Parkville officials are hosting a series of public informational meetings detailing proposed plans for re-structuring a major thoroughfare through downtown with the goal of improving traffic flow, pedestrian and driver safety while providing more parking.
The proposals are outlined on the city’s website under the heading, “Redefine Route 9,” which refers to Hwy. 9, which at points creates sharp curve, leading to a bottleneck especially during morning and afternoon rush hours.
The proposals include six possible scenarios for improvements, according to the GBA engineering firm which is managing the project.
The $8,342.663 estimated cost would be funded by several grants: Missouri Transportation Block Grant, $3.2 million; Governor’s Transportation Cost Share, $1,787,950 and Platte County, $500,000, according to the city’s website.
The estimated budget breakdown is: construction, $4,063,496; additional costs, $1,791,334; contingency, $1,099,096; engineering and design, $1,388,737, the website states.
At one recent meeting, Mayor Dean Katerndahl explained the history of the progression of improvements to Hwy. 9, including the board of aldermen’s 2016 adoption of a corridor study which tackled Hwy. 9 from Hwy. 45 to past Park University, east and to the nearby city of Riverside.
Chris Cline of Parkville, an official with sub-contractor Confluence, a landscape design firm also handling public communications, addressed a packed house of about 100 people March 10.
The mayor told those assembled that a goal is to maintain the city’s quaint charm while providing more, better and safer access to downtown. He said a citizen at an earlier public meeting referenced “nibbling at the edges,” or making minimal changes, vs. “doing something significant.”
Katerndahl said officials decided to take their cue from that citizen and have devised several substantial, larger plans from which to choose.
Engineers with the main contractor, GBA, are using comments and input to continue to refine proposals and are applying costs to those plans, Katerndahl said during a telephone interview following the meeting, adding that they continue to be “conceptual plans.”
Katerndahl said the first few meetings about the plans were somewhat “turbulent…because a few concepts more directly affected property owners.”
For instance, some options call for tearing down the iconic Power Plant building, located west of Main near the railroad tracks and could be the location of a new roadway. The Power Plant building is currently owned by the South Platte Memorial Post 7356 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which acquired the historic structure last November.
Some plans also call for adding parking spaces there, as well. Some proposals also call for tearing down a nearby building that currently is leased to a virtual golf game establishment, Katerndahl said. If eliminated, city officials would attempt to help the golf business to find a new location, he said.
City officials have therefore met with some downtown property owners, including some members of the downtown association and “tried to assuage any concerns they had that everybody would be treated very fairly,” he said. He added officials may continue to meet with some downtown property owners over the next few months as questions arise.
Only some, not all, of the options include tearing down buildings and those could be eliminated due to cost, he said. If buildings are to be demolished, city officials would negotiate a price with property owners, he said.
The next public meeting regarding proposals will be held sometime in June, though a date has not yet been set, he said. In addition, the Board of Aldermen will take up suggestions at one of their June meetings to further refine the process and come closer to selecting a final plan.
