$6.9M Peace Road project OK’d by DeKalb County Board

SYCAMORE – The DeKalb County Board this week approved a $6.9 million contract for a construction project that will widen Peace Road and replace a bridge along the road north of Route 64 in Sycamore.

DeKalb County Engineer Nathan Schwartz, speaking at the board’s Committee of the Whole meeting Jan. 15, said the project will take multiple years to complete.

“That is going to take a year and a half, say, two construction seasons, to do all of that bridge work and the road widening up to Freed Road,” Schwartz said.

Also Wednesday, the County Board approved a resolution that authorizes the expenditure of $4 million worth of motor fuel tax and Rebuild Illinois bond funding for the project.

Schwartz, who runs the county’s highway department and estimated the total project will cost as much as $7.4 million, said the use of motor fuel tax and Rebuild Illinois bond funds means the county is estimated to pay for about 42.8% of the project’s total costs.

Construction on the Freed Road intersection, which is at the northern end of the Peace Road widening project, is not expected to begin in the near future. Schwartz said the Freed Road intersection would not be constructed for probably three or four years.

“The engineering to do the design work will start in 2026, but with permitting and everything else, we have wetlands and floodplains, everything else that’s going on out there, it’s most likely going to take a couple of more years just to do the engineering work,” Schwartz said.

The winning bid for the Peace Road widening and bridge project was submitted by Rockford-based construction company Sjostrom & Sons Inc., a contractor that Schwartz said has done previous bridge work for the county.