LITTLE ROCK (AP) Two major projects totaling approximately $30 million made northwest Arkansas’ Benton County a major winner when the state Highway Commission opened bids on road projects around the state.

One of the projects will build a new interchange on Interstate 540 in the city of Rogers, and the other will widen to four lanes approximately 3 mi. (4.8 km) of Arkansas 59 from Gentry to the south, according to a news release from the state Highway and Transportation Department.

The apparent low bidder on building the new I-540 interchange was M.J. Lee Construction Co. of Tulsa, OK, at $15,434,095.

“City officials in Rogers have worked very hard on this project to get to this point today,” said Jonathan Barnett of Siloam Springs, a member of the Highway Commission.

The interchange will be built to provide access to I-540 from Perry Road, an east-west street in the city of Rogers. The new interchange will be approximately 1.4 mi. (2.3 km) south of the current Arkansas 94 exit.

The apparent low bidder on the Arkansas 59 project, the agency said, was APAC-Arkansas Inc. of Fayetteville. In addition to the four lanes to be built, a section of the highway extending from Arkansas 12 in Gentry south to Dawn Hill road will include a fifth lane in the middle, for vehicles making left turns.

“These improvements are going to greatly improve the traffic coming in an out of Gentry,” Barnett said. “It will also ease congestion at the intersection with Highway 12.”

He said work on both projects should start in six to eight weeks, weather permitting. The Arkansas 59 project should be complete by the fall of 2007, the agency said, while work on the new I-540 interchange should be finished by early 2008.

Other major projects on which the Highway Commission opened bids, including the apparent low bidder and the amount of that bid as provided by the agency:

• Garland County, relocation of approximately 1.7 mi. (2.7 km) of Arkansas 128, also known as Carpenter Dam Road, in Hot Springs, south of the Martin Luther King Expressway; McGeorge Contracting Co. of Pine Bluff, $6,407,704.

• Cleburne County, building approximately 2.4 mi. (3.8 km) of passing lanes on Arkansas 25, between Arkansas 16 and Arkansas 5; Delta Asphalt of Arkansas Inc. of Paragould, $3,047,511.

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