Orchard Park (Offsite STARS Agreement)

Client: The Russell Corporation 

Developer: High Desert 

Jurisdictions: ITD, ACHD, City of Meridian 

1.5 mile widening of US 20/26 doubling the highway’s capacity from roughly Linder to just east of Meridian Road and significant upgrades to adjacent ACHD roadways and the addition of a new collector road running through the middle of the new Orchard Park complex. Work consisted of demolition, utility relocation, mass earthwork, CMU block retaining walls, four new traffic signals, asphalt paving, concrete work, and landscaping. High Desert funded the program and will be reimbursed for the upgrades built by IMC through the STARS program.

The COVID-19 Pandemic caused the developer to delay the start of the project roughly seven months which caused construction to run through the winter with a tight deadline for completion starting in the spring. Other challenges the team faced were accommodating the existing traffic, existing pedestrians detours, and unknown utilities. This project was unique because there were multiple businesses (i.e., Winco, Saltzer Health Care, and First Federal Saving Bank) that were all under construction at the same time within the footprint of our job. They all had different opening dates throughout the project, and each opening added new traffic control challenges.