By
Scott Wuerz
For the Progress
Seven years after Frank Scott Parkway opened for traffic, the original plan to link Illinois 158 near Millstadt to Shiloh near MidAmericaSt. Louis Airport will soon take one step closer to reality.
St. Clair County Highway Department engineer Darrell Cates said he has sent letters to property owners between the current end of Frank Scott Parkway East at Cross Street and Illinois 158 near Interstate 64, announcing the intention to buy land needed for an extension of the road.
Construction on the 2.2-mile long, $6.6 million new leg could begin as soon as a year from now if everything falls into place and property owners are willing to sell at what the county considers to be a reasonable cost.
“But if I have to go the condemnation route, it could take two years just to get the property,” Cates said. “So it's impossible to set a timetable at this point.”
Shiloh Mayor Jim Vernier said the extension is vital to the economic growth of his village.
“We're hopeful that we'll see dirt start to move sometime in the next year because that will be a major hub of activity for Shiloh,” Vernier said. “Memorial Hospital has already bought a bunch of land where the new intersection will be.”
Earlier this summer, the Belleville-based hospital bought 100 acres of ground on the northeast corner of Frank Scott Parkway East and Cross Street that will be located on the north side of the new roadway. St. Louis-based BJC previously bought 111 acres at the site on the northwest corner of the intersection to the rear of the Greenmount Crossing shopping center.
Hospital leaders have not specifically said what they planned to with the land. They said only that they are banking it for future development in the fastest-growing part of the county.
Vernier said, while the land may not be used to build full service hospitals, he thinks it will be used to build an urgent care center and doctors' offices.
“You have to have all sorts of approvals to build a new hospital,” Vernier said. “But you don't for a medical campus or a big satellite medical building.”
Cates was tight-lipped about how much he has budgeted for the purchase of property for fear that it would drive up land prices in the area. Johnson Properties Inc. has a tract of 54 acres located at what would be the southeast corner of the Cross Street intersection with Frank Scott Parkway East listed for $7.6 million.
The final leg of Frank Scott Parkway East to MidAmerica Airport could be a decade away, according to Cates. He said the county is hoping residential and commercial developers in the area as well as cargo carriers who eventually sign on at the airport will help to pay for the last stretch.
But Cates said the Cross Street to Illinois 158 extension will be a huge improvement for county motorists because it will make the Frank Scott Parkway easily accessible for motorists on Interstate 64.
Meanwhile, Cates said the county will focus on wrapping up the repaving and widening of Frank Scott Parkway West between Concordia Church Drive and South 11th Street in Belleville, which is scheduled to be finished by Aug. 15.
That project will be followed by two phases of widening Frank Scott Parkway's existing intersections to help them accommodate more traffic.
Its intersections with Illinois 159, Sullivan Drive and Illinois 161 are slated for work in 2009. The Old Collinsville Road, Hartman Lane and Green Mount Road intersections are set for 2010-11.
The cost of the improvement to the six intersections is $7 million