A contractor is now making visible progress on the storm drainage reconstruction under Country Club Road, toward an expected road reopening around Labor Day. Meanwhile, pre-build work toward the Cypress Lake Road bridge reconstruction has hit some complications, but the county engineer says it’s still on track for a late-summer 2027 reopening.

So the currently closed section of Cypress Lake, the much the busier of the two roads when open from end to end, is expected to be closed for a year longer than Country Club Road, but that has been the prediction from the Bulloch County Engineering Office for more than a year.

The county commissioners awarded Reeves Construction the $643,055 construction contract for the Country Club Road project April 8, which was followed by a signing April 14 and a May 1 notice to proceed.

“That one is on tap for bringing everything back open to traffic around Labor Day, right after Labor Day,” County Engineer Ron Nelson said Thursday. “A late-summer time frame is kind of what we’ve been living with.”

Having removed a section of the Country Club Road surface and subsurface and the old drainage structures washed out by a series of storms, employees of Reeves or a subcontractor are building in-place a double-barrel, reinforced concrete box culvert. Each of the two passages for stormwater will have a 5-by-5-feet cross section.

This will carry overflow from the Hood Pond spillway, which is on the north or upstream side of the road, onward to the downstream side on Watering Hole Branch.

According to engineers’ assessments, three successive heavy rainfall events – Tropical Storm Debby in August 2024, an unnamed storm in November 2024 and ultimately a heavy spring shower in 2025 – caused the cumulative damage that prompted the closure of this segment of Country Club Road in May of last year.

That qualified the repair project for Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement, with FEMA authorizing an $891,000 total cost estimate. As usual, FEMA is expected to reimburse the county for 75% of that total, while the Georgia EMA will reimburse 10% from state funds. That leaves the county to pay up to 15% of the FEMA-authorized cost plus any overage, with the county’s source being Transportation-Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue, or T-SPLOST.

Besides awarding the $643,055 contract to Reeves, the county previously funded a service contract with Kimley-Horn and Associates to design the Country Club Road restoration. In addition to the culvert replacement and roadway repair, the project will include the addition of guard rails and signs.

Cypress Lake Bridge

The bridge to be replaced on Cypress Lake Road isn’t at the lake but over the creek run known as Dry Branch. A vehicle hit the 50-year-old bridge in an accident the evening of Feb. 25, 2025, and a portion of the road – which otherwise extends between Register and Statesboro – has been closed ever since.

Since the damage to the bridge was caused by a vehicle crash, the repairs were are not eligible for FEMA funding.

But the county found a serendipitous source of state funding when the state Legislature budgeted a round of supplemental grants, called Local Road Assistance, or LRA. These were added onto the Georgia Department of Transportation’s annual LMIG, or Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant, program.

After Bulloch County was awarded $2,247,332 in last year’s round of the supplemental grants, the county staff and commissioners reserved all of it to cover the Cypress Lake Road bridge reconstruction, but expressed hope to accomplish it for less.

Notably, the LRA money is available to cover 100% of the cost if it remains below that almost $2.25 million limit, instead of requiring a 30% local funding share like standard LMIG awards or the 15% match needed for most FEMA-GEMA projects.

Instead of Kimley-Horn, which has designed several FEMA-approved projects for the county, the commissioners in April 2025 awarded a $378,300 design and engineering contract for the bridge replacement to Heath & Lineback Engineers, a firm since acquired by Parsons Corporation.

Still late summer ’27

Already in spring 2025, Nelson was predicting a two-year timeline, suggesting that after a year for the design and other preparatory work, the construction would take until around August 2027 before Cypress Lake Road could open again in its entirety. That is still the timeline, he confirmed in Thursday’s phone interview.

“That’s correct. August, or late summer, of 2027, is the anticipated open-to-traffic date, and we’re trying to get there,” Nelson said.

But as he recently explained during a Bulloch County Board of Commissioners meeting, the project is now in the wetland disturbance permitting phase with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which administers federal wetland and stream regulations.

“We have the plans; we just do not have the permit from USACE,” Nelson told the Statesboro Herald, “and then … we’ve also got a little right of way issue going on. We have to move through a condemnation of sorts. For one of the parcels, the folks were not agreeable to our terms, as far as the appraisal value of the property.”

During the May 19 meeting, the commissioners approved two actions he hopes will move both of these concerns to a conclusion in the near future.

Eminent domain

First, the commissioners adopted a resolution to acquire by eminent domain “Parcel 4” of added right of way land needed for the Cypress Lake Road bridge project, and County Attorney Jeff Akins has since filed the process in the Superior Court. Although often called a “legal taking” of private property for a public purpose, eminent domain requires a government to pay a fair price, and when the parties do not agree on a price, a court decides.

The resolution describes the small parcel to be permanently acquired as “0.029 acres,” which is less than 1,300 square feet, and also lays claim to a temporary construction easement on “0.026 acres,” which is less than 1,150 square feet.

“The new bridge is substantially larger than the old bridge was,” Nelson said when asked why more land is needed. “The bridge structure will be very similar to what is up the road at Watering Hole. It will meet all of the GDOT’s requirements for bridge design and construction. That’s the ultimate goal, to get everything in compliance.”

That, he said, will let the county qualify for state money to maintain or repair the bridge in the future. Previously, the old Dry Branch bridge had a restricted load rating of eight tons. It is on a school bus route, which was also a “determining factor” in the decision to completely replace the bridge, Nelson said.

Wetland credits

Second, the commissioners voted to accept a “sales reservation” with the Yam Grandy Mitigation Bank for $76,000 worth of wetland mitigation credit. This is a contribution to help restore or enhance wetland elsewhere to compensate for any affected by the bridge.

“The design is actually complete,” Nelson said. “The holdup is the right of way piece that’s in condemnation, and then the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permit. But based on everything we’re hearing, we’re anticipating procurement for construction services next month, probably the later part of June.”

An upcoming story will provide updates on the project to restore G.W. Oliver Road, which involves the planned construction of a bridge to replace a mass of displaced culvert pipes, and at least one additional project.