ZEBULON - The town may construct sidewalks to connect Zebulon Elementary and Middle schools to the Zebulon Boys & Girls Club on the corner of Old Bunn and Shepard School roads.

The sidewalk connector projects on Shepard School Road and Proctor Street are estimated to cost $446,213, and with the aid of a grant, the town would need to pay $89,242.

But the proposal to pursue a Community Development Block Grant is complicated by the fact 70 percent of the Proctor Street project that would connect the club to Zebulon Elementary is outside town limits.

Each year, the grant funnels money from the federal government to Wake County, which in turn receives funding requests from its municipalities and determines where the money will be best spent.

Zebulon commissioners recently put a hold on Planning Director Mark Hetrick's proposal to pursue grant funding for both projects until he could contact Wake County Housing and Community Revitalization to determine if that agency will help the town meet its matching obligation. Hetrick plans to ask county officials this week if they will help meet the match. "We'll ask the county if they'll be willing to participate. Whether it's all of that or some of that is up to them, but if they're unable to participate in that cost it will likely be something our board will chose not to forward as a project to the county," Hetrick said.

Hetrick said grant requests must be submitted by Dec. 16. Housing and Community staff ranks the requests and passes them on to the Wake County Board of Commissioners to vote on whether or not they want to use the funds for those projects.

Hetrick said he'd hate to guess on the likelihood the county would agree to join the town in the project.

County officials are equally uncertain at this point."Nothing's been brought to us at this point, but we have done this in the past," Wake County Human Resources spokesman Wil Glenn said Wednesday. . "That's basically the way the program works."

Though the sidewalk projects would both connect the Boys & Girls Club to nearby schools, they've been broken down into separate projects by the government.

The stretch of sidewalk from the club to Zebulon Elementary School would cost an estimated $238,811. Zebulon's share of that project would be $47,762. Hetrick plans to ask the county to pay $33,433 of the town's $47,000 cost.

The sidewalk from Zebulon Middle School to the club would cost $207,402. Zebulon's share of that total would be $41,480.

If the Zebulon town board wins the grant, with or without the county's help, construction on the projects could begin as early as July 1 at the start of the next fiscal year.

The town would bid the sidewalk connector projects out to contractors like most other sidewalk improvement projects it approves.

Zebulon has received close to $3.8 million in CDBG funds since 1993.