Battlefield Parkway Construction Back On Track

The missing section of Battlefield Parkway from Rt. 7 East to Kincaid Boulevard is back on track, after members of the Leesburg town staff worked with representatives from the Virginia Department of Transportation to find an additional $14 million in funding to make up for the shortfall identified in late December.

If the council votes on the revised funding plan tonight, as anticipated, VDOT could issue its Request for Proposals Friday, setting in motion a 60-day bidding process that was intended to hit the streets a month ago, according to a timeline VDOT project manager Susan Shaw provided earlier this month.

Rather than pare down the project, which calls for building two bridges, each with two lanes, Town Manager John Wells suggested to council members Monday that they endorse transferring funds from the South King Street widening capital project, apply for a VDOT grant, dedicate future bonds to the project and transfer unused VDOT funding. Together, these four actions would provide the nearly $14 million in funding that was missing from the $43 million estimated budget.

"We're basically borrowing from projects in the future to meet our number one priority today," Wells told council members last night, adding "$8.4 million is being shifted around to meet this timeline so this project can go out to bid."

Nearly $4 million would be transferred from the South King Street widening project, which Nagi Elsewaissi, director of capital projects, said would not impact the planned safety and congestion improvements in the southern part of town. Although the widening project would be delayed, Elsewaissi said two other capital projects--the South King Street trail project and improvements at Virts Corner--will proceed and will address the pedestrian safety and vehicular congestion concerns, respectively.

Ten million dollars would be captured from an even combination of bonds the town issues in 2009 and a VDOT Transportation Partnership Opportunity Fund grant. The $5 million in bonds would be repaid using one-third of the town's allocation of VDOT Urban Funds over the next 20 years, Wells said, while the grant would not need to be repaid.

Councilwoman Katie Sheldon Hammler asked what would happen if the grant wasn't awarded, to which Elsewaissi said the town received "a high level of comfort that this project is a good candidate for $5 million in grant funds."

The $440,000 transfer of funds is from the East Market Street widening project that was completed under budget, according to Wells.

The council's vote would enable the project to continue under VDOT's design-bid process, with an anticipated fall 2009 opening. After learning of the shortfall in funding, council members asked town staff to consider taking over the road-building project, with Councilman Fernando "Marty" Martinez reiterating his desire to have town engineers oversee the construction, instead of VDOT.

But Wells said the fastest way to get the road built is to have VDOT continue a process on which it has already spent months.

"If this is our number one project. This is how to make it happen as quickly as possible," Wells said. For the past two years, the council has identified the completion of Battlefield as its number one goal.