By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Shelby County Highway Department likely will bid a project to widen and add sidewalks to Thompson Road near Larry Simmons Stadium in the first quarter of 2016, according to Alabaster officials.

Through the project, Alabaster is working with the Shelby County Highway Department and the Alabama Department of Transportation to widen the road, replace a bridge over Buck Creek and realign the intersection of Thompson Road and Warrior Drive to allow drivers to travel straight from Warrior Drive into a parking lot at Warrior Park.

The project will add a new westbound turn lane on Thompson Road from Stadium Drive to Warrior Drive and add a sidewalk along Thompson Road from Warrior Drive to Stadium Drive. The new sidewalks will allow increased foot traffic from the current Thompson High School to the nearby Larry Simmons Stadium, which is used for many THS sports events.

In August, the Shelby County Commission passed a resolution approving right-of-way acquisition to allow the project to move forward.

Shelby County Engineer Randy Cole previously said the funding for the project will be 80 percent federal funding and the county will fund the remaining 20 percent.

Through the project, Shelby County is also planning to extend Buck Creek Trail from its current terminus at Warrior Park to what is now the Thompson High School campus. The widening project also will help to handle traffic traveling to and from Alabaster’s new high school, which is tentatively set to open in the fall of 2017.

If the project bids successfully in early 2016, crews will begin working on the project over the next several months. The County Highway Department has not yet announced a timeline for the project’s com