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PrintA $12 million project that will connect Business Loop 70 to Conley Road cleared a major hurdle Wednesday when the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission agreed to sell land occupied by a state highway maintenance facility.
The project will be financed by a special sales tax collected within the Conley Road Transportation Development District that encompasses Broadway Marketplace, the home of a Wal-Mart Supercenter, Lowe’s, Sam’s Club and other retail businesses.
Craig Van Matre, an attorney representing both the TDD and developers, said that the connection will take about three years to finish and that construction could begin as early as this summer.
Van Matre said the road extension had been on the table for about 10 years, but funding was always an issue. The TDD, however, relieved the city of Columbia and the Missouri Department of Transportation of that burden.
Roger Schwartze, District 5 engineer for the transportation agency, said the state supports the Conley Road/Business Loop connection as a way of relieving congestion at the intersection of Interstate 70 and Highway 63, which has already undergone major reconstruction. An earlier study proposed connecting Conley and the Business Loop to improve traffic flow and safety.
Schwartze said he also believes the connection will improve commerce by linking businesses on the loop with Broadway Marketplace. He added that the developers have been given clearance to have the connection cross Hinkson Creek.
The Transportation Department will move its maintenance facility, which includes a salt dome, gravel and road-building materials and machinery, to Highway 63 and Route B in northeast Columbia. The facility in the past has been identified as a problem because it pollutes Hinkson Creek, which is a federally designated impaired waterway.
The new connection road will cut through the Columbia Country Club golf course, which will undergo a course redesign, plus several tracts of property. The golf course agreed to sell its property to the TDD in exchange for four acres of land adjacent to its course for future use. The TDD, however, does not yet own those four acres.
Van Matre predicted the city will have to condemn that property before the TDD can step in and buy it.
The next step is to have design engineers and surveyors come in and determine exactly how much land and what easements will be necessary for the connection, which will be more than a mile long. Van Matre said he expects little trouble in acquiring easements from land owners along the Business Loop. Engineering and surveying could take anywhere from three to six months, he said.
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