SPANISH FORT – Work will start soon to fix potholes on roads around the Eastern Shore Center following action by the Spanish Fort City Council.
The council voted Monday, April 19, to approve the project, which will be funded with money from the 1-percent license fee at the center. The center’s Community Improvement District will also go out for bids to repave the roads.
The repaving project is estimated to cost $3.4 million. That cost will also be paid through license fee revenue, Mayor Mike McMillan said.
“This fixes the potholes immediately and then gives us a course of action for long-term repair for the Eastern Shore Center without using the city General Fund,” McMillan said.
The 1-percent fee on sales at the Eastern Shore Center was approved when the mall opened, David Conner, city attorney, said. The fee was used to pay improvement debts at the center that have now been paid, freeing revenue for the road projects, he said.
“The license fee remains in place for the purpose of maintaining public improvements and so the plan is to use the licensing fee as a pledge to pay the money back for the construction of those improvements,” Conner said.
The roads at the center are part of the mall and are not maintained by the city. McMillan said, however, that Spanish Fort officials have been getting complaints about the condition of the streets.
“I know we've all had our ears full of those projects,” McMillan told council members, “Our hands have been a little-bit tied because we honestly depended on the property owners in the center to upkeep their portion of this project of which it was easy to do when you had one owner. When it changed after due to bankruptcy or reselling everything goes through 12 different owners, you're dealing with and some don't want to participate, and some do. We were holding out for them to come to agreement on things.”
The mayor said work will start immediately to fix potholes. Engineers will also start preparing plans for the repaving project.
“The next step is we will go to bid for the total refurbishment of that road, taking it down all the way to sub-base, doing improvements on the water drainage issues that have been causing problems,” McMillan said. “The road initially was built on a clay base that will not be the case going forward. It will be on a rock base, build down, take it all the way to the subsurface.”
He said the city and district should be able to go out for bids on the paving project as soon as the design is finished in three or four months.
The mayor said revenue from the license fee should pay the cost of the project within about three years.
Councilman Curt Smith said the work is needed, but the project would strain the city budget if Spanish Fort had to pay for the improvements using other funds.
“We're a small city,” Smith said. “We've only been around 20, 25 years and have a budget that's maxed out finally at $10 million a year and the cost of $3.4 million is a huge significant portion of our budget.”
The action by the council authorizes the district to go out for bids on the project and to use license fee money to pay for the work, Conner said.
Conner said the streets will continue to be owned and maintained by the center.
“It's been the recommendation and the administration position to this point that there's no advantage for us to take over those streets as long as there's a viable opportunity to maintain that using district funds,” Conner said.
