Capital Projects In Spotlight
Cantrell Expansion On City’s ‘Wish List’
Posted: January 21, 2013
HARRISONBURG — Harrisonburg residents can offer their thoughts on Harrisonburg’s five-year “wish list” during City Council’s meeting Tuesday night.
The city’s capital improvement plan, or CIP, is a listing of proposed projects that cost at least $50,000. Department heads submit proposals to City Council with the understanding that some projects will not be funded for years, if ever.
In the CIP set for scrutiny at the public hearing at 7 p.m. Tuesday, about $136 million in general fund projects are listed, many of which have lingered for several budget cycles because of tightened spending plans.
The hearing is in council chambers at 409 S. Main St.
Among new capital projects, the Harrisonburg Public Works Department seeks to expand Cantrell Avenue from Main Street to the Ott Street intersection outside of the old Rockingham Memorial Hospital complex.
The expansion to five lanes, designed to improve better traffic flow, will also add left-turn lanes at Cantrell’s intersection with Mason Street.
Public Works Director Jim Baker said the $3.2 million proposal is in a “very preliminary” conceptual design. James Madison University, which owns the former RMH site and uses it as its “north campus,” is a partner in the project.
Another capital item would extend Cantrell to Country Club Road for $4.6 million. Numerous other road improvements are also planned, including an expansion of South Main Street to five lanes from Pleasant Valley Road to the southern city limits, at a cost of $7.4 million.
The city, though, also shows its desire for nonmotorized enhancement in the CIP, including a $2.1 million proposal for the Northend Greenway, a multi-use path that will connect the Park View area to downtown.
The Harrisonburg Parks and Recreation Department has a new capital item in the rebuilding of playing fields at Ramblewood Park. Director Lee Foerster requests $1.2 million in each of the next three fiscal years.
“I pushed some of [my requests] back. I knew they weren’t going to have money to finance them,” he said.
Other proposals include Harrisonburg Fire Department’s continued search for $927,000 to build a fire station in Park View and parks and recreation’s request for $600,000 to buy land at Eastover Park to create a central tennis location that would attract tournaments.
Eastover is across from Spotswood Elementary School.
A copy of the CIP is available in the city manager’s office at the Municipal Building.
Contact Preston Knight at 574-6272 or pknight@dnronline.com