Local leaders celebrate Innovate Mound milestone

STERLING HEIGHTS — Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel updated the public on the yearslong Innovate Mound project — which just wrapped up its core roadwork along an estimated 9-mile stretch of Mound Road, from Interstate 696 to M-59 — at a Dec. 20 press conference outside Srodek’s Quality Polish Food in Sterling Heights.

Hackel credited Macomb County Department of Roads Director Bryan Santo — who donned a Santa hat for the occasion — as well as many other officials, work crews and more for their roles in getting the roadwork done before Christmas. The press conference included a symbolic moving of orange barrels to celebrate.

“We have a roadway here that’s going to last a lifetime — at least, I know, my lifetime,” Hackel said. “This is an exciting day for Macomb County, in particular, our Department of Roads for the work they did.”

Officials say Innovate Mound has taken several years and around $220 million to come to fruition. Much of that funding came from the federal Infrastructure for Rebuilding America, or INFRA, grant, as well as contributions from Sterling Heights, Warren, the county and the state, Hackel explained. Sterling Heights contributed approximately $41 million toward the roadwork and around $11 million toward water and sewer improvements, according to Sterling Heights Community Relations Director Melanie Davis.

According to Macomb County, the campaign started in 2016 as a gathering of community and business stakeholders. Officials said they applied for the INFRA grant in 2017, and the U.S. Department of Transportation picked the Mound project for funding in 2018, awarding it $98 million. A 2021 groundbreaking started making the vision a reality, officials added.

According to the Innovate Mound website, the project focused on roadwork between 15 Mile Road and M-59 in 2022, and then it focused on roadwork between 15 Mile and I-696 in 2023.

Santo said the project was a “true team effort” and thanked his staff, contractor Dan’s Excavating Inc., engineering firm HNTB, and others. He said the community and the various levels of government involved have much to be proud of.

“This is a new roadway. It’s smoother. It’s safer. It’s more efficient,” Santo said. “And people should know that traveling this road is going to be advanced into the future, as far as the durability and the lifespan of this product that we have introduced here.”

Besides fixing the once-crumbling surface, the project also made ambitious plans for improvements such as landscaping, drainage, lighting, traffic signals and technology that could monitor traffic conditions, ease traffic jams and more, officials said. A portion of Mound north of 17 Mile Road was also widened.

Officials said the new road has incorporated intelligent transportation systems, which according to the Innovate Mound website, “collect data from connected vehicles, mobile devices, and infrastructure to provide travelers with real-time information such as the status of traffic levels, parking availability, transit schedules, traffic signals, and road weather conditions.”

A project representative could not be reached for comment on how drivers’ data will be collected, used, stored and secured.

Macomb County Commissioner Joseph Romano, R-Sterling Heights, said he wasn’t fully sure how the intelligent transportation systems are going to be implemented since “it’s so much in its infancy.”

When asked about the potential privacy concerns over motorists and driving data, he compared the situation to reading a license plate.

“That makes me a little nervous,” he said, “but if you have nothing to hide, what are your concerns?”

At the press conference, Sterling Heights Mayor Michael Taylor credited Sterling Heights City Manager Mark Vanderpool for his role in working with project partners. Taylor called Mound “one of the most important commercial and industrial corridors in the state of Michigan and in the Midwest and beyond.”

He added that he was angry several years ago to see Mound’s condition deteriorate to the point where there were thoughts about shutting down portions due to it being untraversable. But Taylor said, “We’re all smiling today.”

“The results are phenomenal,” he said. “It is a road that’s going to stand the test of time.”

County officials said the Innovate Mound project is over 85% done and that it’s going according to schedule and budget. But they say there is still some more to do in 2024, such as landscaping work.

Hackel added that the county and other stakeholders also want to get federal funding to fix Mound Road from I-696 to Eight Mile Road. According to the county, stakeholders submitted an application for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant in August.

Learn more about Innovate Mound by visiting innovatemound.org.