More than 25 years after it was first conceived, the Caldwell Avenue interchange on Highway 99 in Visalia is finally under construction. Caltrans District 6 officials and local leaders gathered Friday, October 30, 2026, at 8570 West Caldwell Avenue for a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of work on a project that carries a cost of more than $71 million and is expected to wrap up in summer 2028.
The project took more than 25 years to reach the construction stage, according to ABC30. Michael Navarro, director of Caltrans District 6, credited the milestone to partnerships with the Tulare County Association of Governments, Tulare County and the City of Visalia, along with a patchwork of funding that included Measure R, federal funds and state dollars. “The first interchange in our district in the valley where we embrace roundabouts,” Navarro said of the design, which will make Caldwell Avenue the first interchange in the district's valley area to use roundabouts as traffic control at each ramp intersection.
Tulare County Supervisor Dennis Townsend told the crowd the project reflects decades of commitment from local leaders and community partners, noting that people worked on it before some attendees were even born and before he took office himself.
What's Actually Being Built
The planned improvements include roundabouts at ramp intersections, new overcrossing structures and auxiliary lanes designed to reduce traffic congestion, improve roadway safety and enhance access across Highway 99. Per YourCentralValley, the $71.1 million project will take shape at the same Caldwell Avenue address where the groundbreaking took place.
Granite Construction, the firm awarded the construction contract, has detailed a scope that includes two new precast girder bridges, 12 retaining walls and four new on/off ramps controlled by roundabouts, according to a company release from Granite Construction. Crews also plan to bring in roughly 216,000 cubic yards of imported borrow material to widen roadway embankments as part of the rebuild.
Where the Money Is Coming From
YourCentralValley's breakdown of the funding shows Tulare County's Measure R sales tax supplying $41 million, the largest single share. The California State Local Partnership Program contributed $17 million, Congestion Management & Air Quality funds added $11.6 million, and federal dollars kicked in another $1.1 million, the station's report states.
Those figures don't neatly square with other cost estimates tied to the project over the years. ABC30 described the overall project as carrying a cost of more than $71 million, while Granite Construction's own contract award was pegged at approximately $66 million, according to the company's release. Earlier reporting from The Sun-Gazette put the estimated cost at $68.2 million as of April 2024, up from $53.5 million in 2018 and $36.8 million in 2009 — illustrating just how much the price tag has climbed since the project was first drawn up.
A History of Delays
The Caldwell interchange has a long record of missed timelines. A 2018 environmental report had projected the reconstructed interchange would be completed and open to traffic by July 2024, per the same Sun-Gazette account. By April 2024, Caltrans was instead telling the Sun-Gazette it expected construction to merely begin by the end of that year, with District 6 administrator Mike Navarro estimating at the time that construction itself would take three years. That report attributed the repeated delays to a mix of factors, including the pandemic, damage from roughly 20 atmospheric rivers that battered roads and bridges, and California's state budget crisis.
Granite Construction's own announcement, issued in a 2025 release, said construction was expected to begin in August 2025 and finish in the second quarter of 2027 — a different completion window than the summer 2028 date officials cited at Friday's groundbreaking.
Ripple Effects for Farmersville and Exeter
Townsend said the project is expected to provide economic benefits for nearby communities by bringing people east toward Farmersville and Exeter, according to ABC30. The Caldwell corridor work is also linked to a broader regional effort: a related Caldwell Widening and Improvement Project is part of a larger Avenue 280 corridor widening initiative sponsored by Visalia, the Tulare County Association of Governments, Tulare County, Farmersville and Exeter, per a separate Sun-Gazette report.
The Caldwell groundbreaking also follows a similar push elsewhere on Highway 99. In October 2024, Fresno Rep. Jim Costa announced $98 million to widen Highway 99 at the Paige Avenue multimodal interchange in nearby Tulare, a project that, like Caldwell, calls for reconstructing four ramps and adding roundabouts at ramp ends and nearby intersections, according to The Business Journal.
