Cedar Rapids, Marion moving ahead on Tower Terrace Road project

CEDAR RAPIDS - A proposed $9.65 million stretch of Tower Terrace Road - from Alburnett Road in Marion to Summerset Avenue NE, just west of C Avenue NE in Cedar Rapids - is taking another step toward reality.

City councils in both cities have the road-building project on their agendas, as members decide on a cost-sharing agreement for the portion of the project not covered by $6.9 million in federal funds.

The Cedar Rapids council's Infrastructure Committee voted this week to recommend the sharing arrangement with Marion. The committee also recommended the hiring of an engineering design team of Anderson-Bogert Engineers and Surveyors and HR Green Co. to prepare for property acquisition required for the project.

The property acquisition and an environmental review must be completed before bidding, slated for October 2016, and construction, slated for 2017, can proceed.

Marion City Manager Lon Pluckhahn said construction could come sooner if property acquisition moves ahead without problems.

Gary Petersen, a Cedar Rapids Public Works Department engineer, said the $9.65 million project - which includes a $1 million design budget and $4.9 million for intersection work at C Avenue NE and Tower Terrace Road NE - will build two miles of city street, including 1,350 feet for the relocation of East Main Street that runs into Robins. Tower Terrace Road likely will be built as a two-lane road with the ability to expand the road to four lanes, he said.

Pluckhahn said the city of Marion has been building new parts of Tower Terrace Road. He said the city sees the road as a second major commercial corridor for the city that will run east to west.

The eventual plan is for Tower Terrace Road to stretch from Highway 13 on Marion's east side to Interstate 380 at Hiawatha and Cedar Rapids.

Hiawatha has been pushing for a new interchange at Interstate 380.

The city of Cedar Rapids considers the part of the road around C Avenue NE a priority as Hy-Vee Food Stores has plans to build a new store at C Avenue NE and Tower Terrace Road NE. The grocer secured appropriate zoning at that spot for the new store in 2012.

The Corridor Metropolitan Planning Agency, which is comprised of elected officials and their appointees from the metro area cities and Linn County, has approved $6.9 million in federal dollars for the $9.65 million portion of the larger Tower Terrace Road project. The federal money comes with a requirement of local matching dollars.

Cedar Rapids plans to contribute $1.76 million and Marion, $990,000, under a revised plan that absorbs $440,000 that the cities initially proposed Linn County contribute.

Linn County's decision not to participate comes even though 56 percent of this section of the project will sit in what is now unincorporated Linn County.

Linn Supervisor Brent Oleson this week said it doesn't make sense for the county to help pay for a piece of road that is on the borders of both Cedar Rapids and Marion, and almost surely will be annexed into the cities once it is built.

County secondary road dollars, Oleson said, are not intended for new sections of street that are built to city standards and destined to be part of a city street system.

Pluckhahn said the Tower Terrace Road project between Marion and Cedar Rapids has too much federal money involved with it to not move ahead even without Linn County's cost participation.

Even so, Cedar Rapids council member Ralph Russell wondered this week if the city should devise a policy on road projects to direct when the city accedes to another jurisdiction's decision not to share in the project cost.