Members of the St. Robert Planning and Zoning Commission quickly voted Wednesday evening to recommend unconditional approval by the city council of final plats for several streets in the Wal-Mart area that will cost $2.3 million to build, and then moved on to a broader discussion of future city growth.
St. Robert Boulevard has become increasingly congested with heavy traffic in recent years and the new streets are intended to take some of that traffic away from St. Robert Boulevard by providing additional access roads.
The streets are the McKinnon-Carson Extension and Fairfield Bypass. All are under the jurisdiction of the North Town Village/Interstate Plaza Transportation Commission, which levies a special tax on businesses on St. Robert Boulevard and surrounding streets that’s used to improve and upgrade roads and other infrastructure in that area of the city.
The Fairfield Bypass, as the name implies, is a short bypass road running next to the Fairfield Inn south of Carmel Valley Way and then due east until it hits a portion of St. Robert Boulevard that runs north-south next to the Cracker Barrel restaurant and the city water tower.
The McKinnon-Carson Extension is a more complex project that will open up significant areas to the north for more development. McKinnon Street already exists, but it’s a small residual road running south of St. Robert Boulevard near Meeks Lumber that predates the transportation district. The new project will extend McKinnon Street northward from St. Robert Boulevard until it meets Carson Boulevard, which is now a fairly small north-south access road along the eastern edge of the new Lowe’s Hardware store but will veer northwest until it intersects with McKinnon Street. Longer-term plans call for continuing Carson Boulevard until it intersects with Zeigenbein, opening up land areas to the north of St. Robert Boulevard to both commercial and residential development.
To avoid potential problems, the contractor building the new roads has submitted a $2.3 million performance, payments and maintenance bond, according to documents presented Wednesday evening by Land Use Administrator Alan Clark. The bonding company will take care of finishing the project if the developer and contractor fail to do so, or if the street construction proves to be substandard within a year of completion.
That’s extremely unlikely, Clark said.
“In a worst-case scenario, if something would happen this would indemnify us and the city, and the bonding company would pay for the project to be finished,” Clark said. “With the contractors we have in place, that won’t happen.”
The last prominent construction project in the area for which bond companies had to foot the bill was a Waynesville beautification project run by Hogan Construction of Rolla. Work stopped for weeks on Waynesville sidewalks and streets after Hogan ran out of money to pay its bills until the bonding company paid to complete what had become a major eyesore and embarrassment to Waynesville leaders.
Commission member Frank Herbert asked for clarification on why the city was planning a $2.3 million road construction project.
“Why do you spend all this money to build up new streets before you have finished all the streets now in the city?” Herbert asked.
Clark said that’s a good question that others have asked as well.
“The road that is out there is on the other side of the Interstate, and it’s not ours,” Clark said, noting that the cost to build and maintain McKinnon Street, Carson Boulevard and the Fairfield Bypass will be paid entirely by the transportation district from the special tax on businesses in that area that will benefit from the new roads.
- —
