Becco Contractors was awarded the contract which includes 1.5 miles of six-lane widening, realignment of the westbound turnpike lanes and construction of a new Stroud service plaza, said Darian Butler, OTA director of engineering.
Becco was the low bidder, he said. The company’s bid was 6.8% above the engineer’s estimate, he said.
“This is kind of a big project for us,” Butler said.
The project is part of the agency’s Turner Turnpike service plaza modernization plan that started years ago, he said.
The service plaza will serve the westbound traffic of the turnpike that connects Tulsa and Oklahoma City, he said. The service plaza at Chandler serves the eastbound traffic.
“The OTA, you know, we build the site,” Butler said. “We bring the utilities to the site. We build the truck parking, the semi parking, and then of course Love’s and McDonald’s, they are our vendors here, so they will come in with their own biddable set of plans and they will build the buildings within the site.”
Additional diesel fuel pumps will be added because those sales are up significantly, said Joe Echelle, OTA executive director.
“I think they are also putting in a tire center and trying to do some showers and things like that for the truck drivers,” Echelle said. “So it is a full service truck stop as well.”
Eastbound access to the Stroud travel plaza ended after the new Chandler facility opened in 2020, said Lisa Shearer-Salim, an OTA spokesperson.
Officials hope to keep westbound access to the Stroud plaza open during the majority of the construction of the new facility, she said.
The new facility is expected to open in the spring of 2026, she said.
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