BROOMFIELD, Colo. -

How do you welcome dozens of construction workers to the neighborhood? How do you make way for 1.6 billion gallons of water? And what do you do with millions of tons of dirt?

Those are some of the questions residents of the Wildgrass and Wilcox Estates subdivisions might ask city engineers Wednesday at an informational meeting about their future neighbor, the Broomfield Reservoir.

The meeting is to let people in the two neighborhoods know how they will be affected by one of the biggest public works projects in Broomfield's history, project engineer Nancy Arthur said.

The reservoir will have a surface area of 100 acres and be about 75-feet deep when filled. It will be bordered by Northwest Parkway and Sheridan parkways, and the Wildgrass neighborhood will be on its south shore.

It will be an enormous effort. The city estimates 4 million cubic yards of dirt will be moved across Sheridan Parkway through specially built underpasses. It will take 200,000 "scraper trips" to move the dirt.

Construction could last about two years, Arthur said.

The city intended to start work on the reservoir in September, but work was delayed after the initial cost estimate hit $93.5 million. The plans were turned over to independent engineers to try to find places where money could be saved, Assistant City and County Manager Kevin Standbridge said.

The changes they made and a sharp drop in the cost of construction materials has brought the projected cost down to about $75 million, Standbridge said.

But it might be less than that. Three construction companies made bids for the contract, City and County Manager George Di Ciero told City Council on Tuesday. A winner hasn't been picked, but Di Ciero said all of the contractors were willing to work for much less than the city expected.

It might be a rare instance of Broomfield benefiting from the recession, Di Ciero said.

"People are probably pretty hungry for some work," he said.

Construction should begin in April or May, Standbridge said.

The reservoir will do more than hold water. The Open Space and Trails and Parks and Recreation advisory committees are working on a plan to decide what activities to allow in the water or on the land surrounding the reservoir. That also will be discussed at Wednesday's meeting, Arthur said.

Many activities were discussed, and some were quickly eliminated.

"Everybody wanted swimming in the reservoir. People weren't too psyched about have an RV campground right there," Arthur said.