MORGANTOWN — What do Westover’s Holland Avenue project and the deferred dream of a “northern bypass” have in common?
Nothing really.
But the Monongalia County Commission walked away from a recent work session with Westover officials with a plan to explore whether the shelving of one could aid the completion of the other.
Westover Mayor Bob Lucci, City Attorney Tim Stranko and Thrasher Group’s Doug Smith sat with the commission to discuss the $3.8 million Holland Avenue project. The city still needs to secure approximately $1.6 million.
The project will address about 2,000 feet of Holland Avenue, including destroyed sanitary sewer and stormwater lines beneath the street’s surface. It will also address the large retaining wall that runs along lower Holland Avenue.
Westover has committed $1.7 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. The West Virginia Department of Highways has signed on for $386,000 in resurfacing work.
Stranko said the sewer portion of the Holland Avenue work combined with impending projects to address two failing pump stations — estimated at $3 to $4 million — is already likely to max out sewer rates for customers of the city’s sewer department.
“So we’re tapped out,” Stranko said. “We’ve got no room to move here.”
One of the ideas floated by the commission was working through the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization to see if the Holland Avenue work could utilize Roads to Prosperity money.
Of the $273 million in projects dangled before Monongalia County voters in the run up to the Oct. 7, 2017 special election, $100 million was earmarked for a new I-79 connector, or “northern bypass,” which would provide an alternative to the congested portions of W.Va. 705 and Monongahela Boulevard and access a new interchange on I-79, north of the existing Exit 155.
In August 2020, the project, now estimated at more than $200 million, was pulled from the Roads to Prosperity lineup and put in line for federal dollars. Last November, it was taken off that list as well.
Since that time, the MPO Policy Board has worked to ensure that $100 million still comes to the county.
Commission President Tom Bloom said the forthcoming Harmony Grove interchange, at $40 million, is one of those projects. He also pointed out that $30 million of that will be paid through the Harmony Grove TIF district.
“I know I would be willing, and I think the three of us going back with the MPO and saying, ‘Look, here is an area that we could use where the public could see something immediately.’ ” Bloom said of Holland Avenue.
The commissioners said they would also like to see greater involvement from the state as US 19 is ultimately their responsibility.
“I’ve lived here 50 years and that section from the bridge to the triangle hasn’t been touched in 50 years,” Commissioner Jeff Arnett said. “Every other major artery into Morgantown has been upgraded.”
