Kokosing Construction Co. is putting the finishing touches on the nearly $47-million Jefferson Road Widening Project in South Charleston, W. Va.

Along with widening the 1.7-mile corridor to five lanes, the project for the West Virginia Dept. of Transportation included construction of a new roundabout and 770-ft-long overpass across the Kanawha Turnpike, eliminating a congested dogleg intersection, creek and at-grade CSX rail crossing.

The bridge has been named in honor of the late Dr. George E. Keller II, a prominent and award-winning chemist at local employer Union Carbide Corp., and later co-founder of the nearby non-profit Mid-Atlantic Technology & Innovation Center (MATRIC), a strategic research and development organization now owned by AVN Corp.

According to WVDOT, the widened roadway has been paved, striped and fully integrated with bridge connections at U.S. Routes 60 and 119. Only minor tie-ins to residences and facilities remain to be completed before the scheduled Sept. 30 completion date of the project, which was awarded to Kokosing in 2019.

Jefferson Road serves as a major connector between the communities and businesses west and southwest of West Virginia’s capital city. Studies conducted prior to the start of construction on the improvements determined that along with the risk of increasing congestion, the corridor’s crash rate was four times the average for similar roadways across the state.