Government officials converged on St. Croix Monday for the groundbreaking of the Queen Mary Highway repair and reconstruction project — the second in the territory financed by the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
The $4.9 million project, funded through a grant from the Federal Highway Administration, was awarded to General Engineering Corp., a St. Croix-based firm that does business throughout the territory.
GEC will be installing drainage, signs and doing a complete pavement overlay on about 2.2 miles of highway, otherwise known as Route 70.
"This project alone will provide an economic boost for the local economy from the procurement of goods and services," Public Works Commissioner Darryl Smalls said Monday. As a stipulation of the project, about 20 percent of the funding must go to what is called "disadvantaged enterprise program companies," or local small businesses and contractors.
Over the past few months, the territory has aggressively gone after its share of the federal funding pie, applying for about $375 million in competitive and formula-based grants, according to local officials. Of that amount, approximately $120 million has been awarded to date, Office of Economic Opportunity head Julito Francis said in a recent interview.
