STARKVILLE — The Oktibbeha County supervisors are finally gaining traction on clearing Northstar Industrial Park.
During Monday’s meeting, the board accepted a $1.5 million bid from Hodges Rock Solid Land Services for clearing and grubbing, building an access road and mass grading for a second spec building pad on the 384-acre site off Highway 389. The contract length is 170 days.
Phylis Benson, project analyst for the Golden Triangle Planning and Development District, emphasized the timeline of the project, due to the mating season of the northern long-eared bat. The bat, known for roosting in trees during its mating season from mid-May to September, is being moved to the endangered species list.
Benson said the last day that trees can be chopped down or removed from the site is May 14, only 40 days after Monday’s meeting.
“If you’ll remember, we’re sort of under the gun with getting the trees cleared because of the maternity season of the bats,” Benson said. “It’s important that we move along as quickly as possible with getting the contractor out there … By May 14, those trees have to be on the ground.”
Benson said due to the tight timeline, she had already sought approval for the contractor by the Mississippi Development Authority. She said the agency responded with approval in “record time.”
The board voted unanimously to accept the bid so the project could move forward. Board President Orlando Trainer told The Dispatch he believes the land service company can clear the trees by the deadline.
“If they can get everything approved … which they should be able to in the next day or so, they’ll have about five weeks to work there,” Trainer said. “They should be able to get the work done. … We’re just excited about it and looking forward to moving forward so we can be prepared for the next interested client who wants to move in there.”
Pedestrian grant for Hwy 12, Spring St.
Later in the meeting, the board committed $60,000 to a joint project between the city, county, and MSU to update the intersection on Highway 12 and Spring Street to make it safer for cyclists and pedestrians. This includes adding pedestrian striping, push buttons and bike lanes through the area.
Cody Burnett, city engineer for Starkville, told the board that walking or biking through this area is “kind of like taking your life into your own hands.”
“You guys probably know that intersection is really big and really unsafe,” Burnett said. “… But with that money, if we can get that intersection brought up to ADA compliance, stripe it out, get pedestrian push buttons and bike lanes … everything is ready to go … that way when we go to apply for future funding, we can tie in that intersection with no issues at all. It’s ready to go.”
Burnett said this intersection update was originally a part of a larger plan to connect three walking paths from “hubs” in the city to the MSU campus, which they submitted to the Mississippi Department of Transportation in hopes of receiving a Transportation Alternative Programs grant.
“We have these three really nice, large pedestrian improvements … but they don’t connect in any way. The goal of this project is to connect all three of those projects together with one uniform project,” Burnett said.
But when MDOT rejected the original grant request, which would have reached about $2.4 million, Burnett said the city broke up the project into phases. The first phase is updating the large, dangerous intersection.
Even after restructuring the project, the city received only $400,000 from MDOT with a 20 percent match for the first phase of the project, leading Burnett to ask the city, county, and Mississippi State University to each chip in $60,000.
District 5 Supervisor Joe Williams asked if there was going to be any more engineering work or funding work necessary before the entire project can be completed. Burnett said both will be ongoing, as only this one intersection update is designed right now.
The board of aldermen voted to commit one-third of the remaining funds to the project. The vote was 3-0, with District 1 Supervisor John Montgomery Jr. abstaining and District 4 Supervisor Bricklee Miller absent.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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