Clay County supervisors approved two land swaps needed to clear the way for what will be the access road for the Yokohama Tire Company plant.
The swaps involve a modification to the redesign of Yokohama Boulevard, which Eutaw Construction was awarded the bid to construct in December. County board attorney Bob Marshall said B. Bryan Farms has a three-quarter-acre parcel of land that overlapped with where a portion of the four-mile road would be built.
“Initially, where Yokohama Boulevard is scheduled to go into Barton Ferry Road it was going to be a curve, and they redesigned it to where it would be more of a T intersection,” Marshall said.
The farm owner was willing to swap the parcel for a 0.59 acre parcel the county owned and 0.05 acre parcel owned by the Clay County Economic Development District. CCEDD deeded its piece of land to the board of supervisors so each parcel could be given to B. Bryan Farms in exchange for the land where the road will go.
The second swap involved gaining an easement for a gas line owned by Petro Harvester near what will be the intersection of Yokohama Boulevard and Barton Ferry Road. County engineer Bob Calvert said the line would interfere with construction of the new road, so the company will abandon it and the county will help with its relocation.
The board took no action after meeting in executive session.
Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins said after Thursday’s meeting that construction crews began pouring concrete footings for the plant last week and the site “is going to start looking like a construction job” by March.
Eutaw Construction’s road construction bid, $19,465,284, was more than $1.5 million below Calvert’s estimate of $20,994,447. Funding for the road comes from the Economic Development Highway grant program through the Mississippi Office of State Aid Road Construction. It is part of the $70 million legislative incentive package passed by state legislators last April to bring Yokohama to Clay County.
Construction of the road, which will be accessible through an exit off Hwy. 45 Alternate, is to be completed by the end of this year. The plant is scheduled to hire an estimated 500 people for the opening of its first phase in October 2015. All four phases are scheduled for completion in 2023 and the plant will have about 2,000 employees at that point.
Nathan Gregory covers city and county government for The Dispatch.
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