The Kalispel Tribe of Indians has selected a general contractor after seeking bids a third time for its planned project to move and reconstruct a stretch of Sprague Avenue located just south of the Northern Quest Resort & Casino, in Airway Heights.

The tribe recently awarded the project's roughly $2.5 million contract to Newman Lake-based Eller Corp., says Brandon Haugen, manager of the Kalispel Development Co., a venture owned and overseen by the Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority that handles the tribe's real estate projects.

The tribe is seeking to rebuild a 3,000-foot-long existing stretch of Sprague located just south of Northern Quest to allow for the future development of the approximately 250 acres of land it owns there. That land is valued at around $4.7 million.

That section of Sprague—between Hayford Road and the Washington state Department of Corrections Airway Heights Corrections Center, at 11919 W. Sprague—is to be moved about 800 feet south of where it currently connects to Hayford.

From there, the new section gradually will curve to the northwest to meet the current stretch of Sprague just east of the prison.

The tribe originally advertised for competitive bids in last September, and during that first round, Eller also was the lowest bidder at $2.8 million. The tribe opted to toss out those bid results and seek new proposals, however, because it decided to change the construction schedule of the project to achieve some cost savings.

Haugen says the effort to realign the section of Sprague mostly is being federally funded by the Federal Highway Administration, with the remaining funds coming from the Kalispel Tribe and the city of Airway Heights.

The second set of bids that were due last November also were thrown out, Haugen says, because a high number of the bid proposals had errors relating to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program requirements and thus were ineligible.

That program's intent is to increase opportunities for minority- or women-owned businesses to participate in federally-funded projects.

Despite the project having gone to bid two additional times, Haugen says it's still on schedule, and work could begin this month if the mild winter weather continues. The project is expected to be completed this summer.

Haugen says the tribe still is evaluating options for eventual mixed-use development of the adjacent land.

"The road will be a great gateway to allow the tribe to carry out options in the future," he says.