State officials: F Street link to be reopened

By Kyle B. Hansen

Saturday, May 22, 2010 | 4:44 p.m.

After loudly protesting the closure of F Street at Interstate 15 months ago, residents were told Saturday the road will reopen, but it likely won’t be for a couple of years.

Las Vegas and Nevada Department of Transportation officials held a town hall meeting at the Culinary Training Academy Saturday morning to talk about the project to reopen the road that connects downtown to West Las Vegas.

Not many residents attended, but people will have a second chance to hear the information and give their input Monday evening at the Doolittle Community Center.

Serious design for the project is set to begin in coming weeks, but the earliest the 18-month construction contract could go out to bid is the summer of 2012, and that’s only if funding is available, said Senior Project Manager Jenica Finnerty.

Residents of the historically black neighborhood protested when F Street was closed in Sept. 2008 as part of a project to widen I-15 north of the Spaghetti Bowl.

Included in the project was a connector road to provide access to the neighborhood through D Street, but that wasn’t enough for residents, who convinced state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, to pass legislation requiring the street to be reopened.

Assembly Bill 304 required the transportation department and city to work together to find the funds to reopen the street.

Assistant City Engineer David Bowers said $2.5 million for the design phase is being funded by the city’s redevelopment agency and $20 million for the construction will come from a capital project tax fund.

But transportation officials say they won’t be sure how much the project is going to cost until the design work is further along. Current estimates range from $20 million to $70 million, Bowers said.

Where the rest of the money will come from if the project goes over $20 million is unsure. The city and state are working together to apply for a TIGER grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, but getting those funds is highly competitive, and some other Southern Nevada projects have been turned down before.

Despite the funding uncertainty, city and state officials are determined to keep residents happy this go-around.

The city has taken the lead on updating residents about the project after residents complained they were not adequately notified of the state’s plans before.

“I think it’s important that you know that we were not involved in the outreach this last time around,” Communications Director David Riggleman told the residents at the Saturday meeting. “And clearly we heard form the community that people just felt like they didn’t know what was going on as it related to F Street, no question. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen this time around.”

In addition to the city-hosted meetings Saturday and Monday, the transportation department will be holding a public information meeting on the project June 9 and an information fair June 26, both at the Dolittle Community Center.

The city has also set up a website for the project, as well as a Facebook page and Twitter account, and residents can e-mail comments to the transportation department at [email protected], or can send them by mail to Steve Cooke, Nevada Department of Transportation, 1263 S. Stewart St., Carson City, NV, 89712.