February part 2

 

Proposed diverging diamond interchange (Goochland County image)

Spring town hall meetings.

The schedule for Goochland Spring town hall meetings is as follows: District 1, Monday, March 24 at Byrd Elementary School, 2704 Hadensville Fife Road; Districts 2 and 3 Monday, March 31 at the county administration building1800 Sandy Hook Road in Courthouse Village; Districts 4 and 5 Thursday, March 27 at the Residence Inn at the Notch, 800 Wilkes Ridge Circle, roughly opposite the Wawa on Broad Street Road in Centerville. All meetings will start at 6 p.m.

Supervisors and school board members for their respective districts will attend and answer questions.

Meetings will be livestreamed at https://va-goochlandcounty.civicplus.com/1154. Submit questions to townhall@goochlandva.us.

Diverging Diamond and other road delights

Phillip Frazier, Assistant Resident Engineer in the VDOT Ashland Residency, presented an update on the diverging diamond planned for the I-64 Ashland Road interchange. In December, Frazier reported, VDOT received conditional approval from the Federal Highway Administration, essentially a “thumbs up” for the diverging diamond project. This will include the construction of a second bridge over the interstate, parallel to the existing span.

The project has transitioned from a traditional design bid build project to a design build project, which will allow the project to be delivered about a year earlier than first anticipated, said Frazier. This will give the design build team selected to complete the project flexibility to be creative and innovative during construction, which could lead to shaving about a year off the project’s completion date.

VDOT will complete about the first third of the project design then pause and solicit bids for the final design team. When the contract is awarded, the project will be turned over to that design build team for completion, which will be responsible for acquiring rights of way and relocating utilities, explained Frazier.

Additionally, the Hickory Haven Park and Ride relocation will be “bundled” into the project to avoid different contractors working in close proximity “stepping on each other’s toes” during construction. This will delay the completion of the park and ride, on the west side of Ashland Road, just south of I64, whose design is currently nearing the right-of-way acquisition phase.

The park and ride relocation is fully funded. The diverging diamond, estimated to cost $79 million, has about $76 million in dedicated funding. Frazier said that options are being explored to close the gap by refining estimates to get it within budget. He said that VDOT will exhaust all options to secure state funding before coming back to Goochland for the shortfall but wanted the supervisors to be aware of the issue.

There was a question about improving access to Bennington Road, which runs roughly parallel to I64 and intersects with Ashland Road north of the interstate. Frazier said that the project now includes the realignment of Bennington Road, moving its intersection on the east side of Ashland Road further north, to ease access for the businesses currently on Bennington Road, and perhaps attract more commercial development to that area.

This increased cost projections as the water line that needs to be moved to accommodate the improvement turned out to be a 16 rather than eight-inch line as specified in the preliminary estimates.

Preliminary drawings for a temporary traffic signal, to manage traffic during construction of Project Rocky, the Amazon distribution center, was received by the VDOT traffic engineering group last week, said Frazier. This is well ahead of the initial six to nine months estimate for installation of this signal.

Frazier said that the timeline for completion of the diverging diamond interchange will become more precise when it has been scoped, which will lock in the cost estimate and schedule. This cannot happen until completion of the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) documents, after which a public hearing will be held, perhaps in late summer. Then the procurement process will begin with requests for qualifications, request for proposals, and an award date of September 2026. Frazier estimated a three-year construction window with completion in August 2029, which is about a year sooner than earlier estimates.

Neil Spoonhower, District 2, said that the supervisors made a commitment when approving Project Rocky in 2022 to deliver it with minimal negative impacts to the county.

“We are working very hard and going in the right direction. Hopefully, we’ll be able to continue on that trend to get this intersection, which will be a great corridor adding value to the county, built out,” Spoonhower said.

 

TCSD addition

During evening public hearings, the supervisors voted unanimously to add four parcels of land on the west side of Ashland Road owned by Amazon Services, LLC, known as Project Rocky, to the Tuckahoe Creek Service District. The project needs public water and sewer to operate, but, according to Wayne Stephens, interim director of the Goochland Department of Public Utilities, will use a relatively small amount of capacity. Project Rocky will pay ad valorem tax levied on all land in the TCSD thar services the debt Goochland County incurred when the district was created in 2002.

During the public hearing, a resident asked about the costs and financial implications of Project Rocky to Goochland County.