{"id":70244,"date":"2016-10-14T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wilson-gulch-road-nears-completion\/"},"modified":"2016-10-14T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T17:00:00","slug":"wilson-gulch-road-nears-completion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wilson-gulch-road-nears-completion\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilson Gulch Road nears completion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:f0873a27-d7c8-4436-80e8-2c96ba8dbc21 --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/f40iTMtJhLA\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The way to a new retail center near<\/p>\n<p>The $9.8 million Wilson Gulch Road connects the Grandview Interchange, better known as the Bridge to Nowhere, to Mercy Regional Medical Center. The road should be open in a week or two.<\/p>\n<p>City of Durango, La Plata County and Colorado Department of Transportation officials gathered Thursday morning beneath the traffic lights for a future intersection to celebrate the road, which all the agencies helped fund.<\/p>\n<p>Almost everyone sported trucker hats reading \u201cRoad to the Future\u201d during the speeches and short procession.<\/p>\n<p>The road was built to serve new big-box retail stores, and the area south of the road adjacent to U.S. Highway 160 is likely to develop first, said Nicol Killian, Durango\u2019s assistant community development director.<\/p>\n<p>La Plata County residents spend about $40 million annually shopping in Farmington, according to a 2011 study.<\/p>\n<p>The new center will stop some of the loss of sales tax revenues, Mayor Christina Rinderle said, adding, \u201cThis is going to be so phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The spur will relieve some of the traffic at Highway 160 and Three Springs Boulevard, said Mike McVaugh, CDOT\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2dfvfBZ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Region 5<\/a> transportation director.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think you will see an immediate use,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>It will likely be faster for drivers, including emergency vehicles, headed to the hospital or Three Springs because they can bypass the traffic light at Three Springs Boulevard, he said.<\/p>\n<p>However, it will be awhile before anyone can try it. The road will remain closed while crews pour concrete to hold manhole covers in place, finish striping the streets and install a sign, Durango Community Development Director Kevin Hall said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe concrete needs to cure for several days before it can be tested and put under the stress of traffic,\u201d he said in an email.<\/p>\n<p>While the work may be complete next week, it may be two weeks before the barricades are pulled back and the road opened, Hall said.<\/p>\n<p>The road was scheduled to be completed last fall, but it was delayed by weather and financial issues.<\/p>\n<p>The city, La Plata County and the CDOT contributed a total of $8.2 million for the project, but the city couldn\u2019t find a contractor to complete the project for that price, said City Manager Ron LeBlanc.<\/p>\n<p>So the city cut landscaping and sidewalks out of the 2015 budget and contracted with Four Corners Materials to complete the road.<\/p>\n<p>Utilities were a third of the project cost. The other large-ticket items were the soil and rock excavation, road base preparation, concrete curb and gutter, and the asphalt, City Engineer Gregg Boysen said.<\/p>\n<p>The city set aside additional money in 2016 to pay for project completion. Clarke and Co. from Grand Junction were hired  for landscaping, irrigation and a 10-foot sidewalk, Boysen said.<\/p>\n<p>Developers will be responsible for phasing in new roads to serve their stores.<\/p>\n<p>The Planning Department has reviewed early conceptual site plans for projects that could occur along Wilson Gulch Road, but no development plans have been submitted, Boysen said.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, U.S. Highway 550 will be realigned to connect with the Grandview Interchange and replace the Farmington Hill intersection.<\/p>\n<p>CDOT applied for a federal grant aimed at freight corridors to fund the project, but the effort was unsuccessful, McVaugh said. Realigning Highway 550 could cost $80 million.<\/p>\n<p>CDOT is pursuing other federal and state funding opportunities, McVaugh said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-scoreboard\">\n<h4 class=\"scoreboard-title\">Wilson Gulch by the numbers<\/h4>\n<p>Seven-tenths of a mile long.<br>\n                1 traffic signal, in preparation for Ewing Mesa Road construction.<br>\n                163 trees.<br>\n                1,010 perennials.<br>\n                304 shrubs.<br>\n                7 acres of land.<br>\n                8,050 tons of asphalt.<br>\n                40,300 tons of gravel.<br>\n                2.6 miles of concrete curb and gutter.<br>\n                A 10 foot wide shared use sidewalk from the U.S. Highway 550 roundabout to High Llama Lane. It connects to the SMART 160 Trail.<br>\n                Required the relocation of 1,750 lineal feet of Chevron North America Corp.\u2019s active 8-inch natural gas pipeline and 2 production water pipelines. This relocation required $505,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>$9.8 million road, which connects to Mercy Regional, should be open in a week or two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[459,13,445,1685,3457,316],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-70244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-construction-and-property","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-road-work-and-conditions","tag-three-springs","tag-video"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70244"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=70244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}