GULF SHORES, Ala. – If the City Council gives the go ahead, and it’s expected to do so Monday, work could begin before the week’s out on improvements to the Alabama 59 and Clubhouse Drive intersection.

“Once it’s been approved, they have 60 days to complete it,” Noel Hand of the city’s Public Works Department said.

Other projects the council is expected to OK on Monday include four more change orders to the work on the Saunders Yachtworks dry dock basin, a couple of ditch cleaning jobs and rejection and rebidding of the city’s annual sod contract.

Public Works Director Mark Acreman recommended the council OK the $315,736 project on the Clubhouse intersection.

“Forty percent of that is city funds and 60 percent of it will be state,” Hand said.

The goal of the project is to combine the signals at Clubhouse Drive and the Winn Dixie entrance just to the south of Clubhouse and have one signal in that small stretch of road.

This project is part of a more than $1 million signalization improvement program for Alabama 59 from the beach to the Intracoastal Waterway bridge. The overall plan was approved last year by the council.

Traffic lights along Alabama 59 are currently synchronized, but can’t adjust to traffic as conditions change. The new system will allow the signals to adjust on the fly as flow increases.

“If we can fully implement this program it will be one of the top systems in the state of Alabama, according to the DOT,” Acreman told the council in November.

Over on the canal, White-Spunner Construction asked for four more change orders to its construction of the basin. The basin is on city property but will be leased by Saunders once completed.

If approved, weight capacities for sediment tank lids will be increased to airport-rated, parts of the basin’s bottom will be solid concrete instead of rock, a French drain will be added on the north part of the property and an electrical transformer will be moved.

“We recommended approving those and once the council approves them, they to go to the EDA and they approve them from there,” Hand said.

The money to construct the basin came from an Economic Development Agency matching grant. The agency provided 80 percent of the more than $5 million project and they city had to match it with 20 percent. Saunders provided the matching funds.

EDA approval is required on all change orders. All the money for the changes will be paid by leftover grant money. There is still just more than $4,000 left from that grant.

One ditch slated from cleaning runs from West Second Street to Alabama 59 behind the city annex building.

If OK’d, the other ditch to be cleaned runs between East 20^th and East 21^st Avenues. Phillips and Jordan had the lowest conforming bid in the amount of $122,679.

“There’s a main drainage ditch that splits the two subdivisions, so we’re cleaning that ditch out as well,” Hand said.

Acreman recommended the city reject bids for an annual sod contract and rebid.

“We just have one sod price from a company and whenever we need sod we just call that company so we don’t have to keep going out for quotes for it,” Hand said.