LITTLE ROCK — State highway officials have scheduled a second public meeting to discuss changes to a Cantrell Road widening project that they say addresses concerns from residents and business owners.
The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department will hold the meeting next Thursday in Little Rock to discuss its revised plans for improvements to Cantrell Road east of North Mississippi Avenue. The proposed project will widen Cantrell, also known as Arkansas 10, to five lanes extending from Mississippi to Perryville Road.
“We’ve been doing some tweaking on the project that we are going to share with folks,” said David Nilles, a department spokesman. “Some of our written comments had some concerns. We will be showing changes [we made] since we met in early August.”
The project now is about 500 feet shorter than its original 0.65-mile length, he said. The department had proposed making the intersection of Cantrell and Perryville a traditional T intersection but now will leave it a diagonal intersection, Nilles said.
“We were getting a lot of feedback from the residents over there,” he said.
On the west end of the project, the department’s proposal to remove some parking at a Walgreens Drug Store at 7601 Cantrell Road has been scrapped, some of the right of way at a Shipley’s Do-Nuts shop at 7514 Cantrell has been restored, and the agency decided not to take a driveway from Nick’s Superstop at 7400 Cantrell, Nilles said.
Residents also didn’t want a sidewalk from Hughes Street east, he said. That area, instead, will feature a grass berm. A sidewalk remains planned from Hughes Street west. The design also will require the removal of one driveway from the Valley Heights Apartments at 6900 Cantrell.
Still to be resolved is the future of Ken Rash’s of Arkansas, a casual furnishing business at 7214 Cantrell, Nilles said. The road work, as designed, would eliminate much of the retailer’s park- ing, making it a candidate for relocation, he said.
“We didn’t get into their building,” Nilles said. “We are going to have to take their parking.”
The retailer’s proprietor, Lawrie Rash, didn’t return a telephone call Wednesday afternoon.
The meeting will be 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. next Thursday in the Fellowship Hall of First Christian Church, 1500 N. Mississippi Ave.
The public is invited to visit anytime during the scheduled hours to view displays, ask questions and offer comments, the department said. More information is available from the department’s environmental division at (501) 569-2281.
The department is widening Cantrell Road to make it safer, state highway officials said. About 33,000 cars travel the route daily. The project is estimated to cost $5 million.
A similar project was completed in May 2008, when a continuous left-hand turn lane extending west from Mississippi to Foxcroft Road was added to about a third of a mile for $1 million. Township Builders Inc. of Little Rock was awarded the contract in May 2005.
Both routes are heavily developed. The department spent almost $425,000 on rights-of-way acquisition on the project west from Mississippi. It also had to pay a $365,000 judgment after a property owner sued over how the project hurt two businesses on the property by changing their access.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/27/2011