Last summer, Hanceville became the first local municipality to receive infrastructure funding through the state’s gas tax-fueled Rebuild Alabama grant program. Starting this spring, it’ll also be the first to actually get moving on the public street project the fund is helping pay for.

The Hanceville City Council agreed this week to award a $319,884 construction bid to Wiregrass Construction Co. of Guntersville to begin curb and paving work along a section of Commercial Street running eastward from the city’s downtown area.

In June of 2020, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey revealed that Hanceville had been approved for $250,000 in Rebuild Alabama funds for the project, which aims to improve storm water drainage areas and repave the surface of Commercial Street between U.S. Highway 31 and a point just past the Hanceville Civic Center. The award comes with the stipulation that the city must contribute at least $25,000 in matching funds, which mayor Kenneth Nail said Thursday Hanceville should be able to do as work on the project gets underway.

“We should have the money in the appropriate designated fund to pay the difference in cost, when the time comes,” said Nail, adding that the current bid clears the contractor to tear out existing curbs and gutters along Commercial Street from First Baptist Church, at the Church Street intersection, to Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church at the corner of Bulldog Lane.

The move also clears the way for paving along Commercial Street from the city’s downtown all the way to the Self Street intersection, which ties in to Commercial Street in front of Hanceville High School. Nail said that areas of Commercial Street farther east of the Self Street cutoff will, for the time being, remain unaltered.

When finished, city officials hope the repair and resurfacing corrects a persistent problem with storm water drainage in the area. The $250,000 award represents a public works windfall for a city whose yearly street budget typically rings in at approximately $100,000, Nail noted.