Kansas DOT Awards its Highest-Ever Contract for U.S. 54/K-96 Reconstruction
The $288 million contract went to Dondlinger Wildcat EKC1 LLC, a joint venture out of Wichita, Kansas.
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An upcoming road reconstruction project in southeast Kansas will be the highest-ever contract in the state transportation department's history.
KDOT kicked off 2026 by awarding the $288 million contract for reconstruction of U.S. 54 (East Kellogg Avenue) and K-96 in Sedgwick and Butler Counties to the Dondlinger Wildcat EKC1 LLC joint venture out of Wichita, Kansas.
The finished project will see approximately two miles of U.S. 54 from east of I-35/127th Street to east of 159th Street reconstructed and expanded to six lanes, and one mile of K-96 north of U.S. 54 also reconstructed.
Other additions from the project will include the following:
- 26 bridge replacements, including the U.S. 54 interchanges at K-96, 143rd and 159th streets.
- 32 new retaining walls.
- Multiple two-lane frontage roads
Work on this project will begin this spring, and KDOT District Five Engineer Nick Squires says the updates will improve traffic flow and support long-term mobility in the region.
The U.S. 54/K-96 project falls under the umbrella of the 10-year, $10 billion KDOT’s Eisenhower Legacy Transportation Program, which aims to preserve, modernize and expand the state’s transportation system. Within that $10 billion fund is $5 billion allocated to preservation projects and $2.3 billion dedicated to modernization and expansion projects.
The U.S. 54/K-96 contract surpassed the department’s previous largest contract by dollar amount, the $239 million I-70 Polk-Quincy Viaduct awarded in October 2024. Work on that project began in April 2025 in downtown Topeka, Kansas, is forecast to wrap up in 2027, and will replace the viaduct built in the 1950s with a new 2.5-mile, six-lane viaduct and widened I-70.
