Fayetteville construction nearly done

Shiloh Drive-Steele Boulevard junction is 3 months ahead of schedule

FAYETTEVILLE — Work on Shiloh Drive and its intersection with Steele Boulevard on the north side of town is on schedule to finish early next month, Public Works Director Chris Brown said.

Construction started in February and is about three months ahead of schedule, he said.

Left-turning traffic on Shiloh Drive from nearby shopping centers often backs up, Brown said. Cars have to yield to oncoming eastbound traffic from Gregg Avenue before they can turn.

Crews still have some paving and striping to do, Brown said. The goal is to turn on two new traffic signals on Shiloh Drive and have the project finished by June 6, he said.

The work stretches about 2,300 feet along Shiloh Drive, from near Gregg Avenue east to just past the intersection with Steele Boulevard. The project involves turning the Steele Boulevard and Shiloh Drive intersection into a standard T-intersection with a traffic signal, which has been done.

Work also is finished to widen a section of Shiloh Drive, where a right-turn lane leading to the Fulbright Expressway on-ramp will go. A traffic signal also hangs over the entrance and exit at the expressway. Crews are replacing sidewalks north of Shiloh Drive.

The City Council in October approved a nearly $1.7 million construction contract with Crossland Heavy Contractors Inc. to do the work. Money is coming from a transportation bond issue voters approved in April 2019. The project has stayed on budget, Brown said.

“We have a very competent contractor that has done well and scheduled well,” he said. “We did give them a lot of extra time because we weren’t sure about the delivery of all the signal poles and equipment.”

The covid-19 pandemic caused supply chain issues and labor shortages that have delayed transportation projects in the city and throughout the country, Brown said.

Previous concepts for the project showed a roundabout at the intersection. The estimated cost of the roundabout was $2.6 million in 2018. Given today’s inflated prices, installing a roundabout probably would’ve ended up costing around $5 million, Brown said.

“That would’ve been a much cooler design, but I think this will get the job done,” he said.

Braden Bryant, an employee at Buff City Soap in the same nearby shopping center as Target, said he goes through the construction area just about every day from his home in Farmington to his job and back. Traffic backs up quite a bit around 5 p.m., he said.

“I think it’s a great idea to have a light right there because I could be waiting for 10 minutes to be able to turn onto the interstate,” Bryant said.

Work has come along quicker than he thought, Bryant said. Construction in general could take a month or years depending on the circumstances, he said.

“I loved it ever since I saw that they were putting a street light in,” Bryant said. “We have needed this for a while.”

Council member Sloan Scroggin, who represents the northern part of town, said he was hoping for a roundabout at the Shiloh Drive and Steele Boulevard intersection but understands it would have been too expensive. The scope of work is getting scaled back on numerous transportation projects in the city because of inflation related to the pandemic, he said.

Regardless, the new design should make the stretch safer to navigate, Scroggin said. He used to live in a neighborhood on Sandpiper Drive immediately north of Shiloh Drive at the Fulbright Expressway and would go out of his way to avoid turning left toward the shopping center.

“If I was coming out of our neighborhood, I would turn right and go all the way around to go to Target,” Scroggin said. “You can’t really do lefts out of that neighborhood for a lot of the day.”