WILMINGTON – If the state has to take Greg Harts’ home to make way for a major road extension, he said he could lose a lot of invested money.
“The home was bought at the height of the market,” Harts told N.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) officials at an August 28 meeting packed with residents whose properties could be impacted by the project, a 3.5-mile extension of Military Cutoff Road from its current terminus at Market Street north to the U.S. 17 Wilmington Bypass.
Harts’ home is on Putnam Drive, in a residential area partly in the path of the proposed six-lane divided roadway. “The market has fallen,” he said, so the fair market value the state would offer him for his home could be considerably less than what he paid for it.
It would also cramp any attempt to sell his property, and he said he wondered about his remaining mortgage payments.
“Those are very good questions,” DOT Project Development and Environmental Analysis Division staffer Jamille Robbins told Harts before assuring that the state would address all questions from property owners affected by the project.
It would displace 13 residential properties, 27 commercial properties and two nonprofits, according to the DOT’s summary. Right-of-way acquisition is set to begin in 2014 and construction in 2017.
The project, expected to cost more than $113 million, would begin at Military Cutoff’s current intersection with Market Street and snake north through vacant county property between Ogden Park and residential areas. The road would turn northwest and end near Plantation Road and Crooked Pine Road at an interchange to be built at the John Jay Burney Jr. Freeway, also known as the U.S. 17 Wilmington Bypass.
With a “superstreet” configuration involved, cars would only be able to turn right onto the road from side streets and make U-turns at median breaks farther down the road in order to travel the opposite way, as opposed to simply making a left turn from the side street.
While members of the public snickered at the design as Robbins explained it Tuesday, he insisted it was in the interest of safety. “I know a lot of you think that that is you driving out of the way,” he said, “but one of the most dangerous moves you can make in a vehicle is a left-turn movement.”
He added that FedEx and UPS have eliminated such left-turn movements from routes for that reason.
Business owners aired their concerns, as well. Fred Johnson, who for the past 25 years has owned and operated the Cardinal Lanes bowling alley on Market Street just north of the Military Cutoff intersection, said he was “very much upset” about a potential reduction in customers due to new routes they might have to take to reach his business. “It’s going to be hard,” he said. “It’s going to hurt my business considerably.”
Eric Letendre, manager of the Mr. Store It mini-storage business on Market Street slightly south of the current Military Cutoff intersection, wanted the DOT to advise him on a time-frame for having to potentially relocate hundreds of tenants. “We also live above the office,” he added, “so there are a lot of variables there that affect us quite a bit.”
Robbins assured that the DOT’s right-of-way acquisition staffers would contact all affected property owners for guidance. “We will work with you, first, very early on, as soon as possible, to give you as much time as possible,” he said.
Gary Lovering of DOT’s Roadway Design Unit said the most frequent concerns he heard at Tuesday’s meeting with residents involved emergency response vehicles and access to businesses, and how the project could impede them. But he insisted the safety factors and the other point of the project—to reduce traffic congestion on U.S. 17/Market Street—would only help the area.
“Reduces congestion, it helps free up the flow in front of their business,” Lovering said. “A lot of the time you have people just sitting out there, stopped. It frees it up a little bit, and it’s safer.”
According to the DOT, 87 crashes occurred on Military Cutoff Road between Station Road and Market Street between Jan. 1, 2007 and Dec. 31, 2009. In the same period, 612 crashes, three of them fatal, occurred on Market Street between Station Road and the U.S. 17 Wilmington Bypass interchange at Market Street.
“Separating through traffic from the local traffic that is using the existing roadway to access schools, shopping and residential areas will enhance safety,” the project description states. It also notes the area’s continuing population growth that would only add to traffic danger and congestion.
DOT officials said they would work with public safety agencies to make sure ambulances, fire trucks and police cars would have clear and safe travel to emergencies after the redesign.
