Future hazy for Hwy. 412 signage : Business owners uncertain of next step to take
Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/hl/News/24888/
Small business owners along U. S. Highway 412 are concerned about losing their signs because of the highway widening project but seem to have little control over what happens.
Robert Conde, manager for Natural Foods grocery store, said a representative of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department told him that his sign would not need to be moved.
He said another highway department employee previously told him that it would need to be moved.
Lynn Clark, co-owner of Arkoma Lanes bowling alley, said she’s unsure if her sign will need to be moved.
Another business owner, who declined to be identified, said he’s in favor of progress but doesn’t think he has a choice about losing his sign.
City planning staff recently compiled a list of 108 signs that will need to be moved. It included the signs for Natural Foods and Arkoma Lanes.
They are two of the nearly 60 signs that will be in the highway department’s right of way are already in the right of way, according to a memo from city planning staff. The other signs on the list will be in the city’s 15-foot setback requirement.
Signs or structures cannot be placed in the utility easement.
Twenty signs now sit in the highway department’s right of way, said Jimmy Sanson, review appraiser of right of way for the state highway department.
The highway department will not pay business owners to replace signs now in the right of way, he said.
Signs in the existing right of way shouldn’t have been placed there initially, Sanson said.
The highway department will pay to replace signs in the right of way that it will purchase for the widening project.
Property owners along the highway also will be paid for the right of way the highway department purchases from them.
The city will pay the owners for easements in which to place its utilities.
Conde said he’s concerned the median in the new highway would hurt his business because it would cause customers coming from the west to have to make a U- turn at an intersection down the road from his store and come back to the west to get to his business.
The highway will have a 16-foot-wide grass median between the three eastbound and westbound lanes.
The 1. 6-mile project, running from the state line to Washington Street, will include five places allowing Uturns:
• Holly Street
• East of Dogwood Street
• Carl Street
• Elm Street
• Mount Olive Street