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By DAN TELVOCK
Cafaro Co. officials want to finish the Harrison Road Connector by October 2010, a schedule that could present challenges for Spotsylvania County leaders.
If that goal is met, the 1-mile road that begins at the back of the Spotsylvania Towne Centre and ends at Harrison Road at Carriage Hill Lane will be finished two years before Harrison Road west is widened to four lanes.
That means a connector road designed to funnel traffic off of State Route 3 now may worsen the traffic on Harrison Road until improvements to that two-lane road are made.
J.J. Cafaro Jr. told engineers at a meeting Wednesday that he wants the June 2011 completion date pushed up to October 2010, when he expects the redevelopment of the existing mall and a new lifestyle center to be finished. Cafaro Co. officials agreed to build the road in exchange for a rezoning of the mall property.
Becky Golden, Spotsylvania's director of capital projects management, said the Board of Supervisors decided in July to delay the $13 million widening of Harrison Road west to Salem Church Road to coincide with the connector-road completion date. She estimated both projects would be done in December 2012.
Money that had been set aside for widening Harrison Road was used to fund other projects.
"I think this is overly ambitious," she told Cafaro Co. representatives at Wednesday's meeting.
Supervisor Gary Jackson said county officials always anticipated both projects would finish at the same time.
"It will certainly exacerbate the traffic conditions that currently exist on Harrison Road," if the connector road is finished first.
There is not funding to widen Harrison Road east, so part of the road will remain two lanes, which creates a bottleneck. Golden said improvements will be made at the intersection of Harrison and U.S. 1.
The design of the connector road is about 60 percent complete, which is the point when state transportation and county officials review and comment on the plan. Engineers said they would like to put the project up for bids in December 2009.
Cafaro's October 2010 goal is ambitious because the company has not acquired rights-of-way from private landowners. A majority of neighbors of the project and those affected by the road's path are opposed to it.
David DeChristofaro, vice president of engineering and development for Cafaro Co., said appraisals of the private property are almost done. If property owners do not agree to sell their land based on the appraisals, the county will be responsible for exercising its power of eminent domain, which allows a locality to force land sales for public projects.
"The only area that we can lose ground in is with eminent domain," he said. "It will be how fast the county moves through that process."
Dan Telvock: 540/374-5438
Email: dtelvock@freelancestar.com
CONNECTOR ROAD Q&A How much will it cost? The connector road could cost as much as $58 million, more than double estimates from 2006. Who pays for it?A Community Development Authority, which is a special tax district that adds an additional tax levy on property included in the CDA boundary, will pay for the road. In addition to mall business owners, there are 16 private property owners who could be taxed in the CDA. David DeChristofaro, vice president of engineering and development for Cafaro Co., said the mall will pay for all road costs if private landowners sign a covenants agreement that exempts them from the special tax unless they change the use of their property to benefit from the new road. He said the company offered each landowner $5,000 to pay for any legal fees they incur in negotiating the covenants agreement. What do the landowners think about that?Only two people have signed the agreement, and at least one person has hired an attorney to fight the project. |
