Ark Valley News - Open road

Mayor Laurie Dove (center) and city council members (from left) Gina Gregory, Ben Anderson, Marci Maschino and Jake Jackson officially open Ford Street (77th North) on Nov. 9.

Open road
By Chris Strunk
Last Updated: November 19, 2015

It's done.

The trenches have been dug, the pipes put in place and the roads reconstructed.

Now, bring on the rain. Let's see what we get for $6.7 million.

The Ford and Meridian road project, which was designed to dramatically improve stormwater drainage in the heart of Valley Center and eliminate the so-called Baxter Springs for good, officially came to an end Nov. 9, eight long months after it began.

Mayor Laurie Dove and city council members cut a ribbon on the Ford Street bridge at 3 p.m. to open the road and signal the end of construction that at times brought the downtown business district to a standstill.

"I want to say thank you," Dove said. "Residents really have been patient. Our hometown businesses have really been patient as well and our school district. I hope that they enjoy what has come to fruition because of it."

Josh Golka, the city's engineer who works for PEC, said he's ready for the rain.

"I'm really excited about the final outcome," he said. "If you come out here and take a look around, you can really see the potential for progress and what we've done and the improvements. I'm really excited for the next rain event. … We really fixed a lot of safety issues. The outcome of this project will really speak for itself for decades to come."

Kelsey Parker, who lives in the nearby Prairie Lakes neighborhood along Ford, said she is glad the roads are open again.

"My husband and I are very grateful that we don't have to go all the way around anymore and we get to use the Valley Center Leeker's instead of the Park City Leeker's," Parker said. "I think the important thing for me and my family is the sidewalk. I'm a stickler on sidewalks and easy accessibility to parks and things like this, so having this sidewalk connecting us to Dollar General, we can take walks and we can walk to the park. That's a big deal to us."

While residents and officials praised the final outcome, the process hasn't been without its headaches.

The project, which has been described as the single largest public works project in the city's history and has been in some stage of discussion or planning for decades, started with some controversy in March.

The project started on March 16, and officials with the city's engineering firm and the contractor, UCI, agreed to close the intersection of Main and Meridian on March 23. Just days earlier, the business community had been told that the intersection would remain open until May.

Businesses had received no advance warning of the closure. The south end of Meridian near the railroad tracks also was closed. The city left access to the businesses from side road detours, but many business owners were caught off-guard by the decision.

The city's engineer said the closure made sense for the contractor and the project's overall timeline.

The city later admitted that it did a bad job communicating with businesses and the community early in the project. Officials improved communication with weekly briefings throughout the remainder of the work.

"The biggest lesson here is communication, keeping everybody up to speed," Golka said. "It's one thing to manage the project and make the right decisions to keep things moving along on budget and on schedule, just making sure everybody is kept up to speed on the progress and where we're headed next."

The project also cost more than the city had anticipated.

Originally estimated to be about $6.2 million, the pricetag shot over $6.7 million. The city had to take about $500,000 from fund balances in the 2016 budget to help pay for the overage.

Rain also played havoc with the project. Several heavy storms flooded Meridian and prompted city crews to close the street for hours at a time, making it impossible to access businesses in the area.

The flooding was worse during construction than it ever was before construction because the original surface drainage system was removed before the new underground drainage system was fully functional.

The project included the creation of a large detention pond south of Ford with an earthen channel directing water toward it. A pumphouse, equipped with massive electrical pumps, was constructed on the east edge of the pond. When water levels are high enough, the pumps move water from the detention pond to the Little Ditch, which sits about 1,000 feet to the east.

Dove said crews moved about 351 million cubic yards of dirt during the project.

"If you packed the dirt into the size of a football field, it would be about 20 stories tall," she said.

City officials are excited about the prospect of developing the property south of Ford Street.

"I see potential," Dove said. "I really do. It's potential for the existing hometown businesses we have now in terms of connectivity, but also it's time to dream about what we can do with this tract over here. We're just starting the process of that, but I can really see mixed use that's really a lifestyle center that serves a very important public use, to mitigate our flood risk, but also has amenities that our citizens can enjoy and I'd like to attract some other sectors to the community, too. I think we have a way to create something really novel for our community that can be really beneficial to us."

A wet pond, designed like the pond in Arrowhead Park, was constructed on the city-owned land. Around the pond are several acres that can be developed with residential properties. An apartment complex developer had shown interest in the property, but there have been no further talks. Along the southern edge of Ford are tracts suitable for commercial development.

"We literally paved the path for future economic development and amenities for our citizens to enjoy," Dove said.

Also with the project:

•Meridian was reduced from four lanes to three between Main and Clay.

•A sidewalk was installed on the east side of Meridian and along the north side of Ford, connecting the Prairie Lakes subdivision and the Brookfield Apartments with Meridian and the downtown business district.

•Ramsey, the diagonal road that connects Meridian and Ford, was reconstructed to form a 90-degree angle with Meridian in an effort to improve safety and reduce confusion.

•A new traffic-control light system was installed at the Main and Meridian, introducing pedestrian crossing lights to the intersection for the first time.

"I think in the long run, anything that helps keep water out of the places where we want to walk and play and make it more efficient for drainage and provides amenities such as sidewalks will totally be worth it," Parker said.