Carrollton Square Project delayed till Spring

By Editor | July 13, 2026 |

By Carmen Ensinger

They say not to count your chickens before they hatch, but in the case of the Carrollton Square Project, those eggs are going to be petrified before the chickens have the opportunity to peck their way out.
The project, which was supposed to get underway this summer, has now been pushed back to the Spring of 2027. This announcement was made at the July Greene County Board Meeting by Greene County Highway Engineer Aaron Haverfield, who was in a video conference meeting with Carrollton city officials and officials with Oates and Associates, the engineers on the project, just a few days prior to the July 9 board meeting.
The delay, according to Haverfield, is coming from the Illinois Department of Transportation. The biggest being that IDOT will not let them shut down Rt. 67 to do the work on the inside portion of the square.
“They were going to take traffic and divert it around to the side of the square, but the north and southbound lanes cannot be shut down,” Haverfield said. “So, the east bound traffic is still going to be diverted while they do the work up here on the inside of this lane.”
Another problem area revolved around parking spots being too near crosswalks.
“The other thing is they had to take out a couple more parking spots because the standard for IDOT is that a parking spot can’t be within 30 feet of a parking spot,” he said.
The design has a 4-way crosswalk on each end and one in the middle of the section, just as there is now. But, by making improvements, now you have to meet IDOT standards.
“Technically, the crosswalks are already there, but by improving it, you now have to meet new standards, which mean you have to be 30 feet back with your parking,” Haverfield said. “So, you are going to have to delete two parking spaces on the state side. On the inside, which is going to still be city property, they can still leave them because that falls under city jurisdiction.”
Greene County Board Chairman Earlene Castleberry, who was also in on the conference call, said they want to bid the project out in late fall and have a start date of late February or March.
Haverfield said the hope is that they can get it all squared away because they are working on the Phase 2 design now, which addresses improvements on the north and west sides of the square.
“If they can get the design squared away soon before that big $300 million IDOT grant kicks out they are going to try to apply for it to try to finish out everything out,” he said. “And then also potentially get grant money to do the sidewalk on the outside of the square.”
Castleberry said the engineers thought holding off on the construction till spring would be advantageous for the project.
“They really felt by doing this bid letting in the fall with the construction to start in the spring that it would be early enough where this would be one of the first projects for these major construction companies when the weather permits in the spring,” she said. “That is the hope anyway.”
For a refresher on just what the Carrollton Square Project is, the project is a $1.9 million endeavor that began way back in 2021 when the city was awarded the Rebuild Illinois Downtown and Main Street Capital grant. There have been other smaller grants, plus the city agreed to put in $100,000 and the Carrollton Square Initiative agreed to match that with another $100,000.
At the beginning of June, an informational meeting was held with business owners around the Square and the project was laid out in four phases with bid letting on the first phase set for late June and construction set to begin sometime in July and last through November. The timeline for each of the four phases was tentatively four to six weeks.
The grant was for the south and east sides of the Square only. The Phase 2 design, referenced above, will be submitted to the State in hopes of getting grant money to do the north and west sides of the Square.
The scope of the project included new sidewalks in front of businesses, new water mains along South Main, new lighting within the Courthouse Square, a new employee parking lot at the Courthouse and ADA compliant ramps at the corners.
“We identified these as key features to help revitalize downtown by improving access for pedestrians, especially with the ADA improvements, wheelchair access and really just safe spaces to cross the street,” Clarey said at the informational meeting back in June. “South Main Street and Fifth Street are pretty wide as far as the pavement width goes so crossing that will be a challenge.”