While the road is a nice and could save you two or three minutes of travel time, it's not what was promised when developer Ed Loy and Loudon County Economic Development president, Pat Phillips presented the plan to the public back in December 2006. The spec sheet given to the public at the time showed the new road would have four lanes each twelve feet wide with a twenty foot wide raised median. The cost to build the road was estimated at between four to five million dollars. Unfortunately and as usual, things didn't turn out as we were told.

Nowhere along the road is there a twenty foot median and many places no median at all. At several points, the road gets very narrow. And now, Loy has come back to the city asking that he not have to fulfill the requirement in the contract requiring sidewalks throughout the development. Conversely, LCUB is about to begin construction on about a million and a half dollars of sewer infrastructure for the development with Loy making a $200,000.00 contribution to the sewer project.   And of course, the costs went well beyond estimates.

Projections currently put the cost at more than six million dollars. Phillips was able to wrangle the state into putting up 2.2 mil. for the project with Lenoir City picking up the rest of the tab in the form of a four million dollar loan. However the agreement with Loy states that he will pay Lenoir City's portion until the development produces enough new property taxes to make the payment on the four million dollar loan. With the recent down turn in the economy,  looks like Loy may be making the payments for a long time.

Be the first to take a ride on the $6,000,000.00 road.

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