On March 20, the City of Champaign announced their plan to invest more than $7 million in street maintenance during the 2023 construction season. 

Kris Koester, the administrative services manager for the City of Champaign, estimated the end date of all construction to be in mid-November. 

“This is probably the largest amount of work happening in one construction season due to the addition of some Illinois rebuild bond dollars that are coming in,” Koester said. 

According to Koester, infrastructure maintenance will take place during the construction, which entails asphalt repaving, concrete street repairs and street reconstruction. 

“Some of those streets have suffered, sort of, ongoing wear and tear and they need replacement, but not the whole thing,” Koester said.

Traffic control signage, arrow boards, message boards and barricades will aid in traffic. Additionally, the city will work with individual property owners to allocate temporary parking. 

 “Just those road/street projects alone are about $7 million,” Koester said. “The city is looking at close to 12 to 15 million in major infrastructure this summer.”

This includes building streetlights, or the Garden Hills Streetlight Project; section pruning, which is the maintenance of the city’s urban forest; and the South Downtown Sanitary Sewer Project that will expand the capacity of the main sewer line.

“These road improvement projects are being funded through various revenue sources including the City’s Capital Improvement Fund, Local Motor Fuel Tax, State Motor Fuel Tax, Hotel/Motel Tax, and the State of Illinois’ Local REBUILD Illinois bond funds,” the City of Champaign press release said. 

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