ROGERS : Aldermen will vote on livestock tunnel
Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/225600/
ROGERS — A dead-end street in south Rogers leads to a field where someday grazing cows will avoid a busy road by using a tunnel built for hooves.
The bovine bypass is scheduled to go before the City Council on Tuesday. The 6-foot-tall concrete underpass would be added to expansion plans for 26 th Street north of Pleasant Grove.
The structure, costing nearly $ 150, 000, would connect pastures that will be divided when the city reroutes 26 th Street from immediately east of the Interstate 540 on-ramp at Pleasant Grove to the stoplight at Pleasant Crossing Boulevard.
Relocating the intersection is mandated by the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, said Steve Glass, director of the city’s Planning and Transportation Department.
The city in 2007 condemned five acres of an 82-acre property, which belonged to Claude Noland and his siblings.
At first, the city said it wouldn’t pay the Nolands for the land because the road increased the value of the property more than what the five acres was worth.
Later, Rogers offered to pay $ 638, 000 as fair value for the land. The Nolands rejected the offer, and the case is scheduled for a jury trial to determine fair land value in September.
City Attorney Ben Lipscomb said Rogers will ask the court to consider the tunnel as evidence that it made a reasonable concession to accommodate the landowners, but he was unsure what kind of legal strategy the underpass would provide.
Earlier, the tunnel was estimated to cost more than $ 350, 000 and was considered too expensive to build. Glass said a different method of construction cut the cost by more than half. John Everett, attorney for the Nolands, said the tunnel won’t end litigation. “It would give some access to the other side of the property, but to say that access is as good as without the road is nonsense,” he said. He was unaware the city was considering building the tunnel.
Everett wouldn’t say how much the property has been appraised at, but said it is the “single most valuable tract of real estate in Northwest Arkansas.” City transportation officials said the tunnel is being built as a safety precaution. “We didn’t want him stopping traffic [while ] moving cows across the road,” said senior planner Derrel Smith. Work to expand 26 th Street from New Hope Road south to Pleasant Grove began in April and is scheduled to be complete in late 2009, Glass said. Construction will cost $ 7. 2 million, not including right-ofway costs for utilities or the amount of money the court decides the Noland farmland is worth. “There’s a lot of north-south traffic, and that’s the only northsouth route we have between Dixieland [Road ] and 540,” Glass said. When complete, 20, 000 cars are expected to travel the road daily.
To contact this reporter: aotoole@arkansasonline. com