Painter’s recommendation was keeping one lane open because of traffic in the area. That includes City of Lawton trash trucks, which use the route to access the city landfill on South 11th Street because deteriorating South 11th Street bridges over Wolf Creek are closed to heavy trucks.