Wright City is seeking state grant funding to build a $325,000 sidewalk from the southeast corner of Diekroeger Park to Roelker Road. City Administrator Jim Schuchmann said the city is trying to expand its pedestrian-friendly areas to accommodate new growth.

The Wright City Board of Aldermen voted Jan. 28 to seek $243,750 in grant funding from the Missouri Department of Transportation, with the city offering to contribute $81,250 to the project.

“This is phase one of trying to extend the sidewalk to Roelker Road, and then south on Roelker to try to start (connecting) the subdivisions out there,” Schuchmann told The Record. Much of Wright City’s growth in recent years has been in subdivisions in the area of Roelker Road and Highway H southwest of the city.

Schuchmann also said sidewalks connecting to Roelker Road will be helpful if the Wright City School District pursues plans for a new high school in the area, which the school district has expressed a desire to do in the next few years.

“We’re trying to make sure we’ve got safe passage for people either wanting to use (Diekroeger Park), or connecting to the existing sidewalk that people use to get downtown,” Schuchmann commented. Right now, the sidewalk from downtown Wright City ends at Diekroeger Park.

Wright City will seek a grant from MoDOT through the agency’s Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP). To access that funding, Schuchmann said the city must offer to pay for at least 20 percent of the project cost. 

The city actually applied for a more ambitious grant in 2018 that would have taken the sidewalk south on Roelker, but didn’t receive it, Schuchmann said. This time around, MoDOT has less money to award, so Wright City is applying for a more manageable portion of the project.

If the grant is approved, the sidewalk would be engineered and constructed between 2022 and 2023, Schuchmann said. He added that the more money a city contributes to its project, the more likely MoDOT is to award the grant.

That led to a debate among the board of aldermen Jan. 28 about how much of the project cost the city should offer to cover. Aldermen expressed concerns about what level of financial commitment the application would entail.

“If we get to that point and say ‘We don’t have the money to do this,’ we have the opportunity to back out, right?” asked Alderman Michelle Heiliger.

Schuchmann replied that if projected costs end up being more than the city can afford, or if MoDOT doesn’t offer enough money, then yes, the city would have the option to back out before the project is initiated.

To make the city’s grant application more attractive, aldermen voted 3-0, with Nathan Rohr absent, to offer a 25-percent cost share to MoDOT, rather than the minimum 20 percent. That means the city is offering $81,250 toward the project, rather than $65,000.

Schuchmann said MoDOT’s decision on grant awards could be announced sometime in May.