Major Tylersville Road project back on track after county spends $2.6M to acquire property

The final phase of a project designed to make Tylersville Road at the Interstate 75 interchange safer and less congested for the 50,000 drivers who travel it daily is only weeks away from beginning.

The Butler County commissioners agreed to bid the project Monday. Work is expected to start in about a month and a half, and it should be completely by summer’s end. The work will be done at night, from 9 p.m. to around 6 a.m., so traffic can be maintained.

The project stalled last year as officials worked to acquire land from the commercial property owners that line the road. Wendy’s frontage and entrance way is the last parcel the Butler County engineer’s office needed to acquire. County Engineer Greg Wilkens said the deal isn’t fully consummated but since the restaurant has its $420,866 in hand they can proceed.

“Wendy’s was more difficult from the standpoint their front entrance is going away and its all going to be rear entrance,” said Wilkens, who added the project can begin without a completely finished deal because itbenefits the public.

The project entails adding a westbound lane on the north side of the road from the interstate to Cox Road. To make that happen, access driveways to the rear of the eateries near Home Depot must be moved. There will now be two access roads to the rear service road, the current one at Dudley Drive and a new one that will run through the old Sunoco gas station site.

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It cost almost $2.6 million to acquire right-of-way from businesses on that side of Tylersville Road, compared to the estimated $1.85 million construction bill. Extending the rear access road is what padded the acquisition price Wilkens said.

“We’re buying a lot of ground, expensive ground, to make the project work,” Wilkens said.

By comparison, property purchases for the recent $7 million widening of Ohio 747 to five lanes in Liberty Twp. cost $458,162, and the ongoing Cincinnati Dayton Road project through Olde West Chester is costing $381,478.

On the Cincinnati Dayton Road project, in some spots along the narrow stretch between West Chester Road in Olde West Chester and Interstate 75, the road already almost touches front stoops. But Wilkens said there was a lot of existing right-of-way so, major property buys weren’t necessary.

The largest purchase was $1.55 million for the Sunoco gas station, a price that was ultimately decided by an arbitrator after the issue went to court.

“We had $1.15 million as what the property would cost. They would not agree to that amount,” Alan Steele with the engineer’s office told the Journal-News previously. “It comes to they were using a comp (comparison) for the Thorntons, that have like 12 or 13, 14 pumps and big convenience store. We were using a four-pump, self serve with a small convenience store as a comp. So that’s where naturally we weren’t coming up with the same numbers.”

The negotiation went to arbitration, and a judge decided the county must pay an additional $400,000.

The project is being paid for entirely out of county tax increment financing funds, not money the general fund.

The first phase of the project on the south side of the road lasted from April 2015 through September 2016 at a construction cost of nearly $1.9 million, adding an eastbound lane with upgrades to the Kingsgate Way/Dudley Drive intersection. Property purchases for that phase totaled $18,635, and much of the right-of-way was donated. West Chester Twp. paid $1.5 million toward phase one.

The project is coming at the same time two other major projects will be disrupting traffic in the township. The $14 million Union Centre Boulevard interchange will be transformed with a new design called a “diverging diamond,” and work on the $7.8 million Cincinnati Dayton Road widening project will resume.

Trustee Board President Mark Welch said having all three projects going simultaneously “will be a mess” but it is necessary, especially for the interchange.

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“Getting on and off of the highway there at the interchange is what I would consider a weak link. We don’t want to impede development because people go, ‘Oh man, no way, it’s just too busy, we can’t do that,’” he said. “With the double diverging diamond it’s going to be able to hold more capacity and it’s going to move traffic.”

Township spokesperson Barb Wilson said the township will do all it can to ease the inconvenience for drivers this construction season.

“West Chester will work closely with the county engineer to limit inconvenience when possible and will endeavor to communicate with the public regarding the projects, closures and impacts to travel,” she said.

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