Planning for third phase of Brecksville Road resurfacing underway

by Melissa Martin

The third and final phase of the Brecksville Road resurfacing project won’t get underway until the summer of 2027; however, Brecksville officials say planning is already gearing up

Brecksville City Council voted unanimously Feb.3 to hire GPD Group, an architectural, engineering and planning firm in Akron, to prepare the engineering plans for the project at a cost of $237,683.

The third phase of the project, estimated at $4.5 million, will involve the portion of Brecksville Road between Miller Road and state Route 82. Design costs for this phase of construction, city officials say, are higher than the first two phases, which began in 2024 and continued in 2025.

The first phase, city Purchasing Director Monica Bartkiewicz said, cost $142,200 to design; the second phase $134,250.

City Engineer Gerry Wise said the final phase was higher for several reasons, including ODOT changing its regulations for projects involving state funds.

He said state law requires the city to rank all engineering firms that express interest in a project according to their professional qualifications. The next step is to select the top-ranked firm for the work, and the city is required to negotiate a fee with that firm. 

In this case, the city was required to choose GPD, at least initially, because it was the top-ranked firm among the six that submitted letters of interest.To help fund construction of the project’s third phase, the city received a grant of up to $2.4 million from the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Urban Paving Program