Wright City officials are celebrating plans for a new overpass to be built as part of the Interstate 70 widening project.

A specific location has yet to be announced, but MoDOT Area Engineer Jeff Niemeyer told city officials July 25 the overpass will be constructed to the east of the city. A decision on the location is expected to be known in November.

Wright City officials were at least pleased that there would be a new interchange, even without information about its exact location and design. 

“We are very, very fortunate and grateful. There were a handful of people who worked very, very, very, hard to make sure that money came to us and that we would get that interchange,” said Mayor Michelle Heiliger.

The $40 million earmarked in the state budget will be allocated to the Improve I-70 project, in addition to the $565 million already allocated to the project. MoDOT Area Engineer Jeff Niemeyer met with the Wright City Board of Aldermen at their July 25 meeting to discuss the upcoming changes. 

He said with the $40 million in additional earmarks, the section of the Improve I-70 project from Warrenton to Wentzville now totals $605 million, the largest project in MoDOT’S history. 

While the addition of a new interchange on the interstate was included in the recently released Statewide Transportation Improvement Program, the form it is going to take is still undecided. That is because the Warrenton to Wentzville corridor of the Improve I-70 project is being constructed through the design-build process. 

MoDOT has narrowed the field of potential contractors to three teams, who will each develop and present a design following a list of guidelines and scheduled improvements from MoDOT. 

Those three teams, the Ames Millstone Weber Joint Venture, the Improve I-70 Alliance Joint Venture and the Walsh Team received a request for proposal in July and a contract is expected to be awarded to the winning bid some time in the fall of this year. 

Niemeyer was also in attendance to present the board with a draft agreement for MoDOT to use city right-of-ways during the construction, an agreement he said was routine for projects when MoDOT works with a specific municipality. 

“The point of this agreement is we know we’ve got to improve ramps to make room for the widening and some of that gets into city streets, city right of way,” Niemeyer said. “So really this is an agreement that would give MoDOT use of city right of way to rebuild those connections.”

He also reiterated that he was only presenting the board with a draft agreement so they were aware of the process and could get the document approved when construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2025.