Work on the current phase of the Higdon Ferry Road widening project should begin within six weeks, City Engineer Gary Carnahan said Friday.
"The roadway construction is going to be bid on Sept. 17. I would think the contract to build that would be signed and completed probably within a month after the bid opening. Then the contractor will be given a contract with a specified number of days to complete the project and will probably be given an incentive clause to earn extra money if he completes it more quickly," Carnahan said.
The city has spent more than $600,000 to relocate water and sewer lines on the work that stretches from Printers Place to just north of Crawford Drive along Higdon Ferry Road, Carnahan said.
The project will allow northbound traffic on Higdon Ferry Road to travel to Central Avenue via Crawford Drive, by redirecting traffic through the back parking lot of the Central City Shopping Center at the intersection of Emory Street. The northbound paving will end on Higdon Ferry Road at Harvard Street, with the remainder of Higdon Ferry Road scheduled to be repaved later this year by the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department, Carnahan said.
Emory Street, from Higdon Ferry Road to near Prichard Street, will also be paved, he said.
"We've been working on the utility relocations and there was a lot of that work to be done, because that was a major intersection for utilities. The water, sewer, gas and telephone are all completely moved, and Entergy is complete except for removing the old power poles. Resort TV Cable is in the process of moving their cable TV wires onto the new power poles and they say that will be complete by Sept. 12. Then Entergy will remove their old poles," he said.
Carnahan said one problem with completing the project before the middle of next year is a lack of asphalt during the winter months.
"Usually somewhere in December the asphalt plants stop producing asphalt. This project involves a lot of concrete retaining walls, which are kind of slow to build, so my thinking is that the contractor will do the rough grade dirt work, start building retaining walls and install new drainage pipes. I don't think they will be ready to pave this winter, but should be by next spring," he said, noting that the asphalt plants usually start up again in early spring, depending on the weather.
Carnahan said he doesn't expect the total project to be completed until around June 2015.
The original widening plans for Higdon Ferry called for the roadway to intersect Central Avenue at Golf Links Road, which would entail purchasing right of way from several commercial enterprises.
"It would cost about $2 million to buy that right of way. It was around 2011 when the city told the AHTD that it didn't have the money to buy the right of way to get to Golf Links, but that phase is not dead," Carnahan said. "It was not on the 2016-2019 Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan, but we asked the highway department to put it back. We haven't abandoned the idea that we'd like to do that some day."
Carnahan said he didn't know if the city could come up with that much money in the next three years, but travel on Higdon Ferry will be "a lot easier than it was before."
"I think we'll all be smart to get this built and kind of 'wear the new clothes' for a few years and then decide. We may feel like we're pretty comfortable with the arrangement, and go on from there," he said.
Local on 08/31/2014