Published: February 18, 2007 01:34 am      

DOH has new plan with Connector

Acquiring property, demolishing structures, completing I-79 work are leading objectives

FAIRMONT — After a year of uncertainty about federal funding for Fairmont’s new Gateway Connector — as well as trying to find matching funds in an already strained state roads budget — state Division of Highways engineers have a new plan to move forward on the 1 1/2-mile link between downtown and Interstate 79.

Details are still being plugged in, but in the next 18 months, DOH officials said they want to:

• Buy or make purchase offers for the property of all of the remaining homeowners and small businesses in the road’s path through the East Side to the High Level Bridge.

• Award a second demolition contract this spring for another 46 homes and garages between the old State Street School and the Robert H. Mollohan Jefferson Street Bridge (the High Level Bridge).

• Finish widening I-79 to add a third lane plus a merging lane in both directions for the new road’s interchange at Exit 136.

Last July, Marvin Murphy, state highways engineer, said it would take as much as $65 million and three to four more “construction seasons” or years to finish the road.

The DOH estimate then was that it would take about $30 million to buy the remaining right of way and $35 million to finish building it.

U.S. Rep. Alan B. Mollohan has used the earmark process to provide federal funding for the road in his hometown.

By 1998, the road’s route was selected. Construction began in 2002 on the new bridge over the interstate for the new interchange.

But the state placed two of three contracts that were supposed to be awarded last spring on hold when criticism of federal earmarks by Congress reached its peak. One of the suspended contracts was to finish grading and paving the entrance and exit ramps for the interchange. The other was begin construction from the High Level Bridge to the old State Street School.

Both contracts remain on hold. But in interviews this month, DOH officials say they can accomplish the three goals set out above. Last summer, DOH officials said they were prepared to match $17.6 million in federal funding with $4.4 million in state funding over the next six years.

Last December, Mollohan said a decision to strip earmarks from most appropriation bills until October and the start of a new federal fiscal year was “unfortunate, but necessary.”

With Democrats now in control of both chambers, he said the road is only being delayed, not canceled.

With U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd chairing the Senate Appropriations Committee again and Mollohan chairing a subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee, state officials are counting on their clout to get funding for the road.

Congress is expected to reach agreement on new rules for earmarks (projects outside a presidential budget) later this year, in time for projects like the new road to be considered for funding in the federal 2008 budget.

Meanwhile, the interstate widening project is scheduled to be done in April 2008, said Danny Donlin Jr. He is the area construction engineer for the DOH’s District 4 office in Clarksburg.

Before winter set in, construction crews with Ahern & Associates, the South Charleston firm with the $15,046,900 contract, got the new steel decking in place to widen the existing interstate bridge over Pleasant Valley Road.

When the weather breaks, the company will pour the concrete for the new lanes on that bridge. It will also continue widening the interstate from the Downtown Fairmont exit (Exit 137) to the Pleasant Valley Road exit (Exit 135).

The interchange will likely not be opened before the road is built to the High Level Bridge, said Donlin and Dirar Ahmad, the DOH’s project manager for the road. Fairmont General Hospital officials floated that idea when the hospital was considering the new interchange as the site for a new medical fitness facility. The new FGH facility is now slated for location near the Middletown Mall.

Opening the interchange before the road through town is built would “result in dumping a lot of traffic on a local city street (State Street Extended), which is not designed to carry that much,” said Ahmad, a highways engineer in Charleston.

“Our No. 1 priority now is the people in the path of the road,” Ahmad said.

“We want to acquire all of the right of way so they can go on with their lives,” he said.

Building a new state road in a developed area presents additional challenges. Not only must property be purchased, homeowners and businesses have to be resettled. Regulations on asbestos abatement add another wrinkle and more time to the demolition part of the job, Ahmad indicated.

“It’s really a lengthy process with all the federal and state guidelines that must be followed,” he said.

Rogers Craig Stevens, a realty manager with the state Transportation Department, said his office now can make purchase offers to property owners between the old State Street School and the interstate. Stevens is working out of the DOH’s District 4 headquarters in Clarksburg.

“We’re ramping back up to where we were several years ago,” Stevens said.

“The money is there now. Our goal — it’s optimistic, but it certainly is one we feel we can do — is to make an offer for all the properties that are needed within the next 18 months,” he said.

“We’re almost running out of qualified real estate appraisers and ‘abstract’ lawyers (those who specialize in title searches) in the area” to start the new purchasing surge, Stevens said.

Last July, Stevens estimated the state had purchased about 51 percent of the properties it needs (138 of 271 parcels).

Property owners who want to sell their property now instead of waiting to be contacted by DOH right-of-way agents can take part in an “advanced acquisition program.”

They must write a letter with a personal reason for an early purchase by the state, such as their need to move out of state. The letter should be addressed to: Rogers C. Stevens Jr., Right of Way Office, P.O. Box 4220, Clarksburg, WV 26302-4220.

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.