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  • Employees of Powe General Constructors out of Hanceville construct a sidewalk Monday along Trimble Road in Good Hope. The construction is part of project to connect the town’s schools with approximately 5 miles of sidewalks. The town recently received a nearly $300,000 grant to build a 1.5-mile sidewalk alongside Alabama Highway 69. Patrick McCreless

    Good Hope receives nearly $300,000 grant for sidewalks

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April 28, 2008

Good Hope receives nearly $300,000 grant for sidewalks

By Patrick McCreless

PATRICKM@CULLMANTIMES.COM



Over the past few months the town of Good Hope has constructed miles of sidewalks and due to a recent grant, more will soon be on the way.

The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs awarded the town a $291,680 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to construct a sidewalk along a section of Alabama Highway 69. The town applied for the grant last year.

“We’re trying to be as aggressive as we can to get our grant money,” said Good Hope Mayor Gordon Dunagan. “It boils down to if you don’t ask, you don’t receive.”

The entire project has an estimated $364,600 price tag. Dunagan said the town would spend $72,920 to cover the rest of the cost.

“That will come out of the general fund and from tax dollars from streets and roads,” Dunagan said.

Construction on the 1.5-mile sidewalk will begin near the Premier Bank and continue alongside Highway 69 to the Interstate 65 intersection. Dunagan said the sidewalk is needed due to the construction on I-65 expected in the next few years.

“Supposedly a hotel and some food services are going to be built,” he said. “We’re hoping for some retail development.”

Dunagan said he did not know when the sidewalk would be built but expected construction to take place this year.

“There will be meetings set up ... when they bring in drawings and after the meetings, there will be a bidding process,” Dunagan said. “It’ll be several months away before that happens.”

This is not the first grant Good Hope has received to construct sidewalks. The town used grant money at the start of the year to pay for a 5-mile sidewalk project. Once the project is completed, sidewalks will extend around the Good Hope, primary, middle and high schools and the surrounding communities.

“The project with the schools will be finished in the next two weeks,” Dunagan said. “We still lack installing some handrails. We’ll do an inspection on most of it tomorrow (Tuesday).”

Dunagan noted that many residents have taken full advantage of the newly paved sidewalks.

“Neighbors are meeting neighbors,” Dunagan said. “People are now able to get out and walk and exercise. “I’ve walked most of them.”

In addition to exercise and leisure, Dunagan said the sidewalks provide road protection.

“With sidewalks you get to take care of a lot of drainage problems,” he said. “When you move water off of a road you prolong the life of a road. We’re helping the infrastructure of our town.”

Not wanting to lose momentum, Dunagan said the town is currently working to obtain grants for future sidewalk projects in the May Fair, Weeks and Moncrest subdivisions.

“They’ll be tied in with sidewalks already laid,” Dunagan said.

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