Pavement planned for dusty stretch of Old Orchard Road

The next important piece to Jackson's overall traffic puzzle will be cemented in place as soon as 1,175 feet of Jackson's Old Orchard Road is paved.

The stretch of road that runs past Buchheit's store and Perryville Machine and Steel Inc. will eventually link East Jackson Boulevard with the East Main Street extension project. That project, which will connect Main Street with Interstate 55 is in the engineering stage at the city and state level.

The Old Orchard improvement is a tax-billed project, meaning property owners will have to pay for the bulk of the job. The Frank Emmendorfer family, which operates PMS Inc. and leases property to other businesses on the east side of the road, instigated the project. The family owns more than 51 percent of the property along the road.

The owners on the west side of the road, the Heise Family Trust, were against the project and sent a letter of protest to the city without an explanation of why they were against the project. Each land owner will have to pay roughly $90,000 for the improvement, Triller said.

Phone calls to James Besher, the trustee of the family trust, went unanswered. The Oliver Law firm, which represents the family trust, did not return phone calls Friday, Monday or Tuesday.

In all, the city will contribute $83,000 of the $269,000 project, which was awarded to Fronabarger Concreters by the Jackson Board of Aldermen on July 21. Per city ordinance, the land owners are only required to build a street that is 38 feet wide and 6 inches deep. The city's portion will go toward making the road 8 inches deep and between 54 and 62 feet wide.

Marcia Thompson, an employee of PMS and Frank Emmendorfer's daughter, said the paving is a long time in coming. She said the company has been working diligently with the city for more than five years on the project.

Heavy equipment trouble

She said heavy equipment beats up the road and that the gravel makes travel unsafe. She said she worries particularly about the families that visit the gymnastics center on the road, and that some of the warehouses have no air conditioning and workers work with doors open.

"And dust has always been a big problem," she said.

The road will be paved all the way to the water tower, city engineer Dan Triller said.

City officials hope that the utility companies will have their lines relocated in the next couple of weeks and hope for a completion date of late September.

"We're excited about it," Triller said. "This just gets us closer to the East Main extension in 2006. The closer we can be, the better the chance that the connection can be made right after the exchange comes in. We're hoping it will all fall into place. That will open up the whole east side of the city."

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635