Willow/Jackson Right Of Way Acquisition To Resume

Cookeville City Council will vote Thursday night to resume right-of-way acquisition for the South Willow Avenue/West Jackson Street intersection improvement project.

Economic and Community Development Director Jon Ward said the amendment would give the city right-of-way for dual northbound turn lanes and a dedicated westbound turn lane. He said the original contract amount was some $218,000. He said this contract would include everything up to closing for an additional amount of some $107,000.

“We already have some of the right-of-way on Jackson and Willow that was approved for a right-of-way swap with some of the Polly Avenue right-of-way several years ago when this project was initiated,” Ward said. “So, hopefully, it won’t take, you know, there’s not a lot of property owners involved, so hopefully, we can get it on to the next phase as soon as we can get it certified and approved.”

Ward said with a number of corporate-owned businesses on that strip like Mcdonald’s and Walgreens, right-of-way acquisition can get tricky. City Manager James Mills said it could take over a year to finish this step and move on to the construction phase.

“This is still a very important project,” Mills said. “If you’ve ever gone west on Jackson in the afternoon, trying to go through, it stacks up past the Highlands Residential Building there. And then trying to turn left going into the shopping center going north, we think this will really make a big difference at that intersection.”

Ward said each business on the strip will have to be appraised during the process. He said the state agreed to fund the city’s 20 percent match for the project because most of the improvements are being made to a state route.

“Our budget estimates are probably way off from the 2017-2018 timeframe when this project was developed,” Ward said. “So, we’re moving toward understanding what that’s going to look like.”