Canal Road Widening Set for Late 2009

Sunday, November 27, 2005
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter

"We've already got three-quarters of what the state was going to do for them," Russo said. "That would all be done prior to the state even starting -- that doesn't make money sense."
- Steve Russo, mayor


ORANGE BEACH -- For the past few years, city officials have believed that the Alabama Department of Transportation would embark on widening Canal Road from two lanes to five in 2006.

That would have meant that a frequently congested stretch between Alabama 161 and the Foley Beach Express toll bridge would be ready to better handle the traffic that large-scale developments such as The Wharf and Riverwalk Orange Beach are expected to generate when they open.

But in a recent meeting with Transportation Department officials, city leaders, to their chagrin, learned that Orange Beach's main thoroughfare, also known as Alabama 180, is not slated for enlargement until late 2009 -- more than a year after the primary phases of both big developments will be open.

"That's just not acceptable," Mayor Steve Russo said in an interview last week. "Especially when you look at the fact that the city of Orange Beach has once again used private money to help subsidize the project."

To date, three developers, in negotiations with the City Council, have agreed to widen sections of Canal Road that their projects will impact.

Tim James, a partner in the Foley Beach Express toll bridge who won approval in July to redevelop the 34-acre Reynolds Ready-Mix concrete plant into a 903-unit, high-rise condo project, will widen a half mile of the state highway across his property west to the entrance of the Beaver Creek subdivision.

Just west of James's property, AIG Baker LLC is building The Wharf, a mixed-use project that will feature about 1,000 condos and a million square feet of retail space. The project site straddles the toll bridge's southern landing and stretches for about seven-tenths of a mile along Canal Road. The Birmingham firm has agreed to widen this portion of the road before The Wharf opens next summer.

A few miles to the east, a group of developers agreed to expand the highway from Alabama 161 west to Wilson Boulevard -- the north-south street that Orange Beach Elementary is on -- as part of its plan to replace Walter Trent Marina on Terry Cove with a 462-unit condo tower called Grand Harbour.

That leaves the Department of Transportation a 2.2-mile section between Alabama 161 and The Wharf to widen.

"We've already got three-quarters of what the state was going to do done for them," Russo said. "That would all be done prior to the state even starting -- that doesn't make money sense."
Having two widened portions connected by a segment of two-lane road would likely cause traffic bottlenecks, and by not doing all of the construction at once, economy of scale would be lost, the mayor said.

Russo said he spoke with state Sen. Bradley Byrne, R-Montrose, and Gov. Bob Riley at a fund-raiser in Gulf Shores earlier last week about expediting the project's timeline and plans to talk more in depth with the governor this week.

City administrator Jeff Moon said that a committee of citizens and city officials who have compiled a list of transportation needs that would alleviate congestion and improve hurricane evacuations will also bring up the issue with Riley when they meet with him next month.

Though the actual construction of the additional lanes isn't slated until 2009, Ron Poiroux, the Transportation Department's Mobile division engineer, said planning and permitting work is well under way.

"The environmental work is basically complete and the plans are approximately 60 percent complete," Poiroux said. "In the current five-year plan the right-of-way acquisition will begin October 2007 and cost about $2.8 million."

In several spots -- though the Transportation Department is not yet sure exactly where -- the state does not own enough land to build the road, so strips of property must be acquired before construction can begin.

"I've even expressed to Sen. Byrne if right-of-way acquisition is a holdup or an issue, we will again step up to the plate and go out and get the right of ways or condemn them or whatever," Russo said.

Kit Alexander, Orange Beach's staff engineer, has been tasked with helping to acquire property from landowners in order to speed up the process, Moon said. Alexander said she's waiting for the state to finish surveys and release its list of needed land and then will approach owners.

At a recent Planning Commission meeting, city officials mentioned to a representative of one Canal Road property owner, Brett/Robinson, who sought approval to build an employee apartment complex, that the city will likely come back and ask for a strip of the firm's land so that the highway can be widened.

Russo said he expects the city to be able to round up the needed rights of way easily -- particularly from those bringing development plans to the city -- because a wider state highway will be good for business.

"Everybody knows we need it," he said. "The developers acknowledge that we've got to have these improvements and it's best for them."

For his part, Poiroux said that while the city's push to acquire rights of way during site plan reviews could help collect some property, the overall effect of more development may have a negative impact on the overall efforts to collect enough land.

"The more they build, the higher the price of right of way," Poiroux said. "I'm not sure if it's really helping us or not -- prices are really running sky high down there."