Three federal grants totaling $5.15 million will help Nebraska’s biggest city navigate its transportation and infrastructure needs. At the top of the list is an ambitious project that would reclaim nearly 20 acres of land sliced up by an interstate and highway.
Known as “The Stitch,” the proposed project focuses on unusable land trapped within the ramps of U.S. 75, near 30th and Dodge streets. It was one of several concepts outlined in the Omaha Chamber’s plans for the next two decades — and it just got a million dollar boost from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
As currently planned, two off-ramps would be combined into one ramp that runs parallel and close to the interstate, intersecting at Dodge Street with a four-way intersection. The existing on-ramp would be eliminated and traffic shifted south to an improved two-lane on-ramp at Harney Street.
The land could be used for “everything from affordable housing to new business development,” said Vicki Kramer, director of the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT).
Kramer shared details of the three grants alongside Gov. Jim Pillen, Federal Highway Administrator Sean McMaster and Omaha Mayor John Ewing on Friday morning. The presentation was held inside Physicians Mutual, which overlooks the planned location of The Stitch.
The state’s receipt of two $1 million IFAC grants will support an “asset scan” of nine selected Omaha-metro area projects and the I-80 corridor between downtown Omaha and Lincoln and will evaluate the financial feasibility of The Stitch.
Nebraska was also awarded a $1.15 million Regional Infrastructure Accelerator Grant to fund the Accelerating Critical Connections for Elevating Livability in Nebraska Program, and $2 million awarded with the Omaha-Council Bluffs Metropolitan Area Planning Agency under the Prioritization Process Pilot Program.
Pillen called the grants an important step toward “transformative infrastructure.”
“So this city continues to keep growing and being the top city in America, the safest place in America to live,” Pillen said, “and have an infrastructure so that we can move our goods, so that we can grow and have an extraordinary, extraordinary place.”