Construction contracted awarded for I-69 in Marshall, Graves counties

Involves reconstruction of 30 miles of Carroll-Purchase Parkway

FRANKFORT, Ky. (Sept. 11, 2014) — Gov. Steve Beshear today announced the awarding of a contract for improvements needed to bring a portion of the Julian M. Carroll Purchase Parkway up to interstate highway standards and eventual designation as Interstate 69.

The project involves reconstruction of 30 miles of the parkway from Exit 22 (mile point 22) in Graves County to U.S. 62 at Calvert City (mile point 52) in Marshall County. Hall Contracting of Kentucky was awarded the contract on a low bid of $8.08 million. The project has a completion date of Sept. 15, 2015.

“An additional interstate route means additional opportunities for economic development in western Kentucky and, indeed, throughout the commonwealth,” Beshear said. “The improvements being made in the I-69 corridor will result in safer, more efficient travel through the region.”

The contract was the third awarded this year for the I-69 corridor. The first, which has a completion date of August 2015, was for improvement of a 36.4-mile stretch of the Breathitt-Pennyrile Parkway in Hopkins, Webster and Henderson counties. The second involved reconstruction of the parkway’s KY 56 interchange near Sebree, in Webster County. It has a completion date of Oct. 1, 2015.

Once complete, I-69 in Kentucky will run north to south from the Ohio River at Henderson County to the Tennessee border at Fulton County. Completion of the corridor requires improvements to portions of three Kentucky parkways, all of which originally were toll roads – the Breathitt-Pennyrile, Ford-Western Kentucky and Carroll-Purchase parkways.

To date, 55 miles of the corridor are complete — from roughly Nortonville to the interchange of I-24 and the Carroll-Purchase Parkway near Gilbertsville — and bear the red, white and blue shields of I-69.