December 20, 2011
The Tennessean
Connection between Mallory and Nichol Mill won’t open until spring
FRANKLIN — After years of delays and ballooning costs, the work to link Nichol Mill Lane with Mallory Lane will have to wait until spring.
The latest setbacks on what is now a $1.58 million project have come after construction crews faced months of delays getting permission to move AT&T underground utilities that city surveys didn’t show existed.
“We didn’t really know about it until we actually did construction,” said David Parker, city engineer.
It’s not the first hang-up with a utility that the city has encountered in this project. In February, before work began, Franklin aldermen agreed to spend an additional $180,584 to cover the costs Atmos Energy Corp. incurred in moving its natural gas feeder line, bumping the project’s cost — including a new traffic light — from $1.45 million to $1.58 million.
The city paid the additional cost for the relocation of the gas line since the line was originally in a privately owned right of way along Nichol Mill Lane.
Months of wrangling over AT&T’s utilities pushed the city and its contractors to seek a second extension on the project, moving it from December to a warmer month, April. The project’s initial completion date was August.
“The delays now have caused us to get into the winter months where asphalt plants shut down,” Parker said.
Paul Holzen, interim director of city engineering, said all the utilities have been cleared and work on the second phase of the project should proceed to completion in the spring. The project’s first phase, involving Mallory Lane, has been completed.
“The good news is the part that would affect holiday traffic is OK,” said Alderman Ann Petersen.
At a glance, the work would seem to be rather simple. The city wants to add about 1,800 feet of new roadway from the rear of the Academy Sports parking lot to Nichol Mill Lane with a new traffic signal at Mallory Lane. Instead, it’s been anything but easy.
In 2002, the city promised to make the road improvements to help launch the nearby Cool Springs Life Sciences Center, a 10-acre bioscience and research park. BioMimetics Therapeutics is the main tenant of the site.
Negotiations with landowners at National Retail Properties over buying less than an acre of land needed for the road dragged on. Franklin lost a $190,000 road grant that Tennessee Department of Transportation officials set aside for the sciences center in 2003 during the delays.
Jim Monsor, senior vice president of operations at BioMimetics, said the company has been kept informed of the delays and is eager to see it completed to improve safety issues.