FAYETTEVILLE -- A major west Fayetteville street connection will give drivers a new way to get to Walmart, Lowe's and other businesses along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
City officials broke ground Wednesday on the $7.3 million project, which will extend Rupple Road about 1.5 miles from where it ends near the Boys & Girls Club and Owl Creek School to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
"I cannot tell you how excited I am," Mayor Lioneld Jordan told several dozen people gathered at the groundbreaking ceremony.
"In a meeting of the Transportation Committee about 2005, we laid out this road, and everybody said, 'It ain't gonna happen,'" Jordan added. "Today it is going to happen. We're here."
The Rupple Road extension is a crucial link in the mayor's longstanding plan for a "box" of four-lane boulevards around the perimeter of the city.
When complete, the street will feature two lanes in either direction with a grass median, street trees, a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on the east side, 12-foot-wide shared-use trail on the west side, three roundabouts and two traffic signals -- at Persimmon Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
"You're going to be able to take a car, you're going to be able to take a bike, you're going to be able to ride a bus or you're going to be able to walk all the way around this thing," Jordan said.
Other sides of the mayor's box are Crossover Road on the east side of town, Van Asche Drive to the north and Huntsville Road, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 15th Street to the south.
City Engineer Chris Brown said the paved path on the west side of Rupple eventually will connect to a trail on the south side of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near the former Ozark Mountain Smokehouse. Runners, hikers and cyclists will be able to use the trail to access a regional park off of Cato Springs Road and more than 7 miles of soft-surface nature trails atop Kessler Mountain.
Officials also view the Rupple Road extension as an economic development driver. Several large, vacant pastures are expected to proliferate with residential subdivisions and commercial properties in the coming years.
"If Mayor Jordan as a City Council member had not had this vision with others we wouldn't be here today," Steve Clark, president and CEO of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday. "That persevering is creating great opportunity for our great city: opportunity in the way of new families; opportunity in the way of new businesses; opportunity in the way of new jobs; and opportunity and improvement in the quality of life."
The City Council awarded the $7.3 million contract to Sweetser Construction last month. Work is expected to take about 12 months.
"We look forward to this being on budget and on time," Jordan said Wednesday. "I want everyone driving on this this time next year."
Jorgensen & Associates engineers designed the Rupple Road extension, which is the most expensive project in a $65.9 million sales-tax-backed bond program voters approved in 2006.
Other bond projects include Mount Comfort Road widening, an extension to Van Asche Drive west of the Northwest Arkansas Mall and a "flyover" bridge connecting northbound College Avenue to the Fulbright Expressway.
Design work is also underway for two other stretches of Rupple Road. Two new lanes will be added between Persimmon Street and Wedington Drive. And a disjointed intersection at Rupple and Mount Comfort roads will be moved to the east, making a new four-way stop. All of that construction is expected to last through the end of 2017.
The city's street plan shows Rupple Road eventually being extended from where it ends north of Holt Middle School. Four lanes are planned along it and Howard Nickell Road leading to an improved Van Asche Drive, but no timeline -- or funding source -- has been identified for that work.
NW News on 09/03/2015