FAIRHOPE — Potential federal funding for extending the Baldwin Beach Express would come with a price tag of about $100 million, putting the support out of reach for the county commission, county officials said Monday, April 4.

At a county commission work session in Fairhope, Joey Nunnally, county engineer, said recent federal infrastructure legislation is making funds available for projects like the extension of the Beach Express north from Interstate 10 to Interstate 65.

Those grants, however, would require the county to spend more local money than most other grants, he said.

"We started digging into details. The details deflated my bubble a little bit because it's a 60-40 split, 60% federal money, 40% match," Nunnally said.

He said the total cost of the extension is estimated to be about $250 million.

"A 60-40 split, that's $100 million that we have to come up with from county funds to chase after this grant project with time, effort and money to just happen to jump as high as $100 million," Nunnally told commissioners.

He said one provision in the funding plan would allow other federal grants to be used to pay some of the county's share of the cost. The county, however, would still have to pay at least $50 million if other funding could be found.

"There is a clause that says you can match some of this 60% with another additional 20% of other federal money which basically means it's an 80-20 split," Nunnally said. "Which puts us at $50 million that we've got to come up with, still a big pot of money to come up with."

Commission Chairman Jeb Ball said county officials are working on a toll study and other possible ways to pay the cost of the project. He said county officials should also consider spending large amounts of money on a route that could become a state highway in the future.

"What's the state's going to do? They talked about taking this road over," Ball said. "I don't want to spend all this money, if they're going to spend some money or at least be helping us out with some of these grants or whatever."

Commissioner Joe Davis said the county should continue to communicate with the Alabama Department of Transportation on the project. He said ALDOT should be told that while the county cannot pay the 40% required by the federal grants, local officials are still working on moving forward with the project.

"We need to work with them," Davis said. "I don't want them to see this as us passing up on this opportunity because it had a lot of holes in it."

Nunnally said county officials are still looking for other ways to pay some of the cost of the extension project.

"There're other pots of money that we have, right now that we do not have a notice of funding opportunity out there yet," Nunnally said. "We continue to keep an eye on those different pots of money and the numbers that come out, and we may be able to tap into one of those and go after that."

The Baldwin Beach Express now runs from the Intracoastal Waterway in Orange Beach to I-10. The next phase of the project would extend the four-lane highway 24.5 miles north to I-65, according to county reports. The project would include 18 bridges and interchanges with I-65 and U.S. 31 near Bay Minette.