Spa City road project ahead of schedule

King Expressway extension slated to be wrapped up in August of next year

HOT SPRINGS — Construction of the $79 million, 5.8-mile extension of the King Expressway from the U.S. 70 East interchange to the junction of Arkansas 5 and Arkansas 7 is ahead of schedule, the Arkansas Department of Transportation says.

The state transportation agency presented the progress McGeorge Contracting has made since the work order was issued Dec. 26, 2019, taking The Sentinel-Record on a tour of the project last week.

McGeorge was awarded the $75,151,270 contract in November 2019. Change orders have increased the cost to $79 million, the state transportation department’s District 6 Engineer Deric Wyatt said. The $54.6 million bond issue Garland County voters approved in a June 2016 special election contributed $30 million to the project. The 0.625% countywide sales tax voters authorized is securing the debt.

The project timeline called for an August 2022 completion, but Wyatt said McGeorge is ahead of schedule. The first lift of the two-lift asphalt surface mix has already been applied to much of the 5.8 miles. Barring any significant weather delays this winter, the road could open to traffic earlier than expected, Wyatt said, noting the two-lane extension through the rugged backcountry east of Hot Springs National Park will cut travel time in half between Hot Springs and Hot Springs Village.

Offering a panorama of Hot Springs to the south and west and remote ridges to the north and east, the imposing ridgeline Promise Land Drive crosses the southern end of the extension. The state transportation department considered boring a tunnel through the ridge but said in December 2017 the cut-and-fill method was more cost-effective.

Wyatt said excavation and blasting cleared a path through the ridge, which, according to the October 2019 geotechnical report, consists mostly of novaculite. Rock removed from the ridge was used to build embankments on either side of the road.

“They took a drill rig and drilled down and put dynamite down there and blasted it out,” he said. “That busts the rock up, and they can haul it off.”

The excavated material accounts for a large part of the more than 2 million cubic yards of rock and dirt the transportation agency said the project has displaced. Wyatt said when selecting an alignment for a new road, the transportation department strives for minimal disturbance. The department acquired more than 60 right of way pieces for the project, securing a 200-foot corridor wide enough to expand the road to four lanes.

Act 675 of 2021 designated the extension as a scenic highway.

“You have to look at utility conflicts, properties and environmental issues,” he said. “There’s a lot that goes into picking an alignment. We try to pick a path of least resistance and the least amount of impact.”

The Arkansas Department of Agriculture acquired about 300 acres near the extension’s corridor in early 2020. The $975,000 acquisition from Deltic Timber will protect part of the area that captures and conveys water to thermal springs in the national park. A clause in the deed prohibits disturbance of the property other than what is required to preserve its health and sustainability.

A report the Federal Highway Administration approved in April 2019 said 189 acres of the more than 23,000-acre recharge area is inside the extension’s corridor. The report said the state transportation department would permanently protect 60 acres at an elevation of 660 feet or higher.

That’s the height geologists have said is the minimum elevation from which runoff can reach the park’s thermal springs via ground fractures and faults in the recharge zone. Runoff entering at a lower elevation doesn’t have the hydraulic force to descend to depths of 7,000 feet, where it gets heated to 170 degrees before rising to the surface. Putting drainage or impermeable surfaces at or above the 660-foot threshold blocks or diverts rainfall that would otherwise replenish the springs, geologists have said.

During the tour, subcontractor Manhattan Road & Bridge worked on piers for the Promise Land overpass, as cutting through the ridge left a gap in Promise Land Drive.

“Within a month they’ll have beams across the top of it,” Wyatt said.

Overpasses are also going in at Covenant Trail Road, Mill Creek Road, Denise Lane and Quarry Mountain Road. Access ramps are also going in at those locations, Wyatt said.

The bridge being built over the Saline River tributary near the roundabout at the highways 5 and 7 junction is the northernmost of the project’s 10 bridges and overpasses, according to the geotechnical report.

The roundabout is part of the project to widen 4.17 miles of Park Avenue from Gorge Road to the junction. Bowden Specialities Inc. was awarded the $18.5 million contract in September 2020. According to a summary of District 6 projects, the Park Avenue project is scheduled to be completed in late 2023, but Wyatt said the contract stipulates the roundabout will be completed by the time the expressway extension opens to traffic.

The roundabout will be the nexus for the extension, Arkansas 5 and Arkansas 7 north.

“The plan right now is to open the roundabout before Christmas,” Wyatt said.