Veterans Parkway expansion shoots past its original completion date

A roughly one-mile stretch of Veterans Parkway in north Columbus that is being widened from Old Moon Road to Turnberry Lane has now moved past its original Aug. 23 completion date, the Georgia Department of Transportation has confirmed.

“The project is currently behind schedule and estimated completion is summer of 2018,” the state DOT said in a project update request from the Ledger-Enquirer.

Columbus-based Mcmath-Turner, the general contractor for the $14.2 million roadwork part of the project, apparently has encountered problems with utility and storm drain pipe portions of the construction, the department said.

The original notice to proceed with the widening of the slightly more than 1 mile section of Veterans Parkway, or U.S. Hwy. 27, was October 2014, with original efforts including the purchase of right-of-way parcels being used to turn the former two-lane road into a four-lane parkway with raised medians.

Hooper Turner, president of Mcmath-Turner Construction, declined Friday to comment about the project and why it is taking longer than originally scheduled. Crews were busy this week in spots along the expansion zone, digging up portions of the roadway, some of which already has been paved.

Sam Wellborn, a retired Columbus businessman and district representative on the Georgia Department of Transportation board, said he has been trying to stay on top of the project for the past year. He expressed disappointment that the project is taking longer than expected.

Wellborn said he was hoping to avoid the same drawn-out construction scenario that unfolded with the widening of Whittlesey Road between Whitesville Road and Veterans Parkway near Columbus Park Crossing. That project, which started in 2012, was largely completed by the end of last year, considerably past the original date. Mcmath-Turner was the contractor on that one, as well.

“What I’ve been trying to do is push our (Georgia DOT) guys to make sure the same thing didn’t happen on Veterans. But lo and behold, I’m finding out now that they are behind again,” said Wellborn, who recently was told by the department that the current completion date is February of next year.

“If that were to be the case, they would be about six months behind. So who knows when the thing’s going to be finished,” he said. “But I am told it is not a year behind at the moment, and they don’t expect it to be a year behind when it’s finished.”

Like motorists and residents moving through the north Veterans Parkway construction zone, Wellborn said he certainly is frustrated by its lack of progress and thinks it will be finished as soon as it possibly can.

“Again, the main thing I want to tell you is we’ve done everything we can do under the law to get them to hurry up, to get them to finish,” he said of Mcmath-Turner, which can be levied monetary damages, or penalties, by the state if the delays have no good reason other than simply moving too slowly with the construction.

Current Georgia Department of Transportation traffic counts show that 16,100 vehicles move through the heart of the construction zone on Veterans Parkway on any given day. Just south of the intersection with Moon and Williams roads, the count rises to 19,200 vehicles daily, with the total count climbing as Veterans Parkway flows southward and nears J.R. Allen Parkway and its major intersection, as well as the Columbus Park Crossing shopping and restaurant hub.

The construction zone includes three schools — Northside High, Veterans Memorial Middle and North Columbus Elementary — as well as an increasing amount of residential housing to include apartment complexes. Some of those people living in Harris County also use the parkway each day for work or shopping, with the entire mix of uses creating traffic congestion in the mornings and late afternoons.

The area also includes a burgeoning mixed-used neighborhood called Old Town, located just north of the intersection of Moon and Williams roads. The 300-acre development is a mix of Southern Living-inspired homes and apartments, with a town square which includes shopping and food establishments.

Lucy Jones, the Woodruff Co. property management president who is overseeing Old Town and its build-out, takes a softer stance on the lingering road project because of the improvements she knows are coming. She pointed at Whittlesey Road as an example.

“Whittlesey has turned out so great,” she said. “So that’s really our comment is that, yes, construction is a headache and you have to deal with it. But we’re so looking forward to it being finished, because it’s going to be such a vast improvement.”

Jones and the Woodruff Co. also will be working to develop the outparcels of land closer to the improved Veterans Parkway once the construction work goes away. That piece of Old Town, too, should benefit from the overall project and what it will bring to traffic flow and easier commuting, she said.

“Commercial projects take some time to develop,” Jones said. “It’s a great selling tool for us to go tell commercial folks — grocery stores, restaurants, fast food — that we’ve got a traffic light there and we’re going to have all the lanes there, a turning lane and a median cut at our entrance. So, for commercial uses, it’s a great selling feature.”

This story was originally published October 1, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Veterans Parkway expansion shoots past its original completion date."