The Bulloch County and Statesboro city governments are continuing to split design and engineering costs 50-50 for proposed improvements to Burkhalter, Cawana and Harville roads, but they revised their agreement last week after those planning costs exceeded the initially agreed upon $1 million level.
This item was on the agendas both for the morning Statesboro City Council meeting and the late afternoon Bulloch County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 6. That kind of coordinated action has occurred at least three times now in regard to a February agreement by which the two local governments are sharing responsibility for upgrades and maintenance of roadways in the heavily trafficked, urbanizing Burkhalter-Harville corridor.
With the two local governments’ shares of T-SPLOST, or Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, identified as the major funding source, the Feb. 17 framework agreement called for the city and county each to pay 50% of costs for improvements on both Burkhalter Road and Harville Road. But the only monetary amount stated in the initial agreement was a $1 million budget for design and engineering. The agreement stated that the budgets for right of way acquisition and other project costs remain “to be determined.”
Kimley-Horn selection
Then on Aug. 4, the city and county boards, also at separate meetings in a single day, authorized staff to negotiate fees with Kimley-Horn & Associates after the firm was selected by a joint city-county staff committee to do design and engineering work on the project. Initially 11 firms had responded to a “request for qualifications,” after which four were asked to submit “technical approach proposals,” and Kimley-Horn was chosen using a scoring system, city officials said in August.
But the final not-to-exceed price of the design and engineering services came in at $1,195,700, as presented to City Council and the county Board of Commissioners Oct. 6. So this exceeded their previously agreed allowance for this planning phase by $195,700.
Statesboro council first, by a 4-0 vote, approved a “first amendment to the intergovernmental agreement,” increasing the design and engineering funding by $197,500 and stating that this added cost will also be shared equally, with the city and county each to pay an additional $97,850.
Then the council, by a separate motion and another 4-0 vote, approved the “Master Services Agreement and Task Order No. 1” with Kimley-Horn, in the amount of $1,195,700.
That total “cost will be shared equally, with $597,850 to be funded by the City’s 2023 T-SPLOST and $597,850 funded by Bulloch County Board of Commissioners,” the city’s agenda summary for its 9 a.m. meeting stated.
Meeting the same day beginning at 5:30 p.m., the commissioners, by a 5-0 vote, also approved the amendment to the intergovernmental agreement, in effect accepting the county’s now $597,850 share in the engineering and design.
What’s to be planned
The project to be designed includes widening Burkhalter Road, probably to three lanes with storm drains and curbing, from Langston Chapel Road to east of Herman Rushing Road, plus intersection improvements on Burkhalter Road at Cawana Road and Georgia Highway 67.
The “individual project order” describes the work on Burkhalter as also including “non-motorist accommodations” plus traffic signal and intersection improvements on Highway 67/Fair Road. It states that a roundabout will be installed at the Cawana intersection.
Just design so far
However, the almost $1.2 million contract so far is just for design and engineering, with Kimley-Horn to receive up to $875,600 of this for the concept development, database preparation, environmental document, preliminary plans, special studies and public involvement activity. The remaining $320,100 will go to three other firms as “subconsultants” – Settimio, T2 UES and Terracon – in lump-sum payments for topographic survey, traffic data collection, subsurface utility location and geotechnical investigations.
Two years from build?
An estimated schedule included with the project order suggests that design work will begin this week but that construction of the road improvements will still be about two years away. The first two milestones on the schedule for Kimley Horn’s work are an Oct. 13, 2026, notice to proceed and an Oct. 27 project kickoff meeting.
But the public information open house isn’t slated to occur until Aug. 26 2027, followed by concept approval a year from now and preliminary plan approval slated for Aug. 15, 2028.
Kimley-Horn is the Savannah-based engineering consulting firm that designed the new bridge for G.W. Oliver Road, now proceeding to construction, as well as the previously completed storm damage restoration projects on Brannen Pond Road and Nevils-Denmark Road, all under contracts with the county.
Lowe's area project
Also during its Oct. 6 meeting, Statesboro City Council unanimously approved a smaller added cost for some specific engineering services on a separate street project not involving the county. This was a $25,000 addition to the city’s $256,750 July 7 contract with Pape-Dawson Consulting Engineers for design of “transportation improvements” between U.S. Highway 80 and Brannen Street in the area around Lowe’s and the Statesboro Fire Department’s new Station 3.
As reported in July, the concept calls for creating a new connect road between Highway 80 and Brannen Street just east of Lowe’s, where a sort of stub street exists as an entrance drive from the highway between the Lowe’s parking lot and the Goodwill Retail & Donation Center. Then the current Bernard Lane, at the other end of the Lowe’s property, would be closed as a public street connecting to Brannen Street.
In addition to these elements, the plan will include the addition of a right turn lane on Brannen Street at Veteran’s Memorial Parkway and removal of an existing concrete median on Brannen, stated the city staff’s latest memo, dated Sept. 29.
But the $25,000 addition is for Pape-Dawson to design modifications to the traffic signal at the Veterans Memorial Parkway-Brannen Street intersection and conduct a left-turn analysis study in order to obtain a permit from the Georgia Department of Transportation.
Corridor-wide projects
The February 2026 city-county agreement for the Burkhalter corridor assigns continuing responsibility and divisions of other costs associated with improvements along Cawana, Burkhalter and Harville roads, in an area where Statesboro’s city limits have been expanded by annexations in the last several years.
However, that agreement suggests some improvements that appear to be beyond the scope of the current Kimley-Horn design order, including two more roundabouts.
According to the overall description attached to the February agreement, the proposed work “includes, but may not necessarily be limited to, the following improvements …
- A new turn lane on Burkhalter Road at Herman Rushing Road.
- A new roundabout at the intersection of Cawana Road and Burkhalter Road.
- A new roundabout at the intersection of Cawana Road and S&S Railroad Bed Road.
- A new roundabout at the intersection of Cawana Road and Brannen Street.
- Improvements along Burkhalter Road and Harville Road, including at their intersection with Highway 67.”
Overall cost-sharing
Since February, the framework agreement has provided that the city will be responsible for 100% of any right of way and easement acquisition costs on Cawana Road while the county will be responsible for 100% of the right of way and easement costs on Harville Road. The city and county agreed to split the costs 50/50 for right of way and easements for Burkhalter Road.
Also under the agreement, the city would cover 100% of remaining project costs for Cawana Road.
But the city and county will split the remaining costs, including roadway construction costs, 50/50 on both Burkhalter Road and Harville Road.
After the improvements are built, the city is to assume responsibility for maintaining Cawana Road and the stretch of Burkhalter Road from Herman Rushing Road to Georgia Highway 67, with the county to file quitclaim deeds relinquishing its rights of way to the city.