LAWTON – An overhaul of 38th Street between Gore and Lee boulevards has started, and City Councilman George Gill said similar work on Lee Boulevard between 38th and 52nd streets will begin soon.
T&G Construction of Lawton won a $4.349 million contract to rehabilitate the mile-long section of 38th Street. Their bid was 22.8% lower than the engineer’s $5.635 million estimate.
Approximately 1,200 square yards of the street will receive a relatively simple mill-and-overlay, records indicate. However, much of the street will receive “deep impact repair,” said Gill, chairman of the city’s Streets and Bridges Committee. That means sections of the street will be torn out down to the dirt for preparation of 1,500 cubic yards of Type A aggregate base (perhaps 2,500 tons of gravel) before new asphalt surfacing is poured.
The 38th Street job will be financed with ad valorem tax receipts, city records reflect.
Rehabilitation of the targeted section of 38th Street has been a high priority for city officials for some time.
Thirty-eighth is a well-traveled four-lane traffic corridor in Lawton. In 2020 the street carried an average of 13,000 vehicles per day just north of the Ole Kim Lane entrance to Cameron University, and 9,900 vehicles per day a short distance south of Southwest J Avenue, an Oklahoma Department of Transportation traffic study showed.
Construction on Lee Boulevard between 38th and 52nd will start “probably in about two months,” Gill told Southwest Ledger. “The plans will be done soon,” apparently by the end of this month, “and then we’ll send it out for bids, which will take 30 days,” he said.
“Fortunately, we don’t have to finish 38th Street before we can start on Lee Boulevard,” Gill added.