MoDOT road agreements go before council
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
A liquor license application for beer and wine by the drink submitted by Jeremy Baumli and Deirdre Dino, owners of Encryption Entertainment, a recreational “escape room” business located at 422 N. Main Street, is among the agenda items to be taken up by Maryville City Council Monday evening. The regular council session is scheduled for 7 p.m. at City Hall, 415 N. Market St.
The Maryville City Council on Monday is expected to approve a couple of ordinances executing agreements with the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission — the governing panel for the Missouri Department of Transportation — related to a 285th Street paving project that will include a new southbound ramp onto Highway 71.
The ramp will begin with a “T” intersection on 285th Street just south of the Kawasaki Motors factory. In addition, the now-gravel road will be paved with concrete as it curves west and links to a private street leading to the Kawasaki loading docks completed by the corporation last summer.
In a highly unusual move on the part of a private-sector corporation, Kawasaki has agreed to pay all construction costs associated with the $2.1 million project, which will provide the 800-worker small-motor assembly plant with improved access for 18-wheelers and other freight vehicles entering and leaving the factory’s shipping and receiving area.
In addition, southbound employees leaving the plant after their shift will no longer have to exit from the parking lot onto South Main Street north of the stoplight intersection at the Highway 71 bypass.
Kawasaki Vice President and Plant Manager Steve Bratt estimated that about 30 percent of the outbound truck traffic exiting the Kawasaki campus departs southbound, and that about 20 percent of the factory’s employees leave work going the same way.
Maryville City Manager Greg McDanel said this week that the 285th Street project aligns closely with long-range plans to transform much of the South Main retail corridor into a landscaped boulevard that will include improved turning lanes, aligned parking lot entrances and exits, additional east-west cross streets, and more pedestrian access.
While most of that may be a long way off, McDanel said reducing traffic volume at the South Main/Highway 71 bypass intersection south of Kawasaki and just north of the proposed ramp is an important step toward relieving congestion on the city’s busiest thoroughfare.
The agreements with the commission slated for council approval include a document handing maintenance responsibilities for the southbound merge ramp to the city. In a second accord, the commission will agree to relinquish responsibility for South Main — classed by MoDOT as business Highway 71 — between Route V and the bypass interchange.
McDanel said the two-lane thoroughfare is the last portion of business 71 remaining under state, as opposed to municipal, control.
In other business, the council will consider approval of $7.7 million in certificates of participation, debt that will be used to finance a $4.1 million conference center currently under construction at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park along with a $3 million effort to replace 4,200 aging water meters.
The meters are to be swapped out for new-generation devices designed to provide near-perfect accuracy and instant remote-reading capability.
Schneider Electric, a multi-national corporation specializing in energy efficiency and automation, is to carry out the meter replacement project, which it claims will more than pay for itself through additional revenue from water customers currently under-billed because existing meters are inaccurate.
Peter Hinkle, Schneider’s Midwest sales team leader, told the council following a test of 144 sample meters that the city’s meter network is currently 90 percent accurate with most of the faulty machines located at commercial and industrial sites.
Schneider projections derived from the test show that replacement will produce efficiency-related savings and increased revenues totaling about $7.8 million over 15 years. Of that amount, $3.6 million will be paid to Schneider for installation of the new system, leaving a net improvement in the city’s bottom line of nearly $4.2 million.
As for the conference center, COP debt is to be repaid over 20 years with proceeds from an eighth-of-a-cent on the dollar sales tax and existing Mozingo revenues that will be freed up after earlier debt incurred to build golf cart paths is paid off.
The conference center will require annual debt service of $290,000, while the water meter obligation comes to $350,000 a year over 10 years.
The COP package also includes $560,000 for “various capital improvements,” debt that is to be repaid over a five-year span.
Additional items on the council agenda include:
• A liquor license application for beer and wine by the drink submitted by Jeremy Baumli and Deirdre Dino, owners of Encryption Entertainment, a recreational “escape room” business located at 422 N. Main Street.
• The proposed budgeted purchase and installation of an electrical control panel at the city’s Highway 46 sanitary sewer lift station. Cost of the panel, which is to be provided by Allied Systems Inc., is around $10,000.
• The proposed budgeted purchase from Shreve Truck & Equipment of a 2007 Sterling Acterra dump truck for just under $37,000. Equipped with a diesel motor and 10-speed transmission, the truck will be assigned for use by the water/sewer maintenance division within the Public Works Department.
• The proposed budgeted purchase of a programmable logic controller for use at the city’s water treatment plant. Cost of the device from I. Kruger Inc. is just under $10,000. The PLC will replace an existing 16-year-old device now considered obsolete.
• Execution of a contract with Norris Quarries Gooden for $75,000 worth of rock and hauling services related to shoreline stabilization efforts at Mozingo Lake.
