Aug. 6, 2014. The N.C. Department of Transportation has awarded a contract to construct an access road to the proposed Appalachian Regional Healthcare System Post-Acute Care Facility in Blowing Rock.
The new access road will be about a quarter of a mile long with two 12-foot-wide travel lanes at the intersection of U.S. 321 and Edmisten Road, where the proposed acute-care facility will be located. The access road project will also include a new bridge over the Middle Fork of the South Fork New River.
Construction on the new road can begin as soon as Aug. 25. All work except reforestation is scheduled for completion by mid-November 2015.
The J.W. Hampton Company of Boone was awarded the $4,221,328 contract for the project. It is funded through an Appalachian Regional Commission grant.
This is one of the 11 road and bridge contracts worth $43.4 million recently awarded by NCDOT for projects across North Carolina. The contracts were awarded to the lowest bidders, as required by state law. The low bids received on the projects were 2.8 percent, or about $1.2 million, over NCDOT estimates.