New Grant Paves The Way For New Road, Sewer Improvements In Muskogee

Folks in Muskogee can expect some new improvements to the city’s medical district next year.

The roads in parts of Muskogee have potholes and cracks making some people’s travels a little bumpy. But new multimillion dollar funding will help fix that, and a few other things.

The city received a $2.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration to make some improvements in the medical district.

“The hospital is in the area that we’re going to put these grant dollars toward. One road is the main road in and out of the hospital, and one road is the road that the emergency room is on, that’s 36th street,” said Avery Rigney with the city’s public works department.

Right now, the road has cracks and potholes.

“Denver is the primary street that the city hospital is in, and Denver is in rather poor condition,” he said.

Rigney says redoing the roads is just one upgrade that’s needed to make this area more accessible. He says 8-foot sidewalks will also be added on Denver to allow for pedestrians and cyclists.

“A lot of foot traffic in the area,” he said. “There’s people getting to and from the places that they’re going, but there’s also people that have a family member in the hospital that they want to go out and take a walk, and we want to go out and give them a good place to walk.”

While work will be happening above the surface, another fix will be happening below. The city plans to make improvements to its sewer system to help fix flooding in the area.

“We will be adding underground storm sewer down Denver and down 36th, and this works in conjunction with another city project which is to put a detention pond in that area as well,” said Rigney.

He says these improvements couldn’t get done if it wasn’t for the help of this EDA grant.

“This is a really great project that the city has been wanting to do for some time,” he said. “It is a high profile, high expense project so that’s what makes this grant so great.”

Rigney says once a project engineer is chosen and bidding for the project is finished, the city can begin construction on the road. They are hoping to start that construction process next summer.