A rough stretch of road in Chattanooga that’s used by some 10,000 vehicles a day is slated for its first repaving in decades.
City officials announced at a press conference Thursday that Chattanooga will get a donation of the right-of-way for a privately-owned section of Northpoint Boulevard so it can repair the busy road in Hixson’s commercial district.
Starting Sunday, the city plans to spend one month and between $500,000 and $600,000 to repair Northpoint, which serves as a connector between Highway 153 and Hixson Pike.
The city will start paving the publicly owned two-thirds of Northpoint on Sunday, and City Council is expected at its meeting Tuesday to approve an agreement under which the city will accept the right-of-way and repair the private one-third of Northpoint – which is notorious for potholes. Road resurfacing work will cause periodic closures between 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. from Sunday through Aug. 7.
While it’s not standard practice for the city to accept donations of private roads, city officials say Northpoint has defects that impact the safety of Chattanoogans who travel it daily for work and to access businesses.
“Unfortunately, the people who built this road have not kept it up,” Mayor Andy Berke said Thursday while flanked by District 3 City Councilman Ken Smith, FirstBank Chattanooga President Jim McKenzie, Regions Bank Branch Manager Chanel Santiesteban and City Attorney Wade Hinton.
“Councilman Smith for the last years has been arguing heavily that this should be a priority for the city even though – and I’m going to stress this – even though it was not our responsibility,” Berke said.
“What we want to do is solve problems for people,” the mayor said. “Even though we may say it’s not our problem, because it isn’t our legal responsibility, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take ownership of solving this for Chattanoogans.”
Smith said fixing the private road was a “public safety issue.”
“I see broken axles out here,” said the councilman who was elected in 2013. “I’ve been pushing this for years. This has been a priority of mine since taking office.”
Smith said that Northpoint originally was built as a cul-de-sac, and the private stretch of road had 12 or 13 owners, according to a 1988 road contribution agreement. City officials said it took a lot of legal legwork to start from that original agreement and figure out who was responsible today for the private road’s upkeep.
“Honestly, it took much longer than any of us would have wanted,” Smith said.
The private road’s owners agreed to an easement to let the city fix the road, Smith said, but the private owners won’t contribute financially to the road repair. Mayor Berke said the $500,000 to $600,000 to fix Northpoint Boulevard was held over from the previous fiscal year’s budget.
McKenzie said the bank and other businesses in the area “rely on our customers and visitors having easy and safe access to our front doors.”
“I want to thank Councilman Smith, Mayor Berke and the city for their leadership in taking on a difficult situation and guiding the many partners toward a solution that serves our community and the affected businesses well,” he said.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu @timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or on Twitter @meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.