Whittier

A $257,000 contract to widen and improve streets around the Hilton Hotel site has been approved by the Whittier City Council. A Los Angeles firm, J.E.G. Construction Co., was awarded the contract and is expected to begin work in two weeks on the four streets surrounding the eight-story, $13.5-million hotel now under construction in Uptown Village.

The hotel developer, Duffel Financial Co., will pay for about $40,000 of the improvements--mostly widening of Bright Avenue for street parking--with Whittier’s Redevelopment Agency picking up the balance. Addition of curbs, gutters, striping and landscaping along Bright, Penn Street, Greenleaf Avenue and Mar Vista Street should be completed about the time the hotel opens in mid-January, said Clyde Haight, the city’s public works director.

Besides the street work, the Duffel company also must pay about $40,000 for new street lights on Penn and Bright and a traffic signal at the corner of Penn and Greenleaf, Haight said.